The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-12-29
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE.
N. Y. Tribune.l
A Radical Difference.

The claim set up by Governor Garcelon and
his coadiutors in the Democratic conspiracy in
| Maine, is one which the plain people will brush
aside with contempt 1t is not asserted that in
a single instance the rejected returns defeated
or tended to defeat the will of the qualified
voters as expressed at the ballot box. Nor is
there any claim that the election itself was vi
| tiated by fraud or violence, or that the Cover
| nor and Council had any power to throw out
returns if that had been the case. The sole
| pretext upon which the action of the Cover
nor and Council rests, according to their own
| plea is that certain technical informalities in
the returns gave them power under existing
| laws to exclude such returns if they see fit,
without regard to the will of the people really
expressed at the ballot-box or the validity Of
the election held. This plea men of common
sense and common Justice instantly reject. III
the intent and effect of the decision was to de-
feat the will Of the people expressed at a fair
and legal election-and there is no pretence to
the contrary-then honorable men of both par
ties hold that the decision is infamous.
But it is said, by journals which censure the
act for forms sake even while they try to ex-
cuse it to the passions and prejudices OF parti-
sans, that the course taken was but a repeti-
tion OF that which Republica took and de-
Tended in the case Of disputed electoral votes
in 1876 This pretence is false. The two cases
are different in every essential respect. Yet
there are many whose partisan feeling blinds
them to the radical difference which really ex-
lists, and to the indecency Of the plea that one
great Cri:ie S'i1ul1 be excused because some
body 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 GER
tain forms were observed in returning the
suits 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 au-
thorized but required by law, to determine.
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 Governor and Coun-
Gil OF Maine is correct, there was lawful, fair
and valid election, at which the will of the
peoplewas legally expressed, and yet they set
aside that expression and defeat that will be-
cause some part of the clerical duty in trans
mitting the result was not correctly performed.
In that case the sole question to be decided by
the Governor and Council was whether they
should defeat the undisputed will of the people
lawfully and fairly expressed, because of the
subsequent failure Of clerk, TO return The un-
questioned results in the form prescribed by
law. Thus in 1876 the honest doubts to be an
swered according to law by decision went to
the very root and essence of the natter every
thing 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 tech
nical correctness Of mode of making known
the admitted result of an election confessedly
fair and valid.
The man is to be pitied who does not see the
vast difference between tne two decisions in re-
spect to their moral character. The Returning
Board of Louisiana, whether in error or not,
unquestionably believed that gigantic wrong
had been perpetrated in the pretended election
itself, and that it was both their right and their
duty to correct that wrong. But the Governor
and Council of Maine knew that no wrong
whatever had been done by the informalities
of the returns, and that it was most infamous
usurpation for them to defeat the deliberately
expressed will of the voters. The Returning
Board of Louisiana, if it erred in any respect
whatever, erred in reaching mistaken opin-
ion from the evidence presented, or in taking
improper means to correct what it believed to
be great wrong previously perpetrated. But
the Returning Board of Maine, if it erred at
all, deliberately violated law in order tc ex-
clude from the Legislature persons whom the
people had unquestionably elected. In word.
there was doubt, as to Louisiana, to whom
the State really belonged. But as to Maine,
there was no doubt, and the Democrats delib-
erately stole the State.