The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-12-23
A Stab at the Nation.

The infamous crime perpetrated by the Gov
ernor and Council is stab at the heart OF the
Republic. Free institutions are impossible
without free ballot and an honest count.
Preventing by violence or terro', the voting by
persons who have legal right to the ballot
as everywhere in the South--or defrau ding the
voters in the matter of counting or returning
votes fairly and legally cast, as the Governor
and Council of this State have done, is treason
against the State and Nation of the most dan
eerous character, and is deadly treachery to
Free institutions everywhere.
I do not think the language too strong to say
that the action of the Governor and Council is
a villainy of the deepest dye, and could only be
perpetrated by men of a low moral nature, I'M
able to distinguish between right and wrong
or by men utterly Indifferent to all considera-
tions of probity and honor. The Governor and
Council must not hatter themselves that the
Indignation aroused in the hearts of all honor
able men against their shameful act, will soon
pass away and that their treachery will be for
gotten. Governor Garcelon and the members
of the Council, viii pass into history, as the
perpetrators of an infamous outrage against the
nation in comparison with which the treachery
of Arnold was virtue.
This act of the Governor and Council has in
it all the elements Of the lowest, basest crime.
1t is a petty and contemplate swindle; it is
embezzlement of trust funds; it is defraudlng
the helpless and defenceless Of priceless treas
ure, confded to their safe keeping. 1t is also
fraud on a gigantic scale with all the elements
of violence and outrage; and robbery of whole
e IL; oh, ia IN ic
an act which reduces the State, for the time,
to condition of slavery, depriving the people
of the right of self-government, to assert which,
the fathers waged an unequal war for seven
wears, against the most powerful nation in the
world
A man in giving a note to another for val
liable consideration, purposely mlsdates 1t on
Sunday, and then refuses to pay because Sun
day is a dies non, and the letter of the law Is
ON his side A man in giving deed to another
for valuable consideration received, purpose
ly omits the seals and calls witnesses to the sig
nature who are foreigners just ready to go nome
never to return, and has the instrument ac-
knowledged before one who is not and never
was Justice of the peace, and then repudiates
the transaction, keeping the price OF 1t IN his
pocket A man is appointed as custodian OF
an estate of minors; he plumbers his wards in
such manner that the sword OF justice can
UOG TedCl I'LL, duu COoIAy tuA1io cAhO NhIiUiSAA
from their own door into the street, and then
seizes their house as his own.
Men lately in bondage confide to the keeping
of another whom they trust, their deed OF man
inscription; he destroyes the instrument and
sells the victims of his treachery and villany
into slavery. The bitterness of their hate is in
tensifed to them, by their repentance at hay
ing trusted q villain, and at the consciousness
that they were led into that fatal mistake by
their inability to read character, or by their
thoughtfulness in relation to it.
These instances of villany which I have
noted, are not hypothetical, they have all trans
PRED at times not very remote, and they mark
very feebly my opinion of the act of the Gov
ernor and Council in DISTINGUISHING the people
of Maine. When Tweed was run to earth and
proved to have plunedred New York of mil
lions of money he said: And what are you
going to do about it? The act of the Governor
and Council in my view is far worse than that,
because the atrocity of the act goes to the very
life of free institutions. The only reply which
they make to the public Indignation is; "And
what are you going to do about it,"