New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-12-26
ARADICAL DIFFERENCE.

The claim set up by Governor GarcelOn
and his coadjutors in the Democratic con-
spiracy in Maine, is one which the plain
people will brush eide with contempt. 1t is
not asserted that. Vi single instance, the
rejected returns defeated or tended TO defeat
the will of the qualified voters az expressed
at the ballot-box. Nor is there any claim
that the election itself was vitiated by fraud
OF violence, or that the Governor and Council
hal any power to throw out returns il that
had been the case. The sole pretext upon
which the action of the Governor AID Coun-
ell rests. according to their own plea, is that
certain technical informalities in the returns
gave them power, under existing laws, to ex-
cude such returns if they see fit, without
regard to the will of the people really ex-
pressed at the ballot-box, or the validity
of the election held. This plea men
of common sense and common justice
Instantly reject. If the intent and effect
of the decision was to defeat the will
of the people expressed at fair and
legal election-and there is no pretence to
the contrary--then honorable men of beth
parties hold that the decision Ia Infamous.
But it is said, by journals which censure
the act for FORMS sake. even while they try
partisans, that the course taken was but n
repetition of that which Republicans took and
defended in the case of disputed electoral
votes in 1876. This pretence Is false. The
two cases are different in every essential re-
spect. Yet there are many whose partisan
feeling blinds them to the radical difference
which really exists, and to the indecency of
the plea that one great crime should be tx
cused because somebody else has committed
another crime.
The radical difference is that in 1876 the
question was whether any legal, fair and valid
election had been held in certain localities.
while in 1879 the sole question is whether
certain forms were observed in returning the
results of valid election. In 1876 it
was claimed, and by many believed, that the
will of the people had been defeated by fraud
and force in the so-called election itself, and
that question Returning Boards were not
only authorized, but required by law to de-
termine. If their decision was correct, there
had been no lawful, fair and valid expression
of the will of the people at the ballot-box,
and hence there was no wrong or injustice in
setting aside the pretended election as no
election at all. But if the decision of the
GONtInoI anu OOuucll Oh MalUc ls
there was a lawful, fair and valid election,
at which the Will of the people was legally
expressed, and yet they set aside that express
sion and defeat that will because ssme part
of the clerical duty in transmitting the result
was not correctly performed. In that case,
the sole question to be decided by the Gov
ernor and Cornell was whether they should
defeat the undisputed will OF the people,
lawfully and fairly expressed because
OF the subsequent failure of clerks
to return the unquestioned results In the
form prescribed by law. Thus in 1876 the
honest doubts to be answered according to law
by decision went to the very root and
essence of the matter; everything turned upon
the question whether the majority of the
people had legally voted at all. But in 1879
the only dispute was as to the technical cor
reetness of mode of making known the ad-
united result of an election confessedly fair
and valid
The man is to be pitied who does not see
the vast difference between the two decisions.