716 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



This was signed with great secrecy by Kellogg, 

 Burch, Joseph, .Sheldon, Marks, and firewater. -But 

 Levisec and JoltVion were absent, and their names 

 were forced to the new lists. This crime is charged, 

 fulselv it is probable, toBlanchard, clerk to Govern- 

 or Kelloirg. This forged certificate was forwarded 

 to Washington. There were laid before Congress 

 and the Electoral Commission two Republican cer- 

 tificates and one Democratic certificate. But it hap- 

 pened, probably by design, that the printed copies 

 presented to the Electoral Commission, done by a 

 private printer instead of by the Public Printer as is 

 usual, were two copies of the forged certificate, in- 

 stead of one of the genuine but defective and one of 

 the forged but correct certificate. The Commission 

 never, therefore, had an opportunity of considering 

 the formal defects of the certificate which they ac- 

 cepted. 



When the Democrats regained the control the 

 "Returning Board was abolished ; so that there no 

 longer exists in the United States any tribunal em- 

 powered to count or reject votes at their discretion. 

 The danger of a body thus combining judicial and 

 administrative functions can not be overrated; nor 

 can that of interfering by the Federal troops in the 

 local elections. But the greatest danger to free and 

 honest elections, and the fundamental cause of abuses, 

 is from the fact that the appointment to all the of- 

 fices is intrusted to the President ; so that the whole 

 patronage of the Government, embracing 110,000 of- 

 fices, is made the prize for which both parties con- 

 tend at every Presidential election. 



The report of the majority is summed up in the 

 following conclusion : 



Finally, we conclude : First. That due effect was 

 not iriven to the vote of the Electors appointed by 

 the State of Florida at the Presidential election of 

 1876, by reason of false and fraudulent returns for 

 the said Electors by the Canvassing Board of that 

 State, wlicreby the choice of the people of that State 

 was annulled and reversed ; and that the action of the 

 Board of State Canvassers in making the returns was 

 countenanced and encouraged by, among others, the 

 Hon. Edward H. Noyes, who has since been appoint- 

 ed the Minister for this country to France. 



Second. That due effect was not given to the vote 

 of the Electors appointed by the State of Louisiana 

 at the Presidential election of 1876, by reason of the 

 false and fraudulent action of the Returning Board 

 of that State, whereby the choice of the people of 

 that, State was annulled and reversed ; and that the 

 action of the Returning Board was countenanced and 

 encouraged by, among others, the Hon. John Sher- 

 man, who has since been appointed Secretary of the 

 Treasury. 



Third. That a conspiracy existed in the State of 

 Louisiana whereby the Republican vote in all the 

 precincts of the parish of East Feliciana, and in some 

 of the precincts of West Feliciana, at the general 

 election in November, 1876, was purposely withheld 

 from the polls to afford a pretext for the exclusion 

 by the Returning Board for that State of the votes 

 oast in those precincts for Electors for President and 

 Vice-President. 



Fourth.. That two of the signatures to the second 

 certificate of the electoral vote of the State of Louis- 

 iana returned to Congress and referred to the Elec- 

 Commission were forged; and that William 

 ' Helloser. then Governor of that State, and now 

 n Senator of the United States, and H. Conquest 

 Clarke, Ins private secretary, now a clerk in the 

 Ireasury Department, were privy to such for- 

 gery. 



FiftJi. That Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. 

 Ilondncks were, and Rutherford B. Hayes and Wil- 

 liam A. Wheeler were not, the real choice of a ma- 



>nty of the Electors duly appointed by the several 

 rpw, and of the persons who exercised and were 

 entitled to the right of suffrage at the last general 

 lection in the United States. 



The report was signed : Clarkson N. Potter, 

 William R. Morrison, Eppa Huntoii, William 

 S. Stenger, John A. McMahon, Joseph C. S. 

 Blackburn, William M. Springer. 



Report of the Minority. The minority presented a 

 report in which they express their dissent from most 

 of the conclusions of the majority, and also as to their 

 pertinence to the investigation. The majority re- 

 fused to investigate the alleged frauds at the ballot- 

 box in Florida, and yet assumed to decide which way 

 the popular vote had gone. When the revelation of 

 the cipher dispatches was published, the majority 

 reserved them for a separate report, although they 

 bore directly and materially upon the subject of elec- 

 tion frauds in Florida. No evidence had been 

 brought to show that any member of the Canvass- 

 ing Boards in Florida, Louisiana, and South Caro- 

 lina was corruptible. When the cipher dispatches 

 were published, it became evident that the charges 

 of corruption were but the slanders of foiled suborn- 

 ers of corruption. The parties to the attempted bri- 

 beries were compelled to admit on the witness-stand 

 the sending of the criminating messages. Mr. Pel- 

 ton was obliged to bear the largest share of the 

 blame. Mr. Marble had been the loudest in the cry 

 of fraud, and when obliged to confess the author- 

 ship of some of the damaging dispatches, his pretext 

 that he had sent them as " danger signals" merited 

 the contemptuous laughter with which it was re- 

 ceived. Mr. Smith Weed could assume the bold 

 position that it was riglit to rescue stolen goods. 

 The denials of Messrs. Pelton and Tilden of the 

 complicity of the latter can not remove the taint of 

 suspicion which rests upon him. Messrs. Woolley, 

 Marble, and Smith Weed were on terms of intimacy 

 with him. They were selected by his nephew and 

 furnished with the cipher. Mr. Marble's dispatches 

 were sent to 15 Gramercy Park, and the others, as 

 being more apt to awake suspicion, to Havemeyer. 

 After Tilden had put an end to the negotiations for 

 the bribery of the South Carolina canvassers, yet 

 Mr. Pelton remained in full control, continued the 

 Florida negotiations, nnd attempted to bribe an Ore- 

 gon Elector. Mr. Tilden could not have taken an 

 acknowledged part in an open bargain for the South 

 Carolina Canvassing Board ; and when the proposi- 

 tion was put. to him by Mr. Cooper, he could not 

 have acted otherwise thn he did. After the publi- 

 cation of the dispatches, Mr. Tilden did not offer to 

 exonerate himself until he feared that a summons 

 would be sent to him. 



With regard to the asserted corruptibility of the 

 Returning Boards, it was shown that in South Caroli- 

 na Smith Weed was played upon by men shrewder 

 than himself for purposes in a manner justifiable. In 

 Florida the charge that the Canvassing Board could be 

 bought rests only on hearsay evidence. The attack in 

 the report on General Noyes is altogether unwarrant- 

 ed. The fact that the canvassers returned the State 

 for Hayes is taken as a reason for imputing fraud or 

 corruption ; whereas it appears that, if the rule advo- 

 cated by the majority had been followed, and the 

 Board had been simply authorized to sum up the 

 votes appearing upon the face of the returns, there 

 would have been 40 majority for Hayes ; if the rule 

 laid down by the Supreme Court had been adopted, 

 the majority would have been 200; and if they had 

 proceeded according to the advice of the Democratic 

 Attorney- General, purging the county returns of 

 fraud, they would have had 900 majority. 



With regard to Louisiana, there is no reliable evi- 

 dence that the alleged Sherman letter had any ex- 

 istence. The evidence taken before the Committee 

 regarding violence and intimidation in the " bull- 

 dozed" parishes rather sustains than contradicts the 

 original .-ifiidavits presented to the Returning Board 

 and the Visiting Committee. The forged certificate, 

 as the records show, was not the one considered by 

 the Electoral Commission. 



