Year: 1877

Washington, Feb. 22.-The electoral
commission met at 10 and Matthews
made an address in opposition to the
Cronin certificate. He denied that they
had asserted in the Florida case that
the certificate was final and conclusive,
and said they had undertaken to draw
a line of demarcation between the act
of the State and the Federal authority,
which took the matter up after it had
left the State. They also undertook to
draw line between things and proof.
The difference between certificates was
but the shadow, the thing certified be-
ing the substance, and that where the
certificate did not show the thing certi-
fed truly, it could be corrected. 1t was
a surprise, he said, to find that their
adversaries had not only taken their po-
sition on the Florida and Louisiana
cases, but had gone beyond it and ac.
cepted a dogma which they had i'm
properly ascribed to the side with which
he was identified. He maintained that
they stood to-day on the ground they
occupied in the beginning, and which
had been followed by the decision of the
tribunal, viz: That a certificate based
on returns was conclusive evidence of
election.





offers to go behind the returns were
and larger as the certainty obtained
that they would not be called on to
make them good, and great deal of
patriotic Indignation was INDUCED in
at the alleged countenancing of fraud
and wrong.


Matthews read an extract from the
decision of Justice Field in the case
of Bradley VS.. Fisher, in which a ten
dency to complaint by the party defeat
ed is shown. Going from complaint to
charges of improper motives, he enter
ed his protest against the hollow pre-
tensions to morality that had been made
the substratum of the complaint in this
case. Cronin had been mounted OH
pedestal for public admiration by his in
ventor as a model of purity and
honesty. There is no offer to
prove that he was paid $4,000 under
the pretencc of his expenses to Wash
ington; there was no offer to prove the
contents of the supposed hieroglyphic
characters that could not be read; there
was no offer of proof that this was the
result of deep laid scheme to defeat
the will of the people. The canvass
ended, the constitution and law stamp
ed that record the legal and constitu-
tional result of the election. They had
made the proffer of the thing itself; not
the proof of the thing, but the actual,
substantial result of the canvass. All
else was mere proof OF mere prima facie
evidence, to be taken as proof only till
confronted by the proof and shown to
be the false certificate of the governor,
and that the act of quorum could only
lNo 1,n ntc Of n
view of the case had been sustained by
gon in regard to what constituted Il va
cancy.


Hon. Justice Strong said that coun-
sci had now consumed two hours each
and still the question Of admissability
of evidence was before the commission.
He thought that it should be received
now, subject to the judgment of the
commission as to it's effect. The prop
osition Was adopted, but neither the pa
pers called for in the subp9nas duces
tecun served upon the Postmaster Gen
eral were at hand, nor were the wit
nesses present, and the commission
took a recess.


After the recess Merrick offered Il
certified cop. Of the commission Of
John w. Watts as postmaster, dated
February 18th, 1873. Evarts objected
to the papers as not authenticated, but
said the Postmaster General was in at
tendance, ready to verify the papers
from his office.


Judge Clifford sustained the objec-
ton, but said they had the right to have
them certified under the order Of the
commission.


Evarts waived his objection, and
Merrick next presented the commission
of Henry Hill as postmaster, dated JAN
uary Sd 1877, in which it was recited
that he was appointed on the Sd Of No
vember 1876, and that on the 18th of
December he executed his bond and
took the oath of Office.


Postmaster General Tyner was called
by Evarts. A telegram from Watts re-
signing the postmastership was pro-
duced and admitted. This was received
November 14th, and an answer accept
ing the resignation was sent the same
day. On the Oath of November, wit.
ness received through special Postoffice
Agent Underwood a letter addressed to
| Underwood in which Watts tenders his