Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1878 — MR. POTTER’S LETTER. [ARTICLE]

MR. POTTER’S LETTER.

Showing How Nothing Hut Good Can Result from Inquiry—Republican Nonsense About Violence—Most Excellent Reasons lor Ordering Investigation—The Results That Are Looteed For.

The Hon. Clarkson N. Potter, having received a letter from a friend in New York containing certain inquiries in regard to the effect of his resolution, has prepared the following answer: Washington, May 27, 1878. My Dear Sir : I have your letter of the 25th. * * * You ask me why Mr. Stephens was “ howled ” down ? The “ howling ” was by the newspapers. To interrupt the pending order of business by a motion or a statement requires unanimous content, and every member has the absolute right to object to the interruption. This objection is expressed by the words, “ I object,” or a demand for “ the regular order.” Sometimes one person will prevent' the interruption ; sometimes the desire to prevent it is general, and then the cry of “regular order” will be from many persons. It so happened that there was a very general unwillingness to hear Mr. Stephens. 'He had suggested that we should receive and adopt the Hale amendment. It was reported that he had given the Republicans a list of twenty-two mimes who would follow him in any motion of his to prevent investigation. About this he was grossly mistaken, and this made our side especially unwilling to hear hm. But you will observe that when I rose to make a proposition to Mr. Hale, and the Republican outcry prevented my being heard, it was announced by the press that “Mr. Potter’s inquiry was interrupted,” w r hile Mr. Stephens was headlined as “ the venerable statesman howled down by Potter’s mob.”

You ask me why we should not let the Halo amendment be attached to our resolution ? Because it was not germane. An inquiry into frauds accomplished and which changed the electoral vote is proper to prevent their repetition, but an inquiry into more attempts at fraud, which resulted in nothing, is not. First, because we understood it contained recitals to which we could not assent, and which would have forced us to vote against our own resolution. Becond, because we offered Mr. Hale every opportunity to have his amendment adopted as a separate resolution. That it was not so offered shows it was really not desired. Third, because its incorporation into the resolution might have had the effect of preventing any report upon the resolution. As it is, the committee will have probably but one opportunity to report in this Congress, and this amendment could, if added to tho resolution, be made to prevent the report at that time, and thus to deprive us of an opportunity to report at ali. Just as we got ready to report we should be liable to be stopped to take further testimony in some of the added States brought forward for the very purpose of preventing a report. But you suggest that to raiso a question about the last Presidential election will bring on disturbance or revolution. Not* at ail. About that “ possess yourself iupeace.” There is not the sligntest chance of revolution or disturbance. When the whole country was at fever heat on tho subject of tho eßction, a way was found to establish a tribunal to pass upon the election, aud everyone 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, aud which the commission did not notice, and if a legal remedy exists for correcting the error, you cannot believe that such a proceeding under the law could lead to disturbance. If there be no such legal remedy existing, and Congress should hereafter, by the approval 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 because the' people prefer determining questions by legal methods, and, if the legal methods have not been provided, to invent legal methods of determining them, and submit to the determination thus arrived at, that this country cannot be Mexican zed. About the enumeration of electoral votes there could be no question. Eight and eight could only be counted as sixteen. Neither could there be question that the coucedtd veto of every State should be counted. To refuse that would be revolutionary. But when there were two bona 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 returns, 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 Congress alone, men the action of Congress was necessary before a choice could be made between conflicting returns; and so whenever the two houses of Congress could not agree in their choice of a return—ono 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 ary greater rights or powers than the other, not because either or both houses together hRd the right to reject arbitrarily or to refuse to reckon any certain electoral vote, but only because in case of bona fide conflicting returns from a State, each claiming to represent its electoral vote, it was a necessity to choose between the returns before the vote of the State could be counted. This was the view at last established, for the Electoral Commission to decide the disputed votes was created by Congress, and that was the only authority it possessed. Now, it seemed to me in 1876 that this was so clear, and that the leading Republican Senators had so generally committed themselves to this view in previous discussions, that we ought to stand upon that ground—to declare that we would abide the action of 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 should be received, whereby the vote of the State was lost, and no election by the electors should thus resuit, we would then abide and maintain the choice of the House of Representatives, the body authorized by the constitution to elect the President where there is no choice by the Electoral College. Instead of doing this <ve drifted along until the Republicans, hewing all the while to the line, had got us where we were willing to accept the Electoral Commission. Having accepted it, of course we were bound to submit to 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 daDger of such a war. The generation who charged up the heights of Frederick and defended the works at Petersburg will not go lightly into another civil struggle. We must get years further do before that will happen, I

rem ember after the election remarking to Gen McDowell that a great mine might be exploded by a spark. To which he answered, “Yes, if the train be inflammable, bnt this time the powder is wet.” He was right. There never was a danger of civil war. The whole thing was, as I think, a gigantic game, in which we held the cards and the Republicans bluffed us. Years hence, when it is remembered that wt needed only one electoral vote, and that your ride could not get on without every one of the remaining seventeen—that we had 300,000 popular majority, that our majorities were arouud tbe Capitol, 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 tbe control of an ftrmy, of which 10,000 men could not be got together, the privates mostly in sympathy with us and commanded by officers educated to understand the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, rfficers who (excepting the leaders, Grant", Sherman, and Shtridan) could, I believe, never have been generally used to resist the declaration of the House of Representatives (I am told this will appear certainly whenever the eecret correspondence of the War Department is revealed)—-and that you were laden down with the care of the national credit, the fi*st shock to which would have arrayed aga n-it you all the moneyed institutions of the country—that under such conditions, I say, yocr leaders contrived and were able to carry through the capture of all those seventeen votes will be regarded as ore of the greatest political performances of history. I admit the success of the Ropubican leaders. Having lain down when the law was on our tide, and when we ought to have stood up, it is not for us now to stand up as long as the law remains against ns. 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 more 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 apfiear so gross and palpable that you and all lonorable men should unite iu denouncing it, Congress might then take action. But, if so, what Congress might do, being tbe result of the action of meu 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 Baying this Ido 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 tbe inquiry. But Ido mean that whatever action, if any, should follow the investigation, such action can 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 peace or order from this investigation, is a Republican pretence like the “ bloody shirt” justification of carpet-bag government, like the “public danger ” excuse advanced for the enforcement of Durell’s infamous order, and the protection of the Returning Board by bayonets, like the cry set up after the election to prevent any agitation aud to secure submission. We must have a very sorry sort of popular government if Congresp cannot even inquire into frauds in the choice of the Executive without endangering tho peace and prosperity of the country. What, then, you ask, is the purpose of the investigation? 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 belief 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 wheu a large portion, if not a large majority, of the people believe that the last Presidential election was secured by organized fraud, surely an inquiry to ascertain the facts ought to be had. The feeling among many Republicans, after the election, was lhat while we had been cheated in tbe returns we had bulldozed the negroes as badly, so that the accounts of wrong were about equal. This belief in the bulldozing of tho negro was based mainly upon the fact that iu certain districts iu 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 uuden-tood that this condition of things was fraudulently prepared by ‘he Republicans. They ought to understand . vt, 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 east become thus the body that elect. So long as they exercise their functions under the prelection of the State alone the influence and indignation of the people wiil prevent them from any flagrant and enormous outrage. The public pre.-sure will necessitate some excuse for subverting ihe 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 uJbtence of preserving order; surround tkerrSwith Federal Dayonets, and they cease to be responsible to any one but the national administration which protects them. There need then be no limit to, as there is longer "no check upon their abuses. To throw out the votes of one side and keep in the votes of the other without cause, to invent pretext for suih wrongs, to accept after continued protests and manufactured objections as color for their action, to permit figures to be altered, returns to be forged, frauds to be perfected, and generally every means by which the will of the people may be frustrated and the popular voice stifled then becomes possible, and there may be thus a condition of things absolutely destructive of free government. We believe that it was by such proceedings 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 300,000 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 tho latter have forty electoral votes and a million popular majority. And this will go on time after time until tho outrage becomes intolerable. Let us rather, as Mr. Jefferson said, “have a jealous care of the right of election by the people, and seek a safe and mild corrective for abuses which, where no peaceable remedy is provided, are lopped by the sword of revolution.” It has been said" thaj there was nothing more cowardly than a million of dollars except two millions.* This is natural. But it is the mistake of capital to magnify the dangers on the surface and overlook those that lie below. Just now’ your capitalists are troubling themselves about the Commune, and oppose the reduction of the army, which they would have kept up as a national police. And yet, in no great country of the world is there so little danger of Communism as in this, for nowhere is property so generally distributed. But capitalists stood by supinely when the army was used to "protect Returning Boards in stifling the votes of States and frustrating the will of their people, and under the p'retence of maintaining order to subvert the very principles of free government. Believe me in this, there was real danger. Governments are based upon principle. The theory of this Government is that the people of the States shall choose electors for themselves, and that by the aggregate voice of such electors the national Executive shall be selected. To let the party in power interfere by force of arms to protect local boards in falsifying the will of tbe localities is to subvert* the theory of this Government, and lead surely to its destruction. Whatever may result from the proposed investigation, you may be sure that nothing can result that will disturb either your flocks or j-our 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 prevent its repetition. To shut your eyes to it supinely is to jeopard and not to preeerve the future peace, safety, and prosperity of the country. Faithfully yours, Clarkson N. Potter. To the Rev. .

A Texas paper relates the st@ry of a family who left Terrell, that State, the other day, in a two-horse wagon. Just outside of the town the man and wife quarreled. The woman jumped out of the wagon, unhitched one of the horses, and declared that she meant to play quits. The girl joined the mother, and the two rode away. The old man and the boy and the othei’ horse were left to get along as best they could.

A sheep ranche as large as the State of Rhode Island has been established in Tom Green county, Tex.