Year: 1874

From the Washington Chronicle, of the hfth.l


As strangely as the above caption may
strike the ears of loyal people, it is by
no means impossible OF realization. The
constitution provides that in case no
candidate shall receive a majority of all
the electoral votes, the house OF repre-
sentatives shall proceed TO elect one
from the three candidates having re-
ceived the highest vote. In such an
election the memb bers will vote by States,
each State being Untitled to one vote.
Hence q majority of the representatives
from each State will be able to cast its
vote for President and Viee-PresideDt.
Oh the States which have elected repre-
sentatives in the forty-fourth congress,
it is claimed by our opponents that
nineteen are Democratic, with a pOssi-
bility Of securing still others. Nine
teen, however. is q majority of all the
States In the Union. Being sure Of the
house, the Democratic leaders may
deem it prudent to endeavOr to prevent
an election by the people, and run two
Democratic candidates-one in the
south and one in the north. In that
contingency Jefferson Davis might
prove to be their most available SOUTH
C1n Ii LAlC aOoE1lEC VI lLAE
execution of the enforcement law he
could carry every southern State
of the Union. Should the
electoral votes of few States
in the north and west be cast for some
other Democratic candidate, and the
residue, being less than half Of all, be
cast for 9 Republican candidate, the
election would go to the house, where
the vote, SIS we have said, would be cast
by States, and, of course, for the one or
the other Of the Democratic candidates,
and by party courtesy, and in fairness,
should be given to the one whom ma
jority of said Democratic congressional
delegates might prefer, and this would
unquestionably be Mr.. Davis in prefer
ence to any man that could be named in
the north, because the controlling ms
jority of said delegations would, in the
contingency we have supposed, be from
the south. Such proposition would
not, as some may suppose, shock the
northern Democratic sense of propriety.
It would be difficult to assign any reason
for rejecting Mr.. Davis which would not
apply to nearly every other leading
Democrat of the country, except that his
political disabilities have not been re-
moved, and that he participated person.
ally in the war of the rebellion; and
even Republicans could not, and Demo-
Gratis would not, insist on the latter ob-
lection SIS a valid obstruction,
because that has been yielded
in the constitutional amendments,
in the statutes and by the
practice OF two Republican administra-
tions; and Democrats could not be ex-
pected to regard the former as insupera-
Die, for Mr.. Davis did nothing in the re-
cent war which the great leaders of the
Democracy in the north have not in
sisted all along he and his associates had
the constitutional right 70 do. We are,
therefore, unable to perceive any suffi-
cient reason which a Democrat could
assign for refusing to vote for Mr.. Davis
for the chief executive Office. And now
that Sumner is dead and Butler is
beaten, and Massachusetts has elected a
Democratic delegation Of congressman
to vote for her for President and Vice
President of the United States in the
contingency named, why should she not
enjoy the exhilarstion of seeing thai
vote cast for him who is confessedly the
most distinguished living member of the
Democratic party?