CONNECTICUT. 



233 



source of thrift in peace and power in war, the 

 cheapest defence of the nation, the wisest police 

 agency, seeking the prevention rather than the pun- 

 ishment of crime ; that the wealth of the State con- 

 sists in its men and in its treasures of mind ; that 

 education tends to economy, thrift, and virtue, while 

 ignorance means waste and weakness if not pauper- 

 ism and vice ; that it is the duty and interest of this 

 State to secure a good common-school education free 

 to their children of all classes, the poor as well as 

 the rich ; and that we commend the growing har- 

 nxony and cooperation between labor and capital, 

 and the recent liberality and interest of our manu- 

 facturers and capitalists in promoting the education 

 of the children of the State, and congratulate the 

 people on the encouraging progress of this great 

 interest. 



8. That we pledge to the gentlemen whom we 

 have this day nominated our hearty support, and we 

 cordially commend them as worthy to receive the 

 suffrage of the freemen of this State. 



Immediately after the close of the polls on 

 the day of election, and long before the result 

 was officially declared, the Democrats an- 

 nounced Mr. English to be elected Governor 

 by a majority of a few votes. The Repub- 

 licans claimed that Mr. Jewell was the Gov- 

 ernor elected, averring that the Democrats, 

 with a view to turn the result of the election 

 in their favor, and to defeat the will of the 

 people, had by manifestly illegal action, and 

 even downright fraud, made the number of the 

 Republican votes appear to be less, and that of 

 their own more than were actually cast: in 

 one place, by arbitrarily striking out from the 

 list 23 Republican votes already counted by the 

 proper officers; in another, by fraudulently 

 abstracting from the ballot-box a whole pack- 

 age of 100 Republican votes tied and marked ; 

 and, to make the contents of the ballot-box 

 correspond with the check-list, as fraudulently 

 inserting into it a similar package containing a 

 like number of spurious Democratic votes ; be- 

 sides that, in another place, a package of 76 

 Democratic votes was erroneously returned to 

 contain 96 votes, or 20 more than it really did; 

 the error having been occasioned by the cir- 

 cumstance that the first of the two figures (76), 

 written on the outside of the package to mark 

 the number of those votes, was so shaped (by 

 inadvertence or intentionally) that the reader 

 might easily take it for a 9, as it was in fact 

 taken and returned. Three distinct petitions 

 were officially addressed to the Legislature, 

 giving notice of these things, and indicating 

 the places in which they had respectively oc- 

 curred. 



On the 3d of May, which was the first day 

 of the annual meeting of the General Assem- 

 bly, both Houses adopted a resolution appoint- 

 ing a joint select committee " to examine the 

 returns and canvass of votes given by the 

 electors ; " and inquire into the truth of the 

 allegations specified in the said petitions, with 

 power to send for papers and persons; and 

 with the injunction that " all sessions of the 

 committee at which testimony should be taken 

 or votes counted should be public and open 

 to any elector of the State." This last clause 



was an amendment to the resolution appoint- 

 ing the said committee of investigation, and was 

 carried upon the motion offered by a Democrat 

 in the Lower House ; but the resolution itself 

 was not adopted without a long and warm 

 debate, occasioned by the decided opposition 

 of the Democratic members. They contended 

 that the General Assembly had no power of 

 appointing a committee for any such investi- 

 gation, its authority being limited by the con- 

 stitution to the declaring of the persons elect- 

 ed from the result of the election, as it ap- 

 peared from the official returns presented to 

 it. The Republicans, on the contrary, main- 

 tained that the constitution empowered the 

 General Assembly not only to declare the re- 

 sult of the election upon the official returns, 

 but also, and in express terms, to examine the 

 returns themselves; and that an indispensable 

 part of this examination evidently was to in- 

 quire and ascertain that the returns were legal 

 and in such condition as to warrant the Gen- 

 eral Assembly to proclaim those persons elect- 

 ed whom the returns designate; more espe- 

 cially when, as in the -present instance, irregu- 

 larities and frauds, designed to change the^ re- 

 sult of the election were distinctly pointed to 

 in memorials presented to the Assembly. 

 Otherwise, this body should be regarded as 

 bound by the constitution itself to sanction a 

 fraud, whenever the officers of election should 

 think fit to perpetrate one themselves, or con- 

 nive at it in others, though the Assembly were 

 warned beforehand, and there were means to 

 discover that it was a fraud. 



Three Democratic members, appointed to 

 form part of the said committee, moved, each 

 for himself, to be excused from serving on it ; 

 and, when these motions were severally put 

 to vote, they were not excused, and each of 

 them declared that he refused to serve, and 

 did not serve. 



The committee entered upon their work 

 and continued it a week, during which time 

 they inspected papers and every thing having 

 reference to the facts inquired into ; examined 

 witnesses under oath, as also voters and other 

 persons concerned in them ; and not only held 

 their sessions public and open to everybody, 

 but invited all who knew any thing connected 

 with the matters under consideration to fur- 

 nish information. Having concluded their la- 

 bors, they submitted their report to the Gen- 

 eral Assembly on the 10th of May, which con- 

 cluded as follows : 



The committee find, that the whole number of 

 votes actually and legally given and cast for Gov- 

 ernor of this State is 94,860, of which number 47,473 

 were given for Marshall Jewell, and 47,373 includ- 

 ing one for James English, one for J. English, and 

 one for J. E. English) were given for James E. Eng- 

 lish, and 14 are scattering, and do find that Marshall 

 Jewell, having a majority of all the votes given as 

 aforesaid, is duly elected Governor of this State for 

 the year ensuing. 



That the whole number of votes actually and legal- 

 ly given and cast for Lieutenant-Governor of thia 

 State is 94,861, of which number 47,598 were given 



