The Portland daily press., 1879-11-21
FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 81.
The Maine Sensation.

Worcester Spy.l
The Maine Democrats are beginning to see
that the counting out business which they pro-
posed is more serious undertaking than it
seemed when it was first preached. To find
plausible excuses for counting out fifteen Re-
publican Representatives who have been
elected, and counting in fifteen Democrats
who were not elected, is no trivial matter, and
to do the same thing without plausible ex-
cuses requires more hardihood than the con-
spirators possess. 1t has been said in their de-
Tense that what they propose to do is only what
has been done by Republicans elsewhere.
notably in Louisiana. That is not true, of
course, but if it were, the adoption of that ex-
cuse would leave the Maine Democrats in a
miserable plight. For they have denounced
those acts of Republicans which, as they now
claim, they are about to initiate, as the most
high handed and indefensible outrages Can
what is unspeakably villainous when done by
one party in Louisiana be right when done by
another party in Maine? But, say they in an
swer to Republican censures, ''If you have up
held counting out elsewhere by your party,
you cannot condemn ii here in ours" The
Republicans might retort: Your appeal for
consistency recols upon yourselves. Since you
have condemned counting out elsewhere you
cannot practice it at home" But such recrlm-
nations are idle The question is not what
Republicans and Democrats have done in other
States, but what is the duty of the Governor
and Council of Maine under the constitution
and laws of that State. The provisions of the
constitution are clear and explicit. After pre-
scribing The duties of the selectmen of towns
i'll making lists of persons voted for, with the
number of votes for each, and depositing cop
les of the lists in the secretarys office, the con-
stitution proceeds:
Sand the Governor and council shall examine the
returned copies of such lists, = =
And 30 days before the LIST day of January annually
shall issue summons to such persons as shall APP
pear to be elected by plurality of all the votes
returned to attend and take their seats, But all
such lists shall be laid before the House of Repre-
sentatves, and they shall finally determine who
elected
There is no installing this language. The
plain duty of the governor and council is to
summon those persons who by a simple eompu-
tati IN Of the figures returned bv the selectmen
appear 10 have been elected. They have moth
ing to do with any extraneous facts or alega-
tions. This is the obvious construction OF the
constitutional provision; it admits OF no other.
This has been accepted and uniformly acted
upon by Governor Garcelon's predecessors and
no other has ever been suggested until now.
1t is hardly credible that any other course of
action has been seriously contemplated this
year, though the evidence is strong that the
governor has been strongly urged by irreSponSi-
Bile advisers to set the constitution at defiance,
for the sake of turning the defeat of his party
iuto substantial victory. The scheme urged
npon him as party necessity. was doubtless
strong temptation to man like Governor
Garcelon, of not very robust virtue and small
political sagacit-. But it is one thing for ire
sponsible politicians to urge these plans upon
the governor, and quite another for him, with
the official responsibility resting upon him, to
wifully usnrp, at the dictation of his party,
the authority which the constitution denies
him. That would be a crime which worse
man than Governor Garcelon might well
shrink from as too heinous, and holder man
might decline as too audacious. Probably
Gov. Garcelon, whatever he may have in
tended and encouraged his political friends to
believe that he would do, will think better of
it when the time for action comes If not,
both he and his party will have reason to re-
greet that he was not more honest or more
faint-hearted