UNITED STATES. 



805 



peace or order from this investigation, is a Repub- 

 lican pretense, like the " bloody shirt" justification 

 of carpet-bag government ; like the " public-danger" 

 excuse, advanced for the enforcement of Durell's in- 

 famous order, and the protection of the Returning 

 Board by bayonets ; like the cry set up after the 

 election to prevent any agitation and to secure sub- 

 mission. We must have a very sorry sort of popu- 

 lar government if Congress can not even inquire 

 into frauds in the choice of the Executive without 

 endangering the peace and prosperity of the coun- 

 try. 



What, then, you ask, is the purpose of the inves- 

 tig-ftion ? I answer, to ascertain the facts, so that if 

 frauds be established a repetition of such frauds may 

 be prevented, and if not, to clear up the general be- 

 lief throughout the country that there were such 

 frauds. ^ It is true that not every allegation of wrong 

 is to be inquired into by Congress ; but when a large 

 portion, if not a large majority of the people, believe 

 that the last Presidential election was secured by or- 

 ganizsil fraud, surely an inquiry to ascertain the facts 

 ought to be had. 



The feeling among many Republicans after the 

 election was that, while we had cheated in the re- 

 turns, we had bulldozed the negroes so badly that 

 the accounts of wrong were about equal. This be- 

 lief in the bulldozing of the negroes was based main- 

 ly upon the fact that, in certain districts of the South 

 which usually gave Republican majorities, there was 

 not returned that year a single Republican vote. 

 Now, the people of the North have never understood 

 that this condition of things was fraudulently pre- 

 pared by the Republicans. They ought to under- 

 stand that, and beyond that they ought to understand 

 that there never was anything so dangerous to a free 

 government as a Returning Board. A delegation of 

 persons vested with discretionary power to revise 

 the votes cast become thus the body that elect. So 

 long as they exercise their functions under the pro- 

 tection of the State alone, the influence and indigna- 

 tion of the people will prevent them from any fla- 

 grant and enormous outrage. The public pressure 

 will necessitate some excuse for subverting the choice 

 of the people, some limitation upon the outrages they 

 do to the popular wish. But separate them from 

 the people by a cordon of Federal troops under the 

 pretense of preserving order, surround them with 

 FeJeral bayonets, and they cease to be responsible 

 to any one but the national Administration which 

 protects them. There need, then, be no limit to, aa 

 there is no longer any check upon, their abuses. To 

 throw out the votes of one side and keep in the votes 

 of the other without cause, to invent pretexts for such 

 wrongs, to accent after continued protests and man- 

 ufactured objections as color for their action, to per- 

 mit figures to be altered, returns to be forged, frauds 

 to be perfected, and generally every means* by which 

 the will of the people mayba frustrated and the pop- 

 ular voice stifled, then becomes possible, and tnere 

 maybe thus a condition of things absolutely destruc- 

 tive of free government. We believe that it was by 

 such proceedings that we were cheated out of the 

 election. 



Unless the proceedings be exposed, the outrage 

 will be repeated If an Administration can defraud 

 its opponents out of the results of an election, at 

 which they had seventeen electoral and three hun- 

 dred thousand popular majority, and no effort is 

 made even to inquire into the wrong, there is nothing 

 the next time to prevent the same Administration 

 cheating their opponents, even though the latter have 

 forty electoral votes and a million popular majority. 

 And this will go on time after time, until the out- 

 rage becomes intolerable. Let us rather,^ as Mr. Jef- 

 ferson said, " have a jealous care of the right of elec- 

 tion by the people, and seek a safe and mild correc- 

 tive for the abuses which, where no peaceable rem- 

 edy is provided, are lopped by the sword of revolu- 

 tion." 



It has been said that there was nothing more cow- 

 ardly than a million dollars except two million. Thin 

 is nature. But it is the mistake of capital to mairnily 

 the dangers on the surface und overlook thoe that 

 ho below. Just now your capitalist* are troubling 

 themselves about the Commune, und oppose the re- 

 duction of the unny, whieh they would have kept up 

 u a national police. And yet, in no jfreat country 

 ol the world is there so little danger of Communism. 

 as in this, for nowhere is property bo generally dis- 

 tributed. But capitalists stood by supinely when 

 the army was used to protect Returning Board** iu 

 stifling the votes of States aud frustrating the will of 

 their people, and under the pretense of maintaining 

 order to subvert the very principles of free govern- 

 ment. Believe me, in tins there was real danger. 

 Governments are based upon principle. The theory 

 of this Government is that the people of the 8tat 

 shall choose electors for themselves, and that by the 

 aggregate voice of such electors the national Execu- 

 tive shall be selected. To let the purty in power 

 interfere by force of arms to protect a local board 

 in falsifying the will of the localities is to subvert 

 the theory of this Government, and lead surely to 

 its destruction. 



Whatever may result from the proposed investi- 

 gationj you may be sure that nothing can result that 

 will disturb either your flocks or your balances. 

 The trouble to capital, property, and freedom will 

 come, not perhaps in your time or mine, but come 

 at last, from refusing to inquire into frauds. To 

 confront the evil, if you may not right it, is to pre- 

 vent its repetition. To shut your eyes to it supine- 

 ly is to jeopard and not to preserve the future peace, 

 safety, and prosperity of the country. Faithfully 

 yours, CLARKSON N. POTTER. 



To the Rev. . 



On the same day a letter from the Post- 

 master-General, Mr. Key, of Tennessee, was 

 published as an address to the Southern peo- 

 ple, and as an answer to many private lei- 

 ters received by him which disclaimed sym- 

 pathy with any effort to unseat President 

 Hayes : 



WASHINGTON, May 28, 1878. 



The circumstances attending the passage of the 

 Potter resolution to investigate the alleged frauds in 

 the Presidential election of 1876 in the States of 

 Louisiana and Florida, together with the subsequent 

 declarations of many influential Democratic politi- 

 cians and journalists, evidence that if both Houses 

 of the Forty-sixth Congress are Democratic, the ma- 

 jority intend to oust President Hayes and inaugurate 

 Mr. Tilden. The title of President Hayes was set- 

 tled irrevocably by the Forty-fourth Congress, in 

 the act creating the Electoral Commission under 

 which he was legally declared elected and legally in- 

 augurated. The Forty-fifth Congress has no more 

 right to dispute his election than he has to question 

 the title of any victorious contestant to his scat in 

 that body. The Forty-sixth Congress will have no 

 more right to ignore him and recognize his defeated 

 contestant, Mr. Tilden, than Mr. Hayes would have 

 to send a file of soldiers to the House of Representa- 

 tives to unseat a Democrat whom he might consider 

 to have been wrongfully seated or fraudulently 

 elected. The leaders in this desperate attempt to 

 Mexicanizo our institutions rely confidently upon 

 the " Solid South" to furnish the bulk of the Demo- 

 cratic majority in the next House of Representatives, 

 the Senate being already scoured. Remembering 

 the encouragement which the Northern Democrat*, 

 in 18fiO and 1861, extended to the Southern States to 

 secede, and the manner in which their promises of 

 aid and comfort were fulfilled, can the Southern 

 people afford to join this revolutionary movement 

 with the certainty that when the inevitable hour ol 



