Daily Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1876-1884, 1880-09-14

was that the result should be de.
Clared In the old Constitutional
way. They were met, on the other
hand, by . domineering Republic
can President, by a Republican
General Of the army, who had
massed thousands Of troops around
Washington, and whose recently
published correspondence with
Gen. Hancock shows he was pre-.
pared to use them in overturning
constitutional government at the
beck Of Grant, and by a claim set
up on behalf Of the Republican
party that the Vice President alone
had the right to declare who had
been elected President. Civil war,
owing to the violence and intimi-
dalton foreshadowed at the Nation
al capital by grossly partixan and
unpatriotic administration, seemed
inevitable. 1t was at this moment
of supreme peril that the leaders Of
the Democratic party, In the inter-
ests Of peace, consented to depart
from the ordinary and only constl-
tutional method Of determining
who had been elected President by
the people. Democrats may freely
admit that Senators Thurman and
Bayard participated with Senators
Conkling and Edmunds In
the councils which framed this
makeshift measure. But there
is here o distinction with world
Of difference. The Democracy
were in no sense responsible for the
crisis which, to many, seemed to
render some such solution Of the
controversy as the Presidential
Commission desirable. They were
under a strong and bullying duress,
to which they submitted, not out
OF cowardice, but through patri-
otto desire to stave off another
fratricidal strife. At the same
time they were confident that the
people would. at the proper time,
avenge the insuIted majesty of the
Republic.
But this is by no means all. In
the Presidential Commission it
was explicitly stipulated that the
case was to be adjudlcated upon
its merits. The Commission was a
court of high and unusual powers.
Its members were under oath. At
the time 1t was created, Mr.. JUS
tice Bradley's extraordinary expe-
dent Of declaring right and justice
aliunde the purview of the Com
mission was not developed even in
the brain of that ingenious jurist.
There were two sets of returns from
both Florida and Louisiana, which
States were entitled to twelve
votes In the electoral Colleges,
every one of which were needed to
;~.''~ Havoc President, only one
being necessary to tho success U,
Mr.. Tilden's candidacy. This Com
mission was created for no other
purpose-it would not for a moment
have been entertained by the DEM
ocrats for any other purpose-than
the making an inquiry into the
merits of the dispute as to the elec-
ton in Florida and Louisiana. It's
members were solemnly sworn to
do justice in the premises, and the
Idea never entered the head of the
ordinary citizen that so august O
tribunal was tO6e simply Peter
Funk device-a rOping in game
in which a country and a party,
which had confided in its honor,
were, to speak fguratively, to be
rolled and plucked. When Hon.
Carter Harrison, at that time Re-
publican member Of Congress, now
the Mayor of Chicago, asked Gar
field, who was member of tho
Commission, how he could vote as
he had done, that plant member OF
the Commission, now the Republic
can candidate for President, glibIy
replied, "Carter, If you had the
cards wouldn't you use them" BY
Garfield's confession he was gov
erned by the principles of short
card gambler who runs a "hoggingn
game.
A laughable confusion of logic
leads such callow stump speaker
40 Mr.. Calvin Edgerton to con-
found the objection which Demo-
Gratis, and many honest Republic
cans, have to the fraudulent work
done by the Com m ission in seating
Hayes, without regard to right or
the facts, with an objection to the
Commission itself. The two prop.
ositions are as distinct as night and
day. The Republican leaders i'll
1878 proved themselves the most
upprincipled set of political shy.
stcrs that ever disgraced constitu-
tional government. Both In the
interest Of their party and Of their
country it is the right, nay, 1t is
the duty Of the Democratic party
to press incessantly upon the at.
tention Of the American people the
awful and disgraceful record of the