CONGKESS, UNITED STATES (ELECTORAL COMMISSION). 



171 



and hour the county clerk and the justice thus 

 requested attended. The county judge, how- 

 ever, absented himself, although he had given 

 the notice. He was invited and urged to go 

 on with the canvassing. The record shows 

 that he laughed, and said he thought that what 

 had been already done was enough. The sheriff 

 was then applied to, and he refused. There- 

 upon the county clerk and a justice of the peace 

 another justice called in recanvassed the 

 votes, giving the same result precisely, and 

 certified them to the State canvassers, stating 

 in the certificate the reasons why neither the 

 county judge nor the sheriff was present. The 

 office of the clerk was then closed for the day. 



" In the evening of that day the same county 

 judge and the same sheriff, taking to their as- 

 sistance a justice of the peace who had been 

 commissioned by Stearns only on the 10th, and 

 who had never acted before, entered the office 

 surreptitiously, opened a drawer and took out 

 the returns, threw aside two precincts, certified 

 the two remaining, and sent that certificate to 

 the State canvassers. You are now to say 

 whether this certificate of these men, under 

 these circumstances, in the darkness of the 

 night, throwing out two precincts, and certified 

 to the State canvassers, without any reason 

 why the county clerk was not present, shall be 

 taken as the voice of that county of Florida. 



" Now let me go from this county canvass to 

 the State canvass. "When the State canvassers 

 were at work there were certain significant tel- 

 egrams passed between Florida and Washing- 

 ton. I omit the names of the correspondents, 

 except that of the Governor, Stearns the same 

 whose certificate is before you, certifying to 

 the election of the Hayes electors. The exam- 

 ination is thus reported : 



Q. Do you recollect any telegram at Lake City 

 about the 25th of December, asking 



" (I will say, the Chairman of the National 

 Republican Committee) 

 any questions about attacking the returns ? 



A. I remember one dispatch I cannot give the 

 date asking on what grounds they should assail 

 these counties, or words to that effect. 



Q. What was the answer? 



A. There was a dispatch subsequently received ; 

 whether or not it was the answer to it, you must draw 

 your own conclusion. The words in it were "fraud, 

 intimidation." There was another word, which may 

 have been " violence ; " but I am not sure that it was 

 "violence." 



" Thereupon the State canvassers did what ? 

 They took the third canvass from Baker County 

 and amended it, as appears in the Congres- 

 sional Record of February 1, page 65, and 

 added, ' amended by canvassing all the precinct 

 returns,' and that statement in the full can- 

 vass is the true one as to Baker County ; that 

 is, they got at a true result in respect to that 

 county by taking the false certificate and 

 amending it so as to take in all the returns. 

 Bat what did they then do? Stearns was a 

 candidate for the office of Governor. He was 

 . then Governor, and he was a candidate for the 



succession. His opponent was Mr. Drew. The 

 canvassers were Stearns's appointees, to go out 

 of office with him, and to remain in office if he 

 was counted in. They took the returns from 

 the other counties and threw out enough to 

 give the State to the Hayes electors, and to 

 Stearns as Governor. 



" Thus the matter stood upon the State can- 

 vass thus made. You will observe that it gave 

 the tnie vote of Baker County, but eliminated 

 from the votes of other counties certain pre- 

 cincts enough to elect their patron Stearns. 

 But it did not remain so, as I will show in a 

 moment ; for this elimination being declared 

 by the Supreme Court illegal, the canvassers 

 thereupon, in order to prevent a majority ap- 

 pearing for the Tilden electors, recalled their 

 amendment of the Baker County false return, 

 and used it in all its falsehood. 



" These are all facts which we offer to make 

 good by such evidence as the commission may 

 prescribe, by a cloud of witnesses, and by a host 

 of documents. 



" This monstrous fraud being thus far accom- 

 plished, the people of the State took it upon 

 themselves to see if they could right the wrong, 

 and they did it with a spirit and a success 

 which does them all honor. First, Drew, the 

 candidate for Governor on the other side, went 

 into the Supreme Court of the State and applied 

 for a mandamus to compel this canvassing board 

 to restore to their canvass the eliminated pre- 

 cincts j and the Supreme Court decided that the 

 State canvassers had no power under the laws 

 of Florida to eliminate votes, but they were 

 bound to count every lawful vote put into the 

 ballot box ; that they were neither electors nor 

 judges otherwise than of what votes were put 

 in ; and, in obedience to that, they restored to 

 the canvass the rejected precincts and certified 

 a majority for Drew, and Drew took his place 

 and is now the lawful and accepted Governor 

 of the State. 



"What did the Tilden electors dp? TJiey com- 

 menced, in a Circuit Court of Florida which had 

 competent jurisdiction, an information in the 

 nature of quo warranto against the Hayes elec- 

 tors. They charged, in the information, that 

 they, the relators, were the lawful claimants 

 of the office, and that the others were usurpers. 

 That information was commenced before the 

 Hayes electors voted on the 6th of December. 

 The case proceeded in the regular course of 

 legal proceedings until it came to trial and 

 judgment, first upon a demurrer, and then, the 

 demurrer being overruled and an answer inter- 

 posed, upon the issues and proofs ; and here is 

 the judgment of the court. After the recitals : 



It is, therefore, considered and adjudged that said 

 respondents 



" Who were the Hayes electors Humphries, 

 and so on 



were not, nor was any one of them, elected, chosen, 

 or appointed as such electors or elector, or to receive 

 certificates or certificate of election or appointment 

 as such electors or elector, and that the said respOD- 



