Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-08-26

years. ADMINISTRATION IN Onl0, IN which
we are all nearly concerned.
When the result of last falls election
became known, 1t was found that the
Republicans had q small majority in
the House of Representatives; that
the Senate was Democratic, that the
! two Houses on joint ballot were Repub-
lican by a majority of three.
Upon the legislature thus constituted
devolved the duty of electing a United
State Senator to succeed Senator Sher-
man, whose friends were making Wig
Orous effort to re-elect him. AS il was
well known that number of Republi-
can members would not vote for him,
there was probability that the Demo-
Gratis might, through the aid ofthese dis
satisfied Republicans, succeed In the
election Ofa United States Senator but
Sherman's friends at once set about to
secure q safe, sure and undouted ma
jority for him an joint ballot.
The seats of ten Democratic members
holding certificates from Hamilton
county were contested by the Republi-
can candidates, but to await the Ordi-
nary process of contest, and the taking
of testimony to prove which set of can
didates had been elected from the coun-
ty, would have delayed the seating of
Republican members until long after the
election of a United States Senator, and
thus imperii the election of Republi-
can to that Office; therefore, nine of the
ten Democrtic members from Hamilton
county were at once unceremoniously
and indecently ousted and their seats
given to the contestOrs, and this with
out formal investigation, or scrap of
testimony to prove that the Republicans
thus seated had been elected by the peo-
pie of Hamilton county. The nine
members thus given seats in the Legis-
lature made the election of Republi-
can Senator sure beyond peradventure,
and Sherman was accordingly elected
with great show of unanimity, and
then the committee on privileges and
elections was instructed to proceed with
the contest, and ascertain which set of
contestants had in fact been elected. I
believe the Ousted Democratic members
were complacently assured by some
body, I think the Chairman of the COM
mittee, that if they proved to the salts
faction of the committee and house, be-
yond reasonable doubt that they had
been elected, they would be given back
their seats-something of the kind.
Why did they give seats to nine of the
contestors and not to the tenth? Why
it appears that the tenth man was
colored brother and was overlooked,
and left to contest for his seat in the
regular way.
Our Republican friends did not stop,
however, with this act of high-handed
outrage, but for four months thereafter
the leaders in both Houses aided by the
most prominent members of the party
in the Senate, were engaged in con-
tinuous struggle to obtain control ofthe
Senate. Public business was samefully,
Systematically neglected; legislation was
at standstill, and crowds fiocked daily
to the Senate Chamber to witness the
proceedings of the President of the SEN
ate, who, in his partisan zeal, was vio-
lating every known rule of parliamenta-
ry law and common decency in his eff
fort to unseat four Democratic members
and put Republicans in their place; and
why was this done?
The reason is obvious. The leaders of
the Republican party desire to pass GER
tain partisan measures, notably bill to
redistrict the State for Congressional
purposes, and with Democratic Sem
ate in the way, such legislation was
impossible.
The infamous methods by which the
president and a revolutionary remnant
of the Senate obtained the seats of the
four Democratic Senators from Hamil-
ton county are we'll known.
Without pretense of constitutional
in open confessed violation
of the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor
and a minority of seventeen Senators,
in the absence of quorum, at a time
when the Senate was in cession only for
the purpose of sending for absentees,
chose to set at defiance the fundamen-
tai law of the State, and proceeded to
vote out four members and vote in four
persons to take their places. and to cause
the journal to be so fabricated as to con-
ceal the absence of quorum. 1t was
the open boast about that time of some
of the instigators and participators in
this revolutionary scheme, that they
had the assurance of a portion of the
Judges of the Supreme Court that their
action would be sustained. While ex-
perience in the solution of political ques-
bAOHo Ala UAIo nuU OolACA NtoVCS, hlO Will
Judges of the Supreme
Court of the United States as we'll, has
taught the people to look with distrust
upon our courts whenever political
questions are involved, let us hope and
believe that partisan corruption has not
yet reached the point in Ohio where the
created to preserve the consti-
tuti0nal rights of the people would so
prostitute itself as to in
vite the promises of judicial approval to
q subversiou of the trust it is sworn to
preserve. Yet the Supreme Court by
it's Republican majority refuse to in
quire into this monstrous violation of
the constitution; although the COM
plainants to this court of last resort, al
legged and offered to prove that on the
9th day of May, 1886, while a majority
of the Senators were absent from the
Chamber, and when quorum of the
Senate was not present the President of
the Senate, with the advice and consent
of seventeen Republican Senators,
unlawfully, fraudulently
and in violation of the constitution of
the State and the rules of the Senate,
caused the clerk to enter upon what
to be the journal of the Sem
ate, but which was not in fact, pre-
tended resolution depriving four Demo-
cratic Senators of their seats and giving
their places to four Republicans;
that the vote on said resolution had not
been taken by yeas and nays, as requir-
ed by the rules of the Senate, and that