MARYLAND. 



517 



In consequence of this decision, the present incum- 

 bent of the Presidential chair was seated by virtue 

 of returns which were notoriously false and fraud- 

 ulent, and were so in effect admitted by Justice 

 Strong, whose vote seated him, and also by the in- 

 cumbeut himself, in disregarding those returns as 

 respects State officers whose titles to office were also 

 based upon them, and were in every respect identi- 

 cal with his own. 



While the repudiation of these returns by the in- 

 cumbent, for all purposes save his own election, is an 

 admission that it was a fraud to use them for that 

 purpose, the motives which induced this partial re- 

 pudiation greatly aggravate his offense. 



By the published statement of Mr. John Young 

 Brown, which has remained uncontradicted since 

 April, 1877, it appears that this repudiation was a 

 condition imposed by said Brown and his associates, 

 then holding the balance of power in the House of 

 Representatives, upon which alone the incumbent 

 would be allowed to be counted into the office upon 

 these false returns. This condition was accepted 

 for the incumbent by Messrs. Stanley Matthews 

 and Charles Foster, then and since the President's 

 closest friends. 



Said Brown and his associates had been elected as 

 the adversaries of the incumbent, but separated from 

 tho great body of their political associates in the 

 House of Representatives to carry into effect said 

 arrangement. At the time of entering into it they 

 were the leading advocates of a bill, then pending 

 in said House, to grant a large subsidy to the Texas 

 Pacific Railroad Company, to which the President 

 elect (Tilden) was known to be opposed ; and it is a 

 just inference from all the circumstances that while 

 they were willing to defeat his inauguration for this 

 reason, they could not venture to act with their po- 

 litical opponents for that object if such cooperation 

 involved also a surrender of the local governments 

 of the States in question, as well as their electoral 

 votes, to their political opponents ; and to remove 

 obstacles it was stipulated, in effect, that the incum- 

 bsnt should treat the returns as fraudulent, so far as 

 they affected the local governments of said States, 

 by withholding the United States troops, the pres- 

 ence of which, it is known, alone gave them any 

 force. 



It thus appears that the constitutional question, 

 so gravely and elaborately debated in Congress, 

 before the Commission, and in the public press, 

 as the question on which the Presidential contest 

 hinged, and with which the public mind was long 

 exercised, had no part whatever in determining the 

 contest ; but that it was infact determined by a body 

 of men elected by one party, but openly acting with 

 their opponents, in the interest of certain railroad 

 corporations, at the decisive moment. 



Every interest of the country is greatly prejudiced 

 and its most vital interests are put in jeopardy by 

 suffering the people to be superseded as the politi- 

 cal power, and substituting for them such moneyed 

 organizations as will pay for defrauding them. 



In the opinion of your memorialists, the continued 

 prostration of the business of the country is largely 

 due to the fact that the confidence of the people in 

 the conduct of public officers is shaken, and that an 

 irresponsible executive administration has been in- 

 stalled which has not the support of the country or 

 of either of its great political parties a thing in con- 

 flict with the whole theory of our institutions and of 

 those of other countries. To carry on the govern- 

 ment, the incumbent must seek support from those 

 elected as his opponents. This relation is in itself 

 corrupting. It is shown by reason as well as by ex- 

 perieuca that no useful public service can be ren- 

 dered by an administration whose title to power 

 rests upon fraudulent election returns, manufactured 

 by its own partisans, and made effectual by an 

 agreement with subsidy and jobbing men of the op- 

 posing party. The indispensable first step to any 



reform of the public service is to restore the govern- 

 ment to the people. 



It is only by the men who have been elected by 

 the people, and who are free from all entangling 

 alliances with the jobbing interests, from which all 

 the great abuses have sprung, that any reform can 

 be effected. 



Your memorialists therefore pray that needful 

 legislation may be adopted to ascertain judicially 

 who was elected President at the recent election, 

 and to give effect to the will of the people, and will 

 ever pray, etc. 



A motion to lay the whole on the table was 

 lost yeas 13, nays 54. It was then referred to 

 the Committee on Federal Relations. 



The above memorial was based on the sixth 

 section of the bill providing for the creation of 

 the Electoral Commission, as follows : 



SEC. 6. That nothing in this act shall be held to 

 impair or affect any right now; existing under the 

 Constitution and laws to question by proceeding in 

 the judicial courts of the United States the right or 

 title of the person who shall be declared elected, or 

 who shall claim to be President or Vice-President 

 of the United States, if any such right exists. 



On February 8th the Committee on Federal 

 Relations presented two reports, both unfavor- 

 able to the memorial. The majority report was 

 simply unfavorable without giving any reasons. 

 The minority report, presented by George H. 

 Williams, set forth 



That after a careful consideration of the memorial 

 with due regard to the gravity of the matters there- 

 in charged, and while he had not and can not have 

 any sufficient evidence of the correctness of the facts 

 stated, and as the whole country has accepted the 

 result, he is not aware of any special duty incumbent 

 upon this State to solicit that an attempt should be 

 made to. undo that which he is satisfied will not now 

 be undone, and which this State alone could not pre- 

 vent were a repetition of it to be attempted. That 

 in common with a large mass of his fellow citizens 

 he is painfully conscious that for a period of now 

 nearly twenty years so many and such great perver- 

 sions and encroachments of power on the part of the 

 Federal Government have been made as may well 

 startle all thinking persons, and cause serious appre- 

 hensions for the future. The Federal Government 

 during this time, commencing with the pretexts of 

 "military necessity" and "to save the life of the 

 nation," have trodden under foot with impunity the 

 sacred writ of habeas corpus, selecting the State of 

 Maryland for the gross sacrifice, which, with many 

 other outrages, has been cheerfully acquiesced in 

 and willingly endorsed by a majority of the nation, 

 that majority not being wholly composed of the pres- 

 ent Republican party, so that our present political 

 condition is not such as our forefathers either in-, 

 tended or contemplated. Those who have sown 

 the wind can not now complain of the whirlwind, 

 and we on our part must content ourselves with our 

 innocence in not having participated therein, nor 

 having in any manner sanctioned them. So far as 

 this State is concerned, the outrages set forth in the 

 resolutions, gross as they undoubtedly are, yet are not 

 as bad as the imprisonment of her Legislature with- 

 out cause in the year 1861, and against which the 

 General Assembly has never yet been invited and 

 has never deemed it necessary; to make remonstrance, 

 nor worse than many other high-handed abuses and 

 outrages which it is now fruitless either to discuss or 

 refer to. So that should the State of Maryland in 

 any manner attempt to do what the resolutions call 

 for, she would not only be powerless in the matter, 

 but, to the mortification and distress of all her true 



