The sun., 1895-05-19

OF the popuIsr vote did not make him President.
The Constitution provides that the people OF the
several States shall choose electors, whose votes
shall decide who 10 to be President; how those
votes were 10 be counted was problem which
certain Republican politicians prepared to solve
in their own way. That the Tilden and Hen
dricks ticket was entitled 10 1s4 electoral votes
| was undisputed That the Hayes and Wheeler
ticket was entitled to 166 electoral votes was
also undisputed. There were 800 electors In all.
Tho Tilden ticket. therefore, with 1s4 votes.
needed but one more 10 give II the majority re-
| ouired for an election. The Hayes ticket, having
only 180 electoral votes assured. required
| nineteen votes more TO insure Its cleo
tion. The four votes of Florida, the eight
Of Louisiana. and the seven OF South Carolina
| made Just nineteen. To get one OF these votes
| wns SUFFICIENT to elect Tilden and Hendricks
| To elect Hayes and Wheeler IL was necessary to
| get the whole nineteen. II Is well known that
they were got; how tbcy were got and what was
paid for them is set forth in full by Mr.. Bigelow
| in this narrative. without following In detail
| tho process by which the attcmpt was made
by local authorities to thwart the will of the
people IN South Carolina. Florida and Louisi-
| ana, we pass at once to the bioRrnphers account
| Of tho Electoral Commission, by which tho ut
tcmpt was made successful.
| Prior to 1868 It had been the practice of the
| two Houses of Congress, little In advance OF
the day lxed by the act Of 1909 for counting the
| electoral notes.-the second Wednesday of Feb
ruary-to agree upon tho place Of meeting for
the discharge Of this duty. and for the order of
| procedure. Various efforts had been made from
| time to time by one House or the other ~ ap-
| propriate to itself the power to determine the
| validity of electoral votes. but up to 1858 all
| such efforts had. for ono reason or another.
| proved sbortive. The twenty-second joint
rule adopted by the Republicans in 1905
| assumed for the first time that the right to
! reject electoral votes was the prerogative OF
| either House. The rule. in other words. pro-
vided that no electoral vote objected to by
| either House of Congress should be counted.
| except by the concurrent votes of both Houses.
| This rule. however. after having been in force
| for three successive elections, was abandoned
| by resolution Of the Senate. passed in Decem-
| Der. 1878. on u motion of Senator Edmunds.
| The House of Representatives was at this time
| largely Democratic. and. had the twenty second
| joint rule continued in force. any electoral
votes which, under it, were rejected by either
| House. must have been excluded from the count.
| 1t Is notorious that tho twenty-second joint
| rule. which was OF doubtful constitutionality.
| had been originally adopted. and subsequently
| renewed Tor partisan ends: 1t Is equally obvious
that, for partisan ends, 1t was now dispensed
with by the Senate. thus leaving the two Houses
without any rule to govern them for counting
the electoral votes>in February 1877.
No provision. therefore. having been made
| beforehand, the mode OF procedure to be fol-
lowed in counting the electoral votes was the
first question to be dealt with. The Republi-
| cans. 1t will be remembered had the control of
| the Senate, the Democrats OF the House. The
| Constitution provided that the President of
the Senate shall. In the presence of the Senate
| and the House Of Representatives, open all the
certificates. and the votes shall then be
| counted" Senator Morton took the
| ground that the President of the Senate
| should be invested with plenary author
| ity Ito determine all disputes relative to GER
| tifcates Of the electoral votes: to count
| them. and TO declare the results which declara-
tion was to be accepted final. conclusive. and
| irrevocable." The President of the Senate at
that time. Thomas w. Ferry Of Michigan, owed
| that position to his subserviency to the Repub-
| lican party. The adoption Of the rule proposed
| by Mr.. Morton would have been equivalent 10
pronouncing Hayes President, and to making
the counting Of the electoral votes an idle cere.
| mony. To make it an idle ceremony was obvi-
| ousy the motive OF those who advocated the
proposed innovation. Such threatening proper
tons did the scheme assume that Mr.. Tilden de-
| voted more than q month to the preparation
| of q complete history Of the electoral count from
| the foundation Of the Government In order to
| show that 1t had been the unbroken usage for
! Congress. and not for the President Of the
Senate. to count the electoral votes. How far. II
at all. this publication conduced to tho ultimate
abandonment Of Senator Morton's scheme. Mr..
| Bi9elow deems 1t difficult to say. He believes
that It exerted much less influence upon the
Repu blican Senators than the fact of which
| they presently became aware that President
Grant did not believe that Hayes was elected
and that several prominent Republican men,
bers Of Congress. among them Senator Conkling
| OF New York, were under the same i'm
| preston. and could not be relied upon to
assist in upsetting a venerable tradition
of the Government or to become accomplices in
the resultant fraud. That President Grant at
no time had any doubt about the electoral
vote of Louisiana belonging to Tilden and Hen
| bricks seems manifest from a statement made in
1855 by the late George w. Childs and repro
duced In the book before US. Mr. Childs said
| that Just before Gen. Grant started on his
journey around the world. he was spending
some days with me. and, at dinner with Mr.. A.
J. Drexel. Col. A. X. Mcclure, and myself. he
| reviewed the contest for the creation of the
Electoral Commission very fully and with rare
candor. The chief Significance of his view lay
| in the fact that from the beginning Of the con-
| troverty until the final Judgment. he expected
that the electoral vote of Louisiana would be
awarded to Tiden. He spoke of South Caro-
lima and Oregon as justly belonging to Hayes;
| OF Florida as reasonably doubtful. and
of Louisiana as for Tilden." We should
note that Col. A. X. Mcclure and the late A. J..
Drexel have confirmed Mr.. Childs's report Of
this conversation. The plan. consequently OF
gagging the House of Representatives re-
CARDS the count Of the electoral votes received
no encouragement from President Grant.
Whether he would have ever made O serious
| opposition to such contamination, or whether
the Senate would havo deferred to him If he
had, Mr. Bigelow considers 1t now idle to
| speculate.
HI.
Another more plausible. II no less unconstitu-
tional means of accomplishing the same result,
was devised. the authorship of which has been
ascribed to President Grant. On Dec II. 1876.
tho House OF Representatives appointed u
committee OF seven to act in conjunction
with a similar committee of the Senate
ITO prepare and report without delay a
| measure for the removal OF differences of opin-