Year: 1876

tion when grave public exigency may re-
| quire of both parties the exercise OF uncom-
mon prudence and self-restrsint.


| The Presidential election, one of the most
exciting and severely contested on record,
has passed in absolute peace. Election day
was quiet in every State. North'and South,
| and neither party can set up claim Of vio-
lence or disorder at the polls. This result
is q credit to us as q nation. With half the
excitement almost any nation in Europe
would have fallen into revolution or general
civil disorder. The day was q test of the
self-restraint and the common sense OF the
American people, and they stood the test
admirably. But now may come another and
severer trial. The electoral vote is very
close; at least it promises to be So but
every one ought to bear in mind that the
formal and official count of votes has not
been completed n several States, and will
not be in hand from every State until per-
haps Saturday. This count may still settle
the result in such a manner as to avoid
all dispute. On the other hand, it may
leave the result dependent on the votes
of either South Carolina or Louisiana, two
States in which the republican party has in
terfered with troops; in which it was charged
before election day with gross wrongs,
which charges have not been denied; and in
which. while both parties now claim
majority, the vote is still to be canvassed by
returning boards composed of republicans
in the case of South Carolina of persons
themselves running for Office, and in Louis
lana Of men whose canvass of the vote Of
1874 was declared by the committee of re-
publican House of Representatives to have
been fraudulent to such degree that the
republican Congress felt itself obliged to un-
seat several republicans and put into their
places democrats who had been legally
elected.


That is to say, the votes of South Carolina
and Louisiana are to be canvassed or re-
in the Electoral College decided by persons
whose attitude, to say the least of it, is not
impartial; who have direct personal inter
est in the result of their canvass; who in
Louisiana were two years ago detected in
fraudulent manipulation Of the returns; and
on whose verdict or declaration Of the result
no honest citizen of either party can there
happen that returns thus made, and thus
lacking in the main elements required to give
them public confidence. may, if they are to
be used, decide the Presidential election.
Leaving South Carolina out of view, or
rather conceding it to the republicans, then
it may chance that Louisiana's vote shall be
needed to decide the election; and here the
democrats formally complained, number
of days before the election, that their voters
were denied registry; that the republican
registration was to some extent fraudulent;
and that in some democratic parishes the
Commissioners of Election had been with
drawn by Governor Kellogg, thus leaving
those parishes without official means Of
casting and recording their vote, with the
purpose of thus giving the State Returning
Board q pretext for entirely throwing them
out


We have presented the terms of possible
and very grave public danger very plainly.
because the people Of the country ought TO
understand them and look them in the face
We still trust that the case we have sup
posed may not arise, but If it does then we
have this to say -


L Both parties, everywhere, must remem-
ber that there must be no violence, no dis
order, no attempt at irregular proceedings
This is not Mexico and with absolute pa
tience and quiescence on the part of those
who may believe themselves threatened with
cl> ~. III
wrongs that are found can be rectifed. Any
attempt at violence is at once fatal to the
party which should attempt it. The Amer
lean people do not mean in this centennial
to be disgraoed in the eyes Of the world
and humiliated in their own esteem by dis
orderly proceedings or revolutionary at
tempts, on any plea whatever. They will
resent with the utmost bitterness anything
which looks to disorder. no matter what may
be the fancied or pretended provocation.
II. The electoral vote is not counted
until the 14th Of February next The
electors meet in their separate States on
the 4th Of December If in any State,
as in : Louisiana, one side believes
that the Returning Board hos given
its certificate of election wrongly, it
will have abundance of time to lay its
proofs before Congress and the public be-
tween the 4th Of December and the 14th of
February; nor will Congress dare. even if it
would, to refuse to entertain . com plaint 80
serious But it would not The patriotic
men of both sides would see that no taint of
injustice or wrong shall hang about Presi-
Dental election.


III. Finally, as the democratic party is that
which feels itself likely to be aggrieved in
this matter, we beg them to remember that
the danger which now stares the country in
the face is but one of the results of the re-
bellion which they encouraged, and in