Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1877 — THE GREAT FRAUD, [ARTICLE]

THE GREAT FRAUD,

Speech of lion. Allen <3. Thnriiihb, at lHurion, Okio. I take it for granted that the most of yon believe—l feel certain that a large majority of the people of tie Unit ed States believe—l know that I believe that Samuel Tilden wai elected President of the United States at tho last election. But we all know that he was not inaugurated. ‘ We all know that his competitor, Gen. was inaugurated, and we all know, more or less, some more and some Less, the means by which Mr. Tilden came to lose his inauguration and by which Gen. Hayes gained it. But now, if a Democratic speaker alludes to the subject, he is forthwith assailed by Republican orators and the Republican press with a great show of affected indignation. They say that he is attempting to spoil the judiciary and bring the judiciary into disrepute. As if the Electoral Oommission -was a part of the judiciary of the United States 1 and as if these men. who had no language too severe when they were condemning a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States for the Dred Scott decision, and attributed to the Judges the basest motives that could influence the human heart, and kept up that denunciation for many long years, and kept it up at the risk of the peace of tho country and the very union of the States ! I say it comes with poor grace from them to talk about injuring the fame and standing of the judiciary. But there is no trouble in that charge. The Electoral Commission was bound to act judicially, I admit; but it was no part of the judiciary of the United States. Again, they say: But you bring the Presidential office into disrepute. Well, my friends, if the Presidential office is brought into disrepute by the Presidential chair being obtained through usurpation and fraud, I cannot help it, and you cannot help it; if that chair does not appeal- as high and noble an object of ambition as it was when Washington and Jackson occupied it, it is not onr fault, my Democratic friends.

Now, in respect to the title of Gen. Hayes to the Presidency, I admit, every one admits, that we are bound to recognize him as the President of the United States. He has been declared President in a mode—that is to say, by the Congress of the United States—which I believe to be constitutional. He is, therefore, to be considered President of the United States. But does that seal our months as to the means by which he became President. A decision of a court may bind everybody, but if that decision, was erroneous aro we not at liberty to point out its errors ? If a decision was obtained by fraud, are you not at liberty to condemn the fraud? Nay, is it not a duty to condemn it? And if President Hayes, however pure he may be, however well-meaning he may be, however perfect his title to the Presidency must now be considered—if he has obtained that high office by usurpation and by fraud of canvassing boards, then, as good citizsens; then, as fidends of our free institutions ; then, as lovers of truth arid justice, we are bound to condemn the metens by which that result was achieved. And now, what were those ineans? Why, they were, in the first place, the most glaring usurpations and frauds in Louisiana and Florida that ever disgraced any country that had an election system. And, in the second place, they wore the refusal of the Electoral Commission to go behind fraudulent certificates of the returning officers and look into their usurpations and into their frauds. To explain this—and I must do it briefly, for I want to be brief in what I have to say today: First, look at Louisiana. How were the votes of the election counted? They were counted first by the Judges of the Election, just as they are counted in Ohio by your Judges of Election. Then the returns were sent to county officers called the Supervisors of Begistration, by whom they were sent to New Orleans to a Returning Board, and that Returning Board then canvassed those returns and declared the result. Now the law of Louisiana provided—and I shall not stop hero to inquire whether it was a constitutional law or not, though I am perfectly convinced it was not—the law provided that the Judges of Election or tho Supervisors of Registration should send up with the ret urns a certitica c that a fair 'election could not be held in a particular precinct, or in a particular parish (as they are called there, which is the same as our county), if such were the fact, and that this certificate be fortified by the oaths of two respectable citizens of the precinct or parish ; that then the Returning Board might proceed to investigate whether there was a fair election in that precinct or parish. They were to hear testimony on the subject, and, it' convinced that a fair election was prevented by fraud or violence or the like, the vote of that precinct might be cast out. Now mark it; that Returning Board had no more power to cast out the vote of a precinct, or a parish, unless these certificates came up from the county or precinct officials, than you had to cast it out. The sole jurisdiction to cast it out depended upon these coming with the returns, the certificate of the precinct officers, supported by the affidavits of two respectable citizens, certifying that a fair and peaceable election had been prevented. Without tho certificate the Returning Board had no more authority or right to throw out the vote of a single precinct than you in the State of Ohio, had to interfere and throw out the vote of a precinct or county in Louisiana. And yet, what did that Returning Board last fall do ? Without a single one of these certificates, which the ’ law required in order to give them any jurisdiction whatever ; without a single one of them sent up with the election returns, they threw out the votes of county after county, precinct after precinct, until they threw out from 6,000 to 10,000 votes that had been cast for the Tilden electors, aiid by that means created an apparent majority for the Hayes electors, and gave the Hayes electors an election certificate. Not only did they do that, but they cast out precincts all over the State in order to give tho Republicans a majority in the Legislature. Now, it was by that usurpation and fraud that that Returning Board disfranchised the people of the State of Louisiana, deprived the majority of the people of that State of their choice for President, and gave the certificates to men who were defeated by from six thousand to ten thousand votes. And then when the proof, the most abundant proof, was offered at Washington before the Electoral Commission, which sat there to try the case, that commission, by a vote of eight to seven, declared that they would not look into tho testimony at all. Wouldn't you think it strange if the court that occupies this bench should call a case for trial and begin the trial by announcing that it would not hear any evidence? Wouldn’t you think that it was a strange mode of judicial procedure in a court? Wouldn’t that Judge hear some notes of condemnation in this goodly county of Marion? I fancy he would—notes that he would not forget for & lifetime. And yet that, in substance, is precisely what took place at ■ Washington last February, when the amplest proof of the usurpation and vrauds of these lieturning Boards was offered to be brought before the Elect iral Commission, and the door was shut in the face of the proof, and those who offered it were told by the Commissioners, “We won’t look behind the" certificates of the Returning Boards”—of those men who had been guilty of these frauds and this usurpation.

But let us turn now to Florida. There was another board, » Canvassing Board. The majority of the' votes cast in Florida were for Tilden electors. I never yet have seen a man who denied that fact. Thefti how could the vote of that State be thrown for Hayes ? Why, because tho Canvassing Board of that State did precisely what the Returning Board of Louisiana did, cast out enough Democratic votes to give the Hayes majority. Jlad they any right to do that ? Why, the Supreme Court of that State, composed entirely, 1 believe, of Republican Judges, certainly a majority of them, solemnly decided in the eate of the Governor of that State, who was elected at the same election, that the Canvassing Board had no authority whatever for casting out votes, that they were bound to count the votes that were given, and declare the result according to the votes that and hence, although that Canvassing Board gave a fraudulent certificate that the Republican candidate Cor Governor was elected, yet the Supreme Court compelled them to reverse that decision, and the Democratic candidate who was elected received the office, and hist in the same way as the Democratic candidate fdr Governor was elected So was the Democratic candidate for the office of President elected, and so tne decision of the Sttpreme Court of that State, the highest court» the State, that this Canvassing Board must count the vote for the Democratic candidate for Governor as would have compelled them to count in the Demo-

cratfc electors, but ’they'paid no heed to that decision, but threw' out Democratic votes to give the State to Hayes. Why? Because Hayes could not be declared elected without he got all the votes <>f Florida and all the votes of Louisiana. Without those States Mr. Tilden had 185 votes, and needed but one more. It was necessary then to give Hayes all the votes of Louisiana and all the votes of Florida, and they did it. And now, my friends, whether the Electoral Commission decided correctly or incorrectly in saying they would not go behind the returns, yet the fact remains that it was by the usurpation a d fraud of the Returning Boards of those two States that Rutherford B. Hayes is seated in the Presidential chair today. And now Ido say to any one who tells me that I ought not to stir up the matter, I say to him I will—so long as my feeble strength will enable me to do it—l will stir it up, for if the people of this country can condone such a thing as that; if they can forgive it, I ask any man of you when will you ever see a man inaugurated as President in a clone election if fraud and usurpation of the subordinate officers of the States, the Canvassing Boards of the States, can prevent his being elected ? Why, if that can be done in Louisiana and Florida, it can be done in Ohio. Who has the counting of the votes here in Ohio ? The Secretary of State, in the presence of such Sheriffs as see fit to attend, yet the counting is done by the Secretary of State. Why, suppose that at the last election Mr. Bell, the Democratic Secretary of State at that time, and having the canvassing of those votes for President and Vice President in Ohio, had seen fit to follow the same plan of the Returning Boards of Florida and Louisiana, and had thrown out enough Republican counties in Ohio to give the votes of the State to Tilden, would we ever have heard the last of it ? Would he ever have heard the last of it ? Wouldn’t the loudest voice of condemnation have gone out denouncing the man who had been guilty of that usurpation and fraud ? And yet Mi-. Bell had just as much right when he canvassed the vote of Ohio last fall for President and Vice President to throw out Ashtabula and Geauga, and half a dozen more counties on the Western Reserve, and declare the Ohio vote for Tilden, as had those Returning Boards to throw out 6,000 or 10,000 votes in Louisiana and hundreds of votes in Florida, and give the votes of those States to Hayes. Now, my friends, if tho people overlook these things, if they don’t condemn them in the only manner in which they can condemn them, by their votes, if they don’t set tho seal of their condemnation upon them it will be in vain in the future to hope for an honest declaration of the Presidential election wherever the vote is at all close between the candidates. Therefore it is, my friends, that 1 consider it a matter of the first importance to call your attention to this to-day that you may bear it in mind, for unless you condemn this great injustice it will grow into a precedent, and will be followed hereafter, and, instead of the President being made by the votes of the people, he will be made by the frauds and. usurpations of the servants of the people, whose duty it is to count the votes. But how does the administration treat those who were guilty of those frauds and usurpations? lam very sorry to say that it treats them just exactly in the opposite manner in which they should be treated. Who was the head and front of the Returning Board in Louisiana ? A man named James Madison Wells—l am sorry his parents christened him with so good a name as James Madison. He was the head and front of it. What was he ? Surveyor of the port of New Orleans, one of the most lucrative of tho Federal offices in the gift of the President within the State of Louisiana. Did he lose that office ? Did his frauds and usurpations cause him to lose that office under this civil-service reform administration? Has it carried civil-service reform sufficiently far to take hold of this corrupt man and shake him out of that office that he holds by the commission of the President ? Not the least bit of it. But Mr. James Madison Wells still holds that office, and, if report is true, not a few of his followers and hangers-on arc also provided for. Who is the next man ? One Anderson—Gen. Anderson, I think, he is called. He was a Confederate General, but that don’t make any difference in these latter days, when the lion and the lamb lie down together in office. How is it with him? Has he any influence with the administration? Why, according to statements I have seen, and which I have never seen contradicted and believe to be true nearly all that man’s family are in office in Louisiana*

How was it with those men in Florida—those bogus Hayes electors, who took their title by the rascality I have mentioned and cast their vote for Hayes ? Have they been frowned upon by this civil-service reform administration? Not at all. But a few days since I saw an announcement in a New York paper that one of them had been appointed to an office of high trust and honor. Well, now, if the Government does not condemn and frown upon men who employ such means, such frauds and usurpations as I have named, how much more necessary is it that the people should do it, and by their sovereign voice declare that such things shall take place no more ? Leaving this subject, 1 want to congratulate you, my Democratic friends, upon the success of Democracy and Democratic principles. Wo lost the Presidency by the means to which I referred, but, although we lost the officers, the cause for which we contended has triumphed in the most remarkable manner. What did we tell those Republicans for ten long years since the close of the war? What have I, in my humble way, from this very spot, speaking where I now speak, said to you year after year since 1865? Why, that if you wanted peace and prosperity and good-will between all the people, white and black, down South ; if you wanted quiet and order down there ; if you wanted that country to recover from its depressed and almost destitute condition, all you had to do was to let the Southern States govern themselves as the Northern States govern themselves, and it would be all right. What did we hear in answer to this? Ah, those Southern men cannot be trusted. So, the first thing was to give the ballot to the negroes, in order that the negroes, under the dictation of carpetbaggers and supported by the army of the United States, might govern the whites. And, from that time forward, no matter how carpetbaggers plundered and consumed their substance, no matter how much the republic and its institutions were brought into disrepute, there was but one cry on the part of Republican leaders in or out of Congress, ‘ ‘ this is necessary, for the white men down there can not be trusted.” We said to them, “Wherever they have been trusted, instantly there is law and order. When finally you trusted them in Virginia, Virginia became as orderly as the State of Ohio. When finally you trusted them in North Carolina, North Carolina .became an orderly State, and if you will do by South Carolina and Florida and Alabama and Mlssisrinpi and Louisiana what you have done by North Carolina and Virginia Mid Tennessee, you will have just as orderly governments down there, just as peaceable s;ciety down there, just as perfect protection of the rights of all men, white and black, down there as they have in North Carolina, Virginia, or Ohio itself. They wouldn’t listen to us because the leaders of that party knew full well that it was not by peace and prosperity in the South that the Republican party was to flourish; they knew full well that the moment they were left to govern themselves, as you in Ohio govern yourselves without the interference of the Federal Government, without the Interference of Federal bayonets, that moment the intelligent portion of the people of the country would exercise their natural influence, and then there would be an end to carpet-bag governments in the Southern States, then there would be an end to the Republican party pretty much in the Southern States. That these men knew, and, therefore, they insisted upon the carpet-bag and bayonet governments throughout the South. And do .you remember last year what was the stanle of their speeches ? Mr. President Hayes now refers to a resolution in the platform of the Cincinnati Convention, and to his letter of acceptance, as showing that he intended to be kind toward the people of the South. Did any body hear that kind of talk from Republicans here last fall when they were on the stump in Ohio? I think we might offer a reward for any man who heard that kipd of sweet talk last year from a radical speaker. Not a word of it. Nothing but a denunciation of the South. We heard it said, if you leave the Southern people to manage themselves, and especially if the Democratic party succeed, they will inflict upon this country ten times as much evil as the war itself did; that they would pile upon the country the Confederate war debt and make the Government pay a pension to every Confederate soldier, and flood the treasury with false claims. Not only that, but that they would kill the negroes, put them down by the bayonet, and there would be no such thing *m peace and security in the South any more. Ana not only were these things sounded abroad, but we saw the bloody shirt held up to the gaze of

the people all over the continent; but not one word of this cooing of the turtle-dove that we now hear. That is the way it was. Very weU. They succeeded in getting the Presidency, but we ahcceeded in getting our ideas of constitutional law and of good sense and of humanity so strongly into the minds of the people of thia country- that even the Radical President was compelled, as soon as he was seated—some people say before, but as soon as he was seated—he was comjielled to turn right around and do all that Sam Tilden could have done if Sara bad been inaugurated in his stead. Well t now, I give hini credit for doing it, and yet it is a little funny. Is it not strange to see the President sending down a set of fellows there to seduce Packard’s niggers away from his Legislature, and by that means ousting Packard from being Governor of Louisiana, when Packard got 1,000 votes more than Hayes did? Ain’t that a little strange ? And yet you have seen it, I have no doubt but Tilden would have done the same thing in effect, but uot in exactly the sapie way. Then what a howl there would have been! Then you would have heard that the Democrats had turned out the lawfully-elected Legislature and a lawfully-elected Governor.