Year: 1877

ercise supreme power may be seen il


the language of the report:


Not only is the action OF this BOARD Inde


pendent ofthe State or national laws, othe g


than those of Louisiana: but ITS determine


llon OF the votes cast Is final and substantl


ally conclusive, as appears from a decisoI


ofthe Supreme Court of that State, reporte'


in the twenty-fifth volume ofthe Louisiana


Annual Reports.


According to this, no appeal lie.


from any decision the board may ma ke


nor can any court revise any OF its de-


cisions. The power of the board over


the elections is also spoken of in this


report, and the board is represented as
supreme authority to canvass the votes


cast throughout the entire State, and
authorized, if convinced that riot, tu-
! -::.3l.. acts cf violence, intimidation.
armed disturbance, bribery or corrupt
influences had prevented voters from
registering, or had materially interfer-
red with the purity or freedom of cleo
tion at any pole or voting place, or had
materially changed the result of the
election, to exclude votes cast at snch
polls or voting place from the final
| count" The fact that whole parishes
have beer disfranchised under this
broad and sweeping power, and that in
its exercise the returning board has
controlled the election ia Louisiana to
keep the Republican party in power, is
fact too notorious to be denied and
too nefarous to be defended by any
man raised under Republican govern
ment and accustomed to breath the air
of free country.


kh,,e 1rJn,l .r.tl
attribute Ofperpetual succession, placed
above the reach of the popular will
and beyond the Jurisdiction of any
court to annull its DEGREES, however
erroneous or corrupt; clothed with
supreme authority to canvass the votes
of the people throughout the entire
State and to disfranchise its citizens ad
GbitInl, would seem to be absolute to
enough disgust every friend of Republi-
can government and to satisfy the most
Jealous advocates Of despotism. Very
few prominent Republicans hitherto
have been found so recreant to the
principles of civil liberty and the rights
of man which pervade the institutions
of our country as blood permeates the
human body, so Indifferent to the op-
inions of their cOuntrvmen, and here
after, as to defend constitution and
powers of the Louisiana returning
board. 1t was reserved for the i'm
mortal eleven envoys extraordinary,
who wear, without rival, the conspic-
uous honor of having woven the gar
land that adorns the brows of j Mad
ison Well & Co., not only to approve
most heartily and to defend most zeal
ously the unprecedented powers con-
ferred by the statute of Louisiana upon
this board, but to lift their voices in
lamention over the fact that the law
did not clothe this despotic tribunal
with still more extended jurisdiction.
That it may be seen that | do these
chosen vessels of the President and
heroic champions Of the returning
board no injustice, | beg leave to again
quote some extracts from their report
They say:


1t will be seen when the statute organiz-
ing this board and defining its duties is ex-
amined, how inadequate are its provisions
TO afford full relief against the wrongs il was
designed to prevent. Thus, the powers Of
the board are limited to the rejection Of
votes polled, for the causes stated, while IL
cannot in any case add to the returns votes
which would have been polled but for the
intimidation, violence, &C., mentioned.


And in speaking of the power of the
board to disfranchise the people, they
further say:


Nothing can be more simple, nothing
more just, than these provisions. They are,
for the reason before stated, inadequate to
secure the administration of complete
remedy, for it may be fairly said that III by
reason of violence and intimidation COM
I'M of nV1e
the adherents of another are restrained from
voting, an equitable remedy, If practicable,
for the outrage, would be to count in favor
OF the injured party every vote thus lost.


Here we not only have the power
of an absolute and irresponsible
tribunal to disfranchise whole COM
munities of innocent men without
a trial, characterized by these gentle
men as a thing so proper in itself that
nothing could be more just, but they
openly announce that it should be
clothed with the additional power of
counting votes that were never cast
the only drawback to comforting such
a power being, in their opinion, the
difficulty that might attend an ascer-
tainment of the facts. But the lamen-
tations of these political gercmiahs
over the inadequate powers which the
statute had conferred on the returning
board must have received great solace
from the action of the board in exer-
cising the right to count unvoted bal
lots and thus supplying the defects\ of
the law. Whether the suggestions &f
those gentlemen that the law ought to
have given the board power to count
votes that we're never cast had any in
fueuce on the action of the board in
this particular, L am unable to say.
But when these special friends of the
President and distinguished represen-
tatives Of the Republican party though
such a provision ought to be in the
law, Wells could not regard it as any
thing more than pious fraud to count
as though such provision was 10 the
statute.


But this extraordinary report, which
seems to have been thought a matter
of such general interest and national
importance as to warrant the Presi-
dent of the United States in transmit
ting it to Congress in special message,
'is as remarkable for what it olnits to
disclose as for what it proclaims as
reprehensible FOR what it suppresses
as for what it suggests. Why the
President should have thought it in.
cumbent on him to send to Congress
in a special message the biographies,
the pedigree aud performances Of j.
Madison Wells, Thomas Q. Anderson,
Kenner, and Casanave, by John Sher-
man, James A. Garfield and others es-
pecially, as the sketches are not ac-
companied with the photographs of
the distinguished subjects, or why he
should have supposed that Congress
would have any doubt as to what Sher-
man. Garfield and company would
think Of the count in Louisiana, when
that count gave the State to Hayes,
must be classed among those presiden-
tial eccentricities that battle conjecture
and defy comprehension. But as he
was kind enough to send US the mes
sage, let us be thankful and make the
most of it.


| have already noticed that provis-
ion of the statute requiring the board
TO be composed of FIVE members, to be
selected from both political parties,
and adverted to the fact that, although
the law imperatiyely demanded that
the four republican members OF the
board should fll the vacancy with a
democrat they persistently refused to
do so. Here was laid the foundation
of that fraud whose immediate effect
is to give the State of Louisiana to
Hayes and Wheeler, but whose ulti-


.uQ,,onaa ,pon tho forfYfuac &c