The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-08-28
rHR nav ORLEANS DBMouRAT, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2 1878
HON. j. O. s. BLACKBURN GREETING!

Ine RESOLUTION OF Congress. under winch
the Potter committee was appointed, laid
down In most explicit language the scope OF
the Investigation which it was instructed to
make. The language Of the resolution Is
curt and incisive, and Is destitute of even the
ostentatious yerblage that Is regarded as
sacramento In an ordinary Indictment for
larceny or breach of trust. 1t simply alleged
false and fraudulent returns In Florida, where
oy the election In that State was annulled and
reversed, and all at the procurement Of Edw.
L. Moves. 1t alleged these same facts In
regard to Louisiana, and the further fact Of
conspiracy to prevent the casting Of the Re-
publican vote in the Felicianas, In order to az
ford pretext for the exclusion of the vote Of
these parishes, this at the instigation of John
Sherman. Under the resolution, the commit
tee had but to iRlanire into the count Of the
two States Of Florida and Louisiana, and
what Noyes had to do with the former and
Sherman with the latter. In the beginning
the committee manifested a determination to
confine itself to these propositions, but 1t was
driven from this wise and Just conclusion by
the clamors OF Sherman, who Insisted on maxi
| ing OF the investigation, instead OF the almost
| judicial inqusition 1t was meant to be, an en-
CINE of political capital only to abandon his
project when he found that the investigation
could not be used for his own purposes. In
abandoning Its original programme, at the
clamor Of John Sherman, the committee has
given the Investigation O broad and compre-
hensive scope 1t was never intended 1t should
take. Tt has gone into the question Of intimi-
dation, and all other questions, however re-
motely connected with the elections, as we'll
as the conspiracy which followed after Par
ttcularly has the committee, by the testimony
of Major Burke, put on record all that con-
cerned the action of the Nichols govern
| ment In securing Its establishment after
| the determination of the Democratic caucus
to abandon Tilden in the interests of peace
and harmony and brotherly love. What the
committee has elected on this score will
stand hereafter for history, and we insist that
the history shall be full and complete with
an ample preface. The facts as brought out,
SO far, are made the basis of oil sorts of
charges of treachery and betrayal, barter and
sale, on the part Of Southern Democrats. and
especially Of the agents of Louisiana. These
facts are the staple of the Suns daily abuse
and viilitieation Of the South What the mo4
tive of this paper can be. whose politics are
bounded by Tilden's personality. we cannot
understand. The South made him President
and the San made him q coward, yet the Sun,
seeking to obscure these truths, can find in
the facts established by the investigation but
the grounds for such charges as these:
Mr. Hayes got into the White House by O.
bargain, an arrangement O trade. The
Investigations of the Potter committee have
made that plain, Il it was not plain before.
His inauguration was not the result Of the
election alone. It was IN consequence of an
understanding with certain Southern men
which was come to long after the election
was over.
These are the conclusions reached from the
testimony as to facts which occurred after the
conclusion Of the Democratic caucus to SUBJ
NIT to the count OF the Electoral Commits
sion. Now, there is on this committee, and
he Is a most able and conspicuous member,
and a true and loyal son of the South o gen.
tleman who owes 1t not less to himself than
to the South to see that the whole story
of the electoral count shall be put upon
record. We allude to M Il. Blackburn, to whom
we make q personal appeal. He represents
the true feeling of the South in that matter,
and he commands the special approval and
commentator Of the Sam, the chief of
our villifiers. We ask him to see that
we are set right in this whole
affair. We ask that he have put on record the
determination reached by the Democratic
caucus to abide by the electoral count-the
circumstances which led to that determine
ton, and at whose solicitation and by whose
cowardce and miserable, contemplate, per-
fidous weakness the nations shame was pro-
cured, with a soictude born Of fear, but
marked with the eagerness and baseness OF
pander. Weonly ask him to put on record the
name Of ADRIAN S. HEWITT aud the editorials
of the New YORK Sun contemporaneous with
the conclusion of the Electoral Commission.
This is all the vindication we ask.