The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1878-06-22
The Potter Resolution.
MR.. POTTER's EXPLANATION OF ITS
INTENT.

ter to a New York friend, explains
the effect of his resolution. He says,
among other things:
You suggest that to raise the ques-
ton about the last Presidential
election will bring on disturbance
or revolution. Not at all. About
that possess yourself in peace.
There is not the slightest chance of
revolution or disturbance. When
the whole country was at fever heat
on the subject of the election, % way
was found to establish a tribunal to
pass upon the election, and every
one submitted to that determination.
The Presidents title rests upon that.
LII now it should appear that there
was fraud which palpably affected
the electoral vote, and which the
commission did not notice, and if a
legal remedy exists for correcting
the error, you cannot believe that
such a proceeding, under the law,
could lead to disturbance. If there
be no legal remedy existing, and
Congress should hereafter, by the
approval of the President, or by two
thirds of both houses without that
approval, provide one, why should
the legal determination, thereafter
had, any more produce disturbance
than the decision of the Electoral
Commission did, 1t is exactly be-
cause this is not Mexico, and because
people prefer determining questions
by legal methods, and if legal meth
DDS have not been provided, to in
vent legal methods of determining
them, and to submit to the deter
mination thus arrived at, that this
country cannot be Meyicanized.
Having accepted the Electoral Com
mission. of course we are bound to
submit to its results, but we ought,
at least, to be allowed to show, if
such was the fact, that the retuSdls
upon which the commission passed
were procured by fraud. l admit
that the Presidency is not worth a
civil war, but have not believed
that there was any danger of such a
war. The generation who charged
mp the heights of fredericksburg will
not go lightly into another civil
struggle. We must get years far
Their on before that will happen. l
admit the success of the Republican
leaders. Having laid down when
the law was on our side, and when
we ought to have stood up, it is not
for us now to stand up, us long as
the law remains against us. But
you will ask whether, if there be no
danger to public order from legal
proceedings, there may not be from
the action by Congress. No; no
more than from the action of the
courts. Congress represents the peO-
pie of the country, but does not
march before them. 1t expresses,
but does not anticipate, their will.
Should the fraud committed with
the electoral count appear Sd gross
and palpable that you aud all hon
orabIe men should unite in denonnc-
ing it, Congress might then take ac-
ton but if so, what COngl ess might
do, being the result of the action of
men of all parties-0f the great body
of the people, not of a party-would
be effected quietly, certainly and
without violence or disturbance.
In saying this | do not mean that |
expect the investigation to be fol-
lowed by either legal or Congress
sional action. What, if anything,
should be done Qecause of the in
Quiry must depend on the results of
the inquiry. But do not mean
whatever action, if any, should fol-
low the investigation, such action
can neither disturb the order nor
the prosperity of the country. This
cry of wolf when there is no wolf,
this effort to make it appear that
there is danger to peace or order
from this investigation, is Repub-
lican pretense, like the "bioody
shirt" justification OF carpetbag gov
eminent, like the public danger ex-
cuse advanced for the enforcement
of Durelrs infamous order, and the
protection OF the Returning Board
by bayOnets, like the cry set up at
ter the election to prevent agitation
to secure submission.
What, then, you ask, is the pur.
of investigation l answer, to as
certain the facts, SO that if frauds be
established, a repetition of such
frauds may be prevented, and if not,
to clear up the general belief that
exists throughout the country that
| there were some frauds. The feel
ing among many republicans after
the election was that, while we had
been cheated in the returns, we had
bulldozed the negroes as badly, SO
that the accounts of wrong were
equal. This belief in the bulldozing
of the negroes was based mainly up
on the fact that in certain districts
in the South, which usually gave
Republican majOrities, there was
not returned that year a single Re-
publican. vote. Now, the people OF
| the No,th have never understood