Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1879 — THE STOLEN PRESIDENCY. [ARTICLE]

THE STOLEN PRESIDENCY.

Report of the Ptttter Coihmittee—A Repulsive Exhibit df the Abandoned and DestestAblein Politics—The Florida and Louisiana Conspiracies Traced from Their Inception to Their Triumph. Washington, D. C., March 4. Hon. Clarkson N. Potter, Chairman of the committee appointed by the House of Representatives to investigate the frauds in connection with the late Presidential election, on Saturday last submitted a report which he bad prepared to the committee, and it was adopted by a vote of six Democrats to three Republicans, Gen. Butler being absent The three Republicans—Hiscock, Cox and Reed—will prepare a minority report Mt. Potter’s report is necessarily long, as it deals with all the points that have been before the cottinlitteo ekcept the cipher dispatches, Which will be made the subject of a separate report, and will be presented to the committee to-morrow. Mr. Potter’s report is regarded by those who have perused it as singularly impartial They say it is entirely devoid both of rhetorical ornamentation and vituperative denunciation, and derives its force solely from a close logical deduction of facto presented to the committee. Some of the Democrats regard it as wanting in color, or not as strongly expressed as the facts warrant, and it is not unlikely some member of the committee belonging to the party will present an additional expression of their views. The report of Mr. Potter, in opening, sets forth what it was proper for Congress to Investigate, and what not. and the difficulty of conducting an investigation into conspiracies Which have been successfully carried otit While the successful party remains in power. It admits that the confessions of the Conspirators who have becoms dissatisfied is Worth little, but points to the fact, not generally understood, that About the essential features of the election and canvass in Florida and Louisiana there is no substantial dispute before the committee, the Republicans having called no witnesses in Florida and few in Louisiana, except as to the conduct of the visiting statesmen, and incidentally about intimidation. It dismisses entirely the testimony of Anderson, Jenks, Mrs. Jenks, Weber, and that class of witnesses, and deals with the case upon general and controlling facts alone. The report is divided into three parts, the first of which refers to Florida, the second to Louisiana, and the third to the forged electoral certificate. Beginning with Florida, it cites the law directing the Presidential electors to be appointed by the votes cast, and the Canvassing Board to canvass the votes cast, and claims that the Tilden electors, having received a majority of the Votes cast in this State, Were thereby necessarily entitled to be declared elected) and that the Canvassing Boards by rejecting without warrant of law a portion of the votes, so as to show a majority for Hayes, unlawfully counted Tilden out. It states that the canvassers delayed their announcement until the morning of the day the electors were to meet and vote, so, although action was instantly taken to oust the Hayes electors, no decision could be had until the Hayes electors had met that same day at noon and voted. The report then recites the judgment of the Supreme Court, which subsequently decided the Hayes electors were not elected, nor entitled to cast the vote of the State, and that the Tilden electors were; and also the judgment of the court on the action brought by Drew, the Democratic candidate for Governor, to obtain a recanvass where the courts directed a recanvass, and decided that the canvassers, in refusing to count the votes cast, had defrauded Drew, and unlawfully seated Stearns The Logislature of the State thereupon directed a recanvass of the electoral vote in accordance with this decision of the Supreme Court, the Judges of which were Republicans, and the recanvass showed the Tilden electors chosen. The Governor then issued his certificate to the Tilden electors as the true electors, but the Electoral Commission refused to consider the judgment of the court, the action of. the Legislature, and the certificate given by the Governor in favor of the Tilden electors, and held that it could not take notice of any action by a State after the 6th of December The report draws attention to the fact that sur / a wrong might be repeated in any State at any Presidential election by the canvassers withholding the announcement of the result of the election until the day fixed for the meeting of the Electoral College, and then declaring persons who had never been voted for at all to be electors, when, according to this decision, such electors would be entitled irrevocably to cast the vote of a State.

It, therefore, recommends a law providing that, where there is a dispute as to who were the real electors of any State, judgment of its court of last resort certified to Congress before the meeting of the two houses of Congress to receive and count the electoral vote shall be conclusive as to the right of disputing electors, and of wbich vote from the State shall be counted, unless the two houses of Congress shall otherwise agree. The report then argues that the action of the Canvassing Board was not only illegal but fraudulent, and cites an instance in which they rejected Democratic votes on unwarranted grounds, and refused to reject fraudulent Republican votes. It deals at length with the claim of the Republicans that they were entitled to the vote of the State on the face of the returns by reason of the Drigger fraud, by which a bogus return from Baker county was furnished the Canvassing Board, which they at first rejected, but which, after they were ordered to count the vote as cast, they fraudulently took in place of the true return, ‘it then deals with the conduct of the visiting statesmen, and particularly that of Gen. Noyes, as contrasted with that of Gen. Francis C. Barlow, whose fidelity to all his obligations and integiity, and independence, fairness and truth the report especially commends. In regard to Louisiana, the report begins with a reference to the anomalous power possessed by the Returning Board, which, it says, never before existed elsewhere. Under it electors and returning officers held the grossest power over the receiving and counting of the votes. Under the pretext that the color line divided their political parties, they had used this power to fraudulently count the State for the Republicans, and had been exposed by a Republican committee of the Forty-third Congress, which had reported that the whites and blacks of the State being equal, and some of the blacks and all the whites having voted for the Democrats in 1874, the State had necessarily been carried by them, although counted for the Republicans. Hereupon the Republicans set about a false census, tn which they made it appear that there were 25,000 more black voters in the State than white, and, as illustrating the fraudulent nature of this census, the report refers to the fact that, while this census reported but 57,000 colored men, women, and children in New Orleans, it made out of them nearly 25,000 colored voters. It then instances the fraudulent registration that was based upon this fraudulent census, whereby it was made to appear that the registered Republican voters exceeded the white voters in tho State more than 23,000, while actually there were no more, and the refusal of the authorities to correct this false registration in cases where its falseness was pointed out. From this the report recites the direction by the Republican authorities to the Supervisors of parishes, requiring them to return votes according to the census—that is, stating that tho colored adults by that census in their parishes were so many, and that they w’ere expected to return a Republican vote corresponding to that, if they ever expected any reward of preforment Notwithstanding this organized fraud, says the report, when the elections were over, the Democrats had a majority, as returned by the Republican election officers, of some 10,000, the vote polled being the largest ever polled in the State, and larger in proportion to the population than that of the other States. The Republican officers made returns of the vote accordingly, and declared that the election was perfectly peaceful and fair. The Republicans, in order to overcome this majority, then usurped powers not given to them. In support of this, the report cites the finding of the Hoar, Wheeler and Frye Committee, that the Returning Board had to power to discard votes where protests, as required by law, had not accompanied the returns, no instance of which existed at this election, notwithstanding the Returning Board decided to discard the necessary number of Democratic votes. As a pretext f orchis usurpation they obtained protests from certain parishes which they picked out as the parishes in which to pretend intimidation had taken place. These parishes were all largely of negro population, which the Democrats had fairly carried. The report then deals with the question of intimidation, and argues that it was impossible for Democrats to gain anything by it, because the Returning Board had been created cn purpose to neutralize any such action by throwing out votes in localities where it should prevail It recites outrageous conduct of the same Returning Board in that respect in 1874. and how its action had been condemned by the Forty-third Congress, giving instances where the board had counted m officials without oolorof right—men whom the Congressional committee had caused to be turned out and their plwe« given io peuiocrata, tfeepeaperats

knew that they not only cotild gain nothing bf intimidation, but that they could only hope for some show of justice by avoiding anything which might be made a pretense for alleging it The report then recites the efforts that were made throughout the State by the Democrats to conciliate the black vote, showing by the evidence of Republican witnesses, as well as the testimony of gentlemen of character, as well as Gov. Whitfield, how planters combined with negroes to get up clubs of both colon, and referred to promises and assurances made to negroes even to equality in can, theaters, etc., far outrunning the Republicans. The leaden having joined the Democrats, the whole mass of negroes came in and became quite enthusiastic supporters, and thus the vote in some of the so-called bulldozed parishes was the very largest ever cast As to the conspiracy in East Feliciana parish, the report states that, after the Democrats had conciliated the negroes there, Kftllegg Wanted Anderson, who was a Supervisor, to have Ho election, and Anderson fraudulently ran away with that view, to furnish an excuse for throwing the parish out. The parish was thrown <u: because the Supervisor of Registration absented himself on election day, notwithstanding the other officer held the election and made one return of the vote. The Democrats in East Feliciana, knowing that they had captured the negro vote, hired Anderson to go back and hold an election. The Republicans then hit upon a new plan, and directed their friends in the parish not to vote, so as to pretend intimidation and exclude the parish. They sent out word to their followers not to come to the polls, refused to permit any tickets to be printed or circulated, and exercised their influence to withhold their own vote entirely. Eighteen hundred registered votes were cast, and 451 more, which Andeison had prevented from being registered, made aboiit 2,300 Votes Cast, all Democratic) bttt not One Republican Would vote, though Urged to do so, The Whole Vote ot the parish at tne prhviods electiotis on Doth sides had not exceeded 2;500. Thb RepiiblicanS purposely withheld from casting any vote at all, and subsequently made the claim that they had been intimidated and could not vote, and the Returning Board, on this protest purposely prearranged, excluded the vote of the parish. The report then refers to the supplementary papers obtained from Anderson and Dan Weber, noth of whom were known by the Republicans to be for sale; that, after these Supervisors had made return that there was no violence in their parishes, they were induced to make supplementary protests, and that they both confessed they did this because of reward. In other parishes, where officers had seen and certified to a perfectly fair election, Kellogg, by pressure, exacted like false protests. The report then goes on to state how the Returning Board, having got possession of such unlawful protests, proceeded to take the evidence Of United States officers) money being used to bring ignorant negroes tfom interior fields into a groat city Where they were herded together; taken before officials, and had affidavits written down for them, to which, upon making their marks, they received their fees and were sent home. The process of manufacturing these affidavits is set forth to show how the negroes were impost d upon, and how worthless the affidavits were. As an illustration of how utterly reckless the Returning Board was in considering evidence, it points out that, in East Feliciana, only twentysix witnesses to any kind of disturbance could be collected. The disturbances to which they testified had arisen from cotton-seed and other thefts by negroes, and their suppression, which had been conducted by leading Republicans, had nothing to do with politics, and although this, and the act that the election was entirely peaceable and the Rep .blicans purposely refused to vote, was shown by 1,200 witnesses, and although four-fifths of the negroes in the parish actually did vote with the Democrats, the Returning Board threw out tha Whcle vote. The report points out a great many other instances of what it styles the fraudulent, outrageous and desperate character of the Returning Board, and shows the impossibili.y of their considering the testimony before them, as they had more than could be read by man reading ten hours a day for two weeks. The report states that the Returning Board would never have so outraged the people but for their encouragement from the visiting statesmen, and the support which they and the troops gave them. Then foHpw details how some of the visitors were deceived by the local managers, and innocently co-operated in the frauds of the Returning Boards while others did not. It refers very briefly to the alleged bargain by which Hayes, who had 3,000 votes less than Packard, got counted in, while Packard went out, and mentioned Sherman’s offers to prove intimidation, but points out that whenever the committee offered to receive it the evidence was not produced, and they were met by some sham excuse for not producing it; how they had examined many of the witnesses that were before the Returning Board, who, in almost every instance, recanted and explained how they came to make their false affidavits in the first place, and how such statements as they made before the Returning Board were totally unfounded. It then refers to the Sherman letter, in regard to which it simply states the facts as they stand, showing that a letter was actually written, and largely influenced political action in Louisiana, whoever signed it, and drawing attention to the attempt in the interest of Sherman by Mrs. Jenks, whose husband and brother are employes of the Treasury Department, to induce the committee to produce a forged letter.

The Florida portion of the report is followed by a list of all persons connected with the election there who have been appointed to office, and the Louisiana portion by a still longer list of persons in that State appointed to office. The third p'art of the report deils with the forged Louisiana electoral certificates. It tells how, the Vice President having refused the first certificate, the Republicans secretly manufactured another, ante-dating it, and made it in paper and printing to resemble the one previously made: how ; having very little time to prepare it, and it being impossible to get all the electors to New Orleans to sign it within that time, it became necessary to forge the signatures of two of the absentees; that thus there were put to a triplicate paper; eighteen forged signatures, which were attacned on Dec. 29, iu the small upper room in the State building, then in charge of Conquest Clark; how the making of this second certificate was concealed until it was produced before Congress; how, when it was referred to the Electoral Commission, it was not read, but ordered to be printed, and the printer was changed, and the Electoral Commistimwere served with two printed copies of the forged certificate, perfect in form, and not a copy of the genuine, but the defective certificate; how, after the oommission had given iis decision, the record of the commission was changed so that the forged certificate, copies of which were really before the commission, was suppressed, and tho record made to show as if the genuine defective certificate had been considered and passed upon; how this was not accident, but design, and that not only in one of the published records of the proceedings of the Electoral Commission, but in both, although made months apart; how the Republican managers were informed by Kellogg that there was something wrong about the second certificate, and how all the way through there lies a thread of design to impose the forged certificate upon Congress, ana then he suppressed it so that, if discovered, the record might show as if it had never been produced. The burlesque (John Smith) certificate sent from Louisiana by mail after the forgf A certificate, and suppressed from the record, cannot now be found. The report regards it a part of the same fraud, its object being to mislead and draw oft attention from the forged Certificate. The report then recites how all the persons connected with the forgery have been appointed to office, and the suspicious circumstances connected with the appointment of the same, and particularly charges that Kellogg and Clark, bis private secretary, were privy to the forgeries.

The report calls attention to the danger of Returning Boards, and the greater danger of controlling elections and protecting Canvassing Boards by Federal troops, and, above ail, to the crowning danger with which the country is threatened, by reason of the enormous patronage centered in the Presidency, which makes the Presidential office so great that, in order to control it, the grossest frauds and violations of law may be expected on the part of those who desire to profit by that patronage. CONCLUSIONS. It concludes with finding that full effect was not given to the electoral votes of Florida and Louisiana; that Noyes, Sherman and others encouraged this result; that the second certificate from Louisiana was forged as to two of its names, Kellogg and Clark being privy to it; and that Tilden and Hendricks received a true majority of electoral votes, and were the real choice of the people at the last Presidential election. Stenger, in all probability, will not make a separate report, but will add an expression of his views upon certain points in the testimony to Mr. Potter’s report. The Republican members of the committee have declined to make any part of their report public until after the meeting of the committee to-morrow morning. Instead of the bridesmaids, fashion in Franco pow prescribes two tiny pages.