Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1882 — Contesting Elections. [ARTICLE]

Contesting Elections.

During the Forty-seventh Congress the Republican majority did not hesitate to perpetrate the most unblushing acts of partisan despotism ever witnessed in Congress or in any other deliberative body. Justice was dethroned, laws defied, liberties stricken down; frauds and forgeries of the most unblushing character were accepted as the basis of action, and the will of the people was reversed, as if it were of no more consequence than the ravings of idiots. Why were such things done? Simply to increase the Republican majority. The Forty-eighth Congress will not be Republican. The people have changed its political complexion, and the Democratic party will be in power. It is safe to say, if it is called upon to consider contested-election cases, the country will not be humiliated by the proceedings. Justice will preside. The law will govern. Frauds and forgeries and perjuries will not be permitted to triumph. That such cases will be brought before the Forty-eighth Congress there are many and just reasons for believing. The probabilities are that Indiana will present a case. The indications are that the facts all combine to emphasize the absolute propriety of such a proceeding. It can be shown that the laws were openly, frequently and flagrantly violated, and that by such flagitious violations of the law a man has received a certificate of election to which he is not entitled—received it as the result of methods practiced by Republican managers as glaringly infamous as those which counted out Tilden and Hendricks in Louisiana, where John Sherman offered Fe leral offices for y>er jury. In such case the real questions at issue are, what ought the Democratic party to do about it ? What ought Indiana to do about it ? When the Democratic party nominates and elects a man to office, and it can be shown by irrefragible testimony that he was swindled out of the office, what ought to be done? The answer is leady and easy —protest and contest. The people are interested. It is not an individual question. The personal disappears, the public steps to the front. The voice of the State is ! o be heard. If election laws are to be violated without” rebuke; if elections can be transformed into shams with impunity; if the public has become so utterly debauched and demoralized, so devoid of the sense of right and of courage to resist encroachments upon then-liberties, then, indeed, the days of boasting are gone and fraud reigns. Laws become dead letters, skeletons. Men may rattle their bones, but none are frightened by the racket. It should be understood that when the Democratic party is in power there will be a remedy for wrongs, that frauds will not go unpunished, and no amount of inconvenience should deter the Democratic party from taking such steps as the laws permit for maintaining the purity of. elections and the rights of the people.—lndianapolis Sentinel.