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no soldier should show himself at the polls. We surrendered that safeguard as we surrendered many other things that were dear to us. A convertible currency, specie payments, almost every traditional right, disappeared in the presence of the great danger with which we were confronted.

"Now, for fifteen long years we have been striving to recover that lost ground. We have made gigantic efforts, sacrifices such as the world never saw, to get back to the resumption of specie payments; and yet we have done nothing for the resumption of our political rights, the rights which lie at the very foundation of this government. It is a reproach to our patriotism that the resumption of specie payments should have preceded the resumption of the rights necessary for the preservation of free government. It is an imputation upon this liberty-loving people and its representatives that they have allowed the time to pass by until now.

"Can we surrender this question? Would we be justified by the people of this country, now that the issue has been raised, in conceding the principle in time of profound peace, fifteen years after the close of a civil war, that soldiers may be ordered by an executive power to the polls on the day of an election? Of all men in the House, I am most anxious that there shall be no extra session; I have everything to lose and nothing to gain by it. All that I have in the world is engaged in business operations which are always damaged by extra sessions of Congress. But there are things greater than money, greater than profits, without which money disappears and profits are an illusion,- things for which men have sacrificed fortune and family and life in every age of the world, and the greatest of all is the right of self-government. This question in respect to this bill lies at the very foundation of the struggle for civil liberty which has lasted since governments first began, and survives, as this scene bears witness, to this very hour.

"The issue thus made is one which we are ready to accept before the country. Let the people decide whether they are prepared to surrender the sacred right of untrammeled suffrage which this bill seeks to guard! Unless the blood which courses in our veins has degenerated from the vital fluid which has made the Anglo-Saxon people great and free, I cannot doubt the result of the appeal which I now make to the country."

The Forty-fifth Congress adjourned without passing any bill for the support of the army. An extra session was thus rendered necessary. The honored member from New-York was not a member of the Forty-sixth Congress. He, therefore, took no part in the great debate which resulted in the final achievement of the repeal. But his long and earnest fight, prompted by the purest patriotism, love of equity, honor, and law, was of paramount importance to the settlement of this fundamental question involving the obscuration of the liberties of the people and the brutalizing excesses of force against the muniments of freedom.

The antagonism of Mr. Blaine to the dissipation of this eclipse of liberty

MR. BLAINE AND MR. HEWITT AS PARTY EXPONENTS.

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by the baleful orb of despotic force, represents truly his position and that of those who voted with him for the perpetuation of this menace by the bayonet upon the free will of the voter. The opposite position, well bastioned by the persistent labor and spirit of Mr. Hewitt, defines with equal zeal and signal ability the status of the Democratic party, — whose platforms even yet glorify the achievement of free suffrage, which is one of the crown jewels of our sovereignty.

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In February, 1875, the writer addressed the House at length on this and kindred themes. The speech was from the text: "Force or Freedom!" This title suggests its logic. The long decade of mockery, with its military, with its commissions, its menaces to legislatures, and its "regulation" of elections, was exhaustively handled. The inestimable value of the franchise, is recognized in "leading cases" for over three hundred years in English jurisprudence. It can never be abridged or destroyed without sacrificing order, peace, and liberty; and when these are gone, chaos has come. was the vein of the discourse.

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It was in 1871, on a bill to amend the election law, that the writer began to do his humble part in this line of enfranchisement. He denounced all efforts to enforce Republican rule by military domination over the ballot. At that time, the Democrats were hardly one-third of the House, but they believed that the body of the voters was with them; and yet, in defiance of all the traditions and histories of public and private liberty since public and private liberty had life, violent interference with the voter was persisted in.

The Athenian law was that the man who interfered in any way with "elections," in which choice must be free, should suffer death. When a stranger interfered in the assemblies of the Athenian democracy he was esteemed guilty of a high crime. He was a usurper of rights of sovereignty to which he had no title. This was in a pure democracy, where the populace assembled in the Bema and decided directly, after the orators and statesmen had presented the questions of public policy. In a representative government like that of England, the laws have been strict to guard against the abuse of the franchise by fraud and force. We know that the common law of England gave a remedy to the voter wrongfully repulsed from the polls. The leading case, which has been followed by our courts even when there has been no statutory remedy, is that of Asby vs. White, in which Judge Holt uses this lofty language:

"And surely it cannot be said that this is so inconsiderable a right as to apply that maxim to it, de minimis non curat lex. A right that a man has to vote at the election of a person to represent him in Parliament, there to concur to the making of laws which are to bind his liberty and property, is a most transcendent thing, and of a high nature."

But lest this common law right should prove no adequate remedy for the wrongful proceedings at elections, the English statute made it a high penalty

for any soldier to be quartered near the polls. He must be at least one mile off. In Blackstone, Tucker's edition, volume 2, page 179, the law is thus stated:

"As soon, therefore, as the time and place of election, either in counties or boroughs, are fixed, all soldiers quartered in the place are to remove, at least one day before the election, to the distance of two miles or more, and not to return till one day after the poll is ended."

It is further required that the Secretary of State for War, or the party who for the time being is acting as Secretary, shall issue his orders to remove all soldiers from places of voting, and if he fail to do so he is to be dismissed. and to be forever disqualified from holding office in England.

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So that this transcendent thing" of untrammeled voting is guarded not only by the maxims of the common law, but by stringent penalties in English legislation. These penalties were the result of that jealousy which the Commons entertained for their constituents against kingcraft. Our fathers received the same maxims, and endeavored to institute the same safeguards. The messages of our early Presidents are full of this jealousy of military powers. It was reserved for the Republican party to disregard all these maxims and muniments of free elections and popular liberty. Is not the right of free election, of uncontrolled choice, inconsistent with force? Is not the bayonet directly the enemy of the ballot? Are we not cherishing what has been handed down to us in our history and Constitution, when we are jealous of the subordination of the civil to the military power? And should we not, therefore, upon the principles of logic, ethics, law, and patriotism, oppose every attack on the freedom of the ballot?

In the same connection, the Federal supervisors of elections and their abettors, came under the condemnation of the vigilant congressional Democracy. What a humiliation to an American citizen it was, to see hirelings, like the tatterdemalions of Falstaff, under the lead of the election superintendents at the polls in our large cities!

The platforms of parties on these subjects after the war are well known. It is enough to say, that after the disaster which the Democrats suffered in 1868, by the failure to place in the Presidential chair that man of unsullied purity and statesmanship, Horatio Seymour; and after their failure to bridge the chasm in 1872, there was more or less of a saturnalia in our politics. At last the strong arm of the Democracy was lifted. In 1876 the popular vote was given to it by a majority of 250,935. Preceding 1876, Colorado and Nebraska had become states in the Union. Their votes were, owing to the senatorial offices, potential to reverse the popular will, even if there had not occurred the financial crisis in 1873. This crisis was followed by a period of extreme depression of values, which ran through 1874, 1875, and 1876. It called into activity many nostrums in finance and much nonsense in politics. Return to specie payments was more or less delayed, and even

THE POPULAR HOPE OF 1876-TILDEN.

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a return to silver subsidiary coinage found more or less impediment growing out of greenback or non-redemptionist ideas. Other questions came to the front in connection with administration, which it is not the purpose of this history to record, although in many of these the writer took an interest. Some had relation to the life-saving and letter-carrier systems, the repression of dangers at sea, the repeal of the registry laws of vessels, the purchase of foreign-built vessels and the supervision of steamships. Various contrivances came to the front in respect to our public debt, together with legislation concerning the public lands, railroads, and railroad grants and their forfeiture. In the discussion of these questions the military at the polls were too often forgotten.

The people of this country had hoped by the apparent ascendency of Democrats to power in 1876, that men who, like Samuel J. Tilden, in New York, had, in their various states, been connected with the overthrow of fraud and the vindication of honesty in the administration of affairs, would bring the business of the government into the realm of ethical science; and that they would regard office as a trust, to be executed for the common weal. The public voice then demanded with no uncertain sound that the executive branch of the government should be taken out of the hands of the Republican party. The Democracy saw that Governor Tilden had acted his part nobly and well as governor of the State of New-York, hence they elected him President of the United States. They were prepared to believe that a new dawn had arisen upon our democratic-republican form of government; but how dark was their disappointment! The Republican party, which had legalized the infractions of every wise law, stole another term of power! It had cured none of the trouble in the South. It had not given a staff to business decrepitude. It had left the states as the prey of swindlers and usurpers. It had made itself the supple tool of all reckless enterprises. It was harsh and proscriptive. It used its power so odiously that the centennial year of 1876 thundered its denunciation, but after all, the end of that party was still afar off, because Democracy failed of arousal to a sense of the great wrong which was committed by the electoral count of the following year, which will be discussed in the next two chapters.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE FAMOUS ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1876-'77.

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THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS ASSEMBLES - THE GATHERING STORM VISION OF PARTIES-OPINIONS ON THE MODE OF COUNTING THE ELECTORAL VOTE-PERPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEMS-COMMITTEES RAISED UNDER KNOTT'S RESOLUTION - HOW THEY WERE CONSTITUTED—THE SECRETS OF THE COMMITTEES NOW FIRST DIVULGED - THEIR DEBATES AND THE RESULTSSEPARATE AND JOINT ACTION—CHANCES BY DRAWING LOTS - THE SUPREME JUSTICES CALLED IN-THE SHREWD DEVICES OF THE REPUBLICANS— HOW THE SECRETS WERE KEPT-VARIOUS DRAFTS OF BILLS-RUMORS OF WAR PREPARATIONS FOR THE USE OF FEDERAL TROOPS - FINAL REPORT TO CONGRESS AFTER THE SECRET DISCUSSIONS.

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N the history of elective governments no such strain was ever put upon human nature as that which tried the patience, forbearance, and patriotism of the people of this country during the proceedings for the counting of the Presidential vote in 1876–77. A case like that one could

never occur again without sanguinary results. How the will of the people was then defeated by malevolence, greed, fraud, and the breach of every legal bond, the sequel will show.

Clouds thick and threatening obscured the horizon when the Forty-fourth Congress met at its closing session, in December, 1876. There was an evident determination on the part of the Republican leaders not to surrender the reins of power. There was as resolute a purpose on the part of the Democracy to gather, at all hazards, the fruits of the victory which they believed they had fairly won. There seemed to be no alternative but civil war. The situation was indeed grave. The Congress was divided politically into hostile camps. The Senate was Republican, the House Democratic. The all-absorbing, war-threatening questions were: Had the President of the Senate, by virtue of his office, the right to count the electoral votes? Did the Constitution invest him with discretionary power to decide what were and what were not the electoral votes of a state? Must both

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