804 



UNITED STATES. 



mittee will have probably but one opportunity to re- 

 port in this Congress, and this amendment OOiJd, if 

 added to the resolution, be made to prevent the re- 

 port at that time, and thus to deprive us of an op- 

 portunity to report at all. Just as we got ready to 

 report we should be liable to be stopped to take fur- 

 ther testimony in some of the added States brought 

 forward for the very purpose of preventing a report. 



But you suggest that to raise a question about the 

 last Presidential election will bring on disturbance 

 or revolution. Not at all. About that " possess 

 yourself in peace." There is not the slightest chance 

 of revolution or disturbance. When the whole 

 country was at fever heat on the subject of the elec- 

 tion, a way was tound to establish a tribunal to pass 

 upon the election, and every one submitted to that 

 determination. The President's title rests upon 

 that. If now it should appear that there was fraud, 

 which palpably affected the electoral vote, and which 

 the Commission did not notice, and if a legal reme- 

 dy exists for correcting the error, you can not believe 

 that such a proceeding under the law could lead to 

 disturbance. If there be no such legal remedy ex- 

 isting, and Congress should hereafter, by the ap- 

 proval of the President, or by two thirds of both 

 Houses without that approval, provide one, why 

 should the legal determination thereafter had any 

 more produce disturbance than the decision of the 

 Electoral Commission did ? 



It is exactly because this is not Mexico and be- 

 cause the people prefer determining questions by 

 legal methods, ana, if the legal methods have not 

 been provided, to invent legal methods of determin- 

 ing them, and submit to the determination thus 

 arrived at that this country can not be Mexicanized. 



About the enumeration of electoral votes there 

 could be no question. Eight and eight could only 

 he counted as sixteen. Neither could there be ques- 

 tion that the conceded vote of every State should be 

 counted. To refuse that would be revolutionary. 

 But when there were two lona fide returns from a 

 State, each claiming to be its vote, it was a necessity 

 to decide between these returns before either return 

 could be counted. This determination could only 

 be made by the Vice-President who opened the re- 

 turns, or by the Congress in whose presence they 

 were opened. I thought it clear from the nature of 

 our Government, from the precedents, and from the 

 opinions so many statesmen had expressed, that this 

 grave power upon which the last election did, and 

 upon which any election might depend, could only 

 be vested in Congress. If this power rested in Con- 

 gress alone, then the action of Congress was neces- 

 sary before a choice could be made between conflict- 

 ing returns ; and so, whenever the two Houses of 

 Congress could not agree on their choice of a return 

 one House preferring one and the other the other 

 no choice could be had, and the vote of that State 

 would be lost, not because one House had any greater 

 rights or powers than the other, not because either 

 or both Houses together had the right to reject ar- 

 bitrarily or to refuse to reckon any certain electoral 

 vote, but only because in case of lona fide conflict- 

 ing returns from a State, each claiming to represent 

 the electoral vote, it was a necessity to choose be- 

 tween the returns before the vote of the State could 

 be counted. This was the view at last established. 

 The Electoral Commission to decide the disputed 

 votes was created by Congress, and that was the 

 only authority it possessed. 



Now, it Hcemed to me in 1 876 that this was so clear, 

 and that the leading Republican Senators had so 

 generally committed themselves to this view in pre- 

 vious discussions, that we ought to stand upon that 

 ground ; to declare that we would abide the action ot 

 Congress, would accept whomever the Congress found 

 to be elected, and that if the two Houses should fail 

 to agree as to which of the returns from any State 

 from which there were bona fide, duplicate returns 

 phould be received, whereby the vote of the State 



was lost, and no election by the electors should thus 

 result, we would then abide by and maintain the 

 choice of the House of Eepresentatives, the body 

 authorized by^ the Constitution to elect the President 

 where there is no election by the electoral college. 

 Instead of doing this we drifted along, until at last 

 the Eepublicans, hewing all the while to the line, 

 had got us where we were ready to accept the Elec- 

 toral Commission. Having accepted it, of course 

 we were bound to accept its results, but we ought at 

 least to be allowed to show if such was the fact 

 that the returns upon which the Commission passed 

 were procured by fraud. 



I admit that the Presidency is not worth a civil 

 war, but I have not believed there was any darger of 

 such a war. The generation who charged up the 

 heights of Fredericksburg, and defended the works 

 at Petersburg, will not go lightly into another chil 

 struggle. We must get years further on before that 

 will happen. I remember after the election remark- 

 ing to General McDowell that a great mine might be 

 exploded by a spark, to which he answered, " Yes, 

 if the train be inflammable, but this time the pow- 

 der is wet." He was right. There never was dan- 

 ger of a civil war. 



The whole thing was, as I think, a gigantic game, 

 in which we held the cards and the Eepublicans 

 blufl'ed us. Years hence, when it is remembered 

 that we needed only one electoral vote, a,nd that 

 your side cculd not get on without every one of the 

 remaining seventeen, that we liad 300,000 popular 

 majority, that our majorities were around the capi- 

 lal, yours in New England, the Northwest, and the 

 Pacific coast, that the moral sense of the country was 

 that our man was elected and yours not, that you 

 had nothing on your side but the coutrol of an ai'my 

 of which 10,000 men could not be got together, the 

 privates mostly in sympathy with us, and command- 

 ed by officers educated to understand the supremacy 

 of the civil over the military authority officers who, 

 excepting the leaders, Grant, Sheiman, and Sheri- 

 dan, could, I believe, never have been generally used 

 to resist the declaration of the House of Eepresenta- 

 tives (I am told this will appear certainly whenever 

 the secret correspondence of the War Department is 

 revealed) and that you were laden down with the 

 care of the national credit, the first shock to which 

 would have arrayed against you all the moneyed in- 

 stitutions in the country ; that under such conditions, 

 I say, your leaders contrived and were able to carry 

 through the capture of all these seventeen votes, 

 will be regarded as one of the greatest political per- 

 formances of history. I admit the success of the 

 Eepublican leaders. Having lain down when the 

 law was on our side and when we ought to have 

 stood up, it is not for us now to stand up as long as 

 the law remains against us. 



But you will ask whether, if there be no danger to 

 public order from legal proceedings, there may not 

 be from action by Congress. No ; no mere than 

 from the action of the courts. Congress represents 

 the people of the country, but does not march before 

 them. It expresses but does not anticipate their 

 will. Should fraud connected with the electoral 

 count appear so gross and palpable that you and all 

 honorable men should unite in denouncing it, Con- 

 gress might then take action. But if so, what Con- 

 gress might do, being the result of the action of 

 men of all parties of the great body of the people, 

 not of a party, would be effected quietly, certainly, 

 and without violence or disturbance. In saying this 

 I do not mean that I expect the investigation to be 

 followed by either legal or Congressional action. 

 What, if anything, should be done because of the 

 inquiry, must depend upon the results of the inqui- 

 ry. But I do mean that whatever action, if any, 

 should follow the investigation, such action c; n 

 neither disturb the order nor the prosperity of the 

 country. This cry of wolf, when there is no wolf, 

 this effort to make it appear that there is danger to 



