Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1877 — IS HAYES A FRAUDULENT PRESIDENT! [ARTICLE]

IS HAYES A FRAUDULENT PRESIDENT!

Complaint is made by the Kentland Gazette that The Union misrepresented its attitude towards President Hayes' administrative policy towards the people of the Southern states, by garbling an article which appeared In its editorial columns recently. Ist. In order to do the Gazette justice we will stats that tw nearly as we recollect it unqualifiedly condemned the President’s withdrawal of the Federal soldiery frojn the state capitals of South Carolina and Louisiana; which action resulted: in the former staWjlh the establishment as governor of Mr. Hampton.’who was undoubtedly elected by a majority of the lawful votes lawfully cast, as shown by the returns regularly and lawfully made; in tlie latter state In the establishment as governor of Mr. Nicholls bj' the action of the legislature acting under authority of existingstate laws. Aud the ad captandum is the peaceable solution in a constitutional, just and common sense manner of a question which threatened the serious aud violent disturbance of the uation; In other words, the greatest good to the greatest number. This was the only question that the President had to decide, and believe he decided It in accordance with the facts, with the law, and with a true interpretation of his official oath to perform the functions of Chief Magistrate of this nation. If, as argued by the Gazette and others, including some of tlie most plausible sophists of the Democratic party, but which neither The Union nor tlie Gazette, believes,.tlie right of Mr. Hayes’ tenure of office is determined by the same principles that determined the gubernatorial successions in South Carolina and Louisiana, it is sufficient to answer that that question was not before tlie President; Mr. Hayes’ right to tlie presidential office was not then at issue, for this question was determined before he was made Dresident, by a tribunal having full jurisdiction. Nor is it necessary to ask whether tlie tribunal whicli adjudicated the question of tlie presidential succession was ever contemplated by the Constitution ; it was a lawful body and had jurisdiction of the cause submitted for its decision, because it was created in regular form by an Act of Congress (which also gave it jurisdiction), which Act became a law with tlie Executive approval, which approval derives its potency from tlie Constitution itself. In this connection it ought not to be forgotten that tlie Act of Congress creating the tribunal whose decision coniirmed tlie right of Mr. Hayes to the presidency could never have become a law without tlie active support and concurrence of a majority of the representatives of the political party whose candidate for tlie presidency he was not, acting in tlieir ity as representatives of the whole people, and being bound by a solemn oatli voluntarily taken to support tlie Constitution of the United States. The record shows that a large majority of tlie Senators and of tlie Members of tlie House of Representatives, irrespective of tlieir party affiliations, voted for the law. This is material as proving : Ist. The recognized necessity for creating tlie tribunal. 2d. Tlie legality of its creation. 3d. The liigh source from which it derived authority. 4th. The impossibility of the law by which it was created being tlie creature, either otlntrigue. corrupt diplomacy, unlawful conspiracy, or violent revolution. Finally, tlie action of Congress was at tlie time and probably is now approved by an overwhelming majority of tlie people; and the subsequent finding of this tribunal lias been irrevocably confirmed by tlie peaceful acquiescence of the people everywhere. Mr. Hayes’ title to the presidential office was established before his inauguration into it, and no man has since filed a notice of the lawful contest of iris claim. But neither Mr, Chamberlain nor Mr, Packard had such a clear title, nor could either of them sustain his pretensions before tlie courts or tribunals that had jurisdiction to hear and determine them. If tlie records are truthful (and no body outside of those states lias the power to question those records) Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Packard were both usurpers, and it was a subversion of authority, if the action <Nd not deserve a harsher term, every day they were protected in that usurpation by the presence of government troops. 2d. We have said above thnt neitlier The Union nor the Gazette believes the sophistry, invented by tlie Democracy find repeated by Mr. Blaine, Mr. Wade, tlie Inter-Ocean newspaper, Ct id omnas genus, that Hie .President bolds liis office by virtue of tlie operation of principles that determined, 01 ought to have determined, tlie gubernatorial controversy iu the states of South Carolina and Louisiposition will not stand under careful scru tmy, or if JLiToesTn.; will prove fatal to those who take it.In South Carolina tlie election returns as received from the hands of tlie election officers showed tlie Republican electoral ticket and tlie Democratic state ticket to have each received a majority of Hie votes east, and a case parallel is also seen in tin*

election returns of Florida; the action of the returning boards of these two states did not effbet Mr. Hayes* claim injuriously. Thus it becomes plain that if the rule that gave the electoral vote of South Carolina to Mr. Hayes Is also applied to ascertain who was elected governor of that state, Mr. Chamberlain, together with all his apologists and sympathisers, including our respected contemporary at Kentland, must inevitably suffer. In Louisiana it was different. Here the Democracy and the Gazette find firmer ground upon which to base their premise. The electoral vote of this state was determined by tlie decision of a returning board which was the creature of a state law; but whether u good creature or a bad one is a question foreign to our present discussion, but that it is very well liked by the people whom it most immediately effects seems plausible enough when it is considered tliut no effort lias been made to repeal it. The returning board also has the right to revise tlie vote returneji as east for state officers. But the authority of the returning board in tlie classes of votes is not equal. In the former, its decision is final; from it there lies no appeal; but its action with regard to the vqte east for any or all state officers may be reviewed by the legislature when it is effected, or by tlie supreme court of the state when other state officers are effected ; and either body has power to reverse the decision of the returning board, if in its judgment tlie facts warrant such reversal. From tlie fact tliatjCongress to determine the qualifications of those admitted to seats in that body, it would not hesitate to of the returning board of Louisiana or any other state with regard to those claiming such seats; but Congress would have no right to interfere with tlie decision of a returning board respecting presidential electors or state officers, for the reason that this power lias been left wholly witli tlie stales themselves; or to be more precise, because iu the state resides the right to determine tlie qualifications of those wlxo may vote, modified only by tlie expressed and plain provisions of the Constitution of tlie United States for tlie protection of tlie equal rights of all citizens; and also to determine the manner of holding elections and making returns thereof. In short because nearly all the details and quite all the machinery of holding elections are rights that belong wholly to the states in their separate individual capacity. It is because Mr. Blaine, the Inter-Ocean newspaper aud certain Democrats persistently Ignore the facts that actually exist with regard to the jurisdiction of tlie returning board of Louisiana, scmingly for tlie purpose of misleading the public and weakening the efforts of President Hayes to promote a more fraternal feeling between the North and South, by raising a cloud of doubt over his title to tlie presidential office and consequently as to the legitimacy of his official acts, that we blame them witli demagogueism. Nothing can be said tliat is based upon the record or tlie facts that will strengllien the cause of Mr. Chamberlain and of Mr. Packard in the estimation of the American people, who, as a class, care very little for them to-day. If argument in their behalf lias any effect at all it is to weaken tlie President, not to help them. No power short of bloody rev-olution-armed treason against the United States government—can restorer them to tlie positions they voluntarily abdicated when left to maintain themselves by peaceful means. Neither is it desirable that they be restored to authority; for the present governments of South Carolina and Louisiana, if no more than de facto, give better satisfaction and enforce the laws which bring peace to society more thoroughly than did their predecessors, though it be afimitted that they were governments de jure as well as de facto. Tlie argument made use of by the Gazette is fatal to its own integrity; and fo)i this reason we say that it don’t believe it. A stream can not run higher than its fountain, nor is tlie receiver of stolen goods better than tlie thief who shares with him. So iong as the editor of that or any other newspaper holds an appointment under President Hayes common decency and propriety ougiit to suggest that they treat him as an honest man. Tliat Mr. Hayes lias a clear title to the presidential office has been declared by the highest authority on earth ; this decision was (is) affirined by forty millions of people by their peaceful acquiescent; there cau be neither appeal from this decision nor reopening of the case. Witli MessrsChamberlain and Packard the situation is, has been, and ever was, the reverse of that of Mr. Hayes ; for neither was elected in the first place; neither one was declared elected by -aDy-?iWuninznLJsom_gtent”jui'lßdic-tion; both usurja-d -ptowew to which neither had more than the figment of a title; neither was recognized by the 'people.as a rightful officer or even an officer in fact. 3d. Now, if tlie Gazette really does believe tliat Mr. Hayes has no betier title to the presidency these | wo

gentlemen had to the offices they laid claim to, its editor will forward his resignation of the commission he holds from a fraud and usurper; liecause tiie editor is an honest, conscientious gentleman who would not wittingly be guilty of saying one thing to the public through the columns of liis pai>er while acting another thipg for the sake of a pitiful, paltry SI,OOO a year. On the other hand, if, like The Union, the rejects tlie puerile, childish, factious sophistries of Mr. Blaine, Mr, Wade, the Inter- Ocean newspaper and the sinioter cloven-hoofed Democrats and disappointed demagogues tluit echo the discordant chorus, it will be profoundly grateful tliat The Union was so kiud, so charitable, so truly neighborly as to hide its imbecility aud shame from the vulgar gaze of a jeering world; indeed it will, or ought to, wisli that the whole edition which contained the article that The Union generously and artistically pruned and polished until it was fitted for critical inspection, had been thrown into the fire and burnt to ashes instead of having been sent broadcast over the land to lend its influence to tlie Democratic party in its efforts to destroy the party whose history is the history of unswerving loyalty to the government iu its days of peril; of devotion to the cause of human liberty and equal political and civil rights; of fostering friendship for tiie common schools through whose portals tlie children of poverty and obscurity puss to affluence, to influence and to honorable fame;, tlie Republican party which compelled capital to relinquish its claim of owncrsliip of labor, and made tlie industrious man respectable and respected in every part of the country. We do not believe that the Gazette intends to turn back and mar its own grand record against the party that apologised for treason and sympathised with revolutionists and their efforts to destroy the government; the party that never repented a crime nor pun- 1 islied a corruptor criminal official; tlie party to which tlie ignorant, the depraved and tlie vicious ciasses naturally gravitate and where they find a welcome and a sympathetic asylum for tlieir vices and degradatioir; the party that makes friendship with the rumseller; the party that disgraced the nation with an imbecile Buchanan, and tlie state of Indiana witli an ignorant, cunning, avaricious, cowardly demagogue Williams; the party that would not hesitate to array labor and capital as enemies, first by granting the claims of capital to ownership of human flesli, next by volunteering sympathy for communism and justifying mobs in destroying projierty and interrupting commerce; the party of insincerity, that pleads to harmonize tlie jealousies of the sections and heal the animosities transmitted from the deplorable past, and then repulses with scorn and contumely every effort of President Hayes to compass tills desirable end; tlie party of hatreds, of negations, of vice, of ignorance, of bigotry, of treason, of inconsistency, of violence, of calumny and wrong. And until convinced tliat it lias actually, deliberately and wilfully determined to adopt this course the Gazette will please pardon us if we are careful not to reproduce such jxirtions <ff its usually able articles as would place it in a false position. 4th. The Kentland Gazette is not a Democratic newspaper, nor does it believe that Hayes’ title to the presidency of the United StaleOfid Packard’s claim to. the governorship of Louisiana rest on the same foundation; for if the former it would advocate the Democratic party, which it does not mean to do; while if it believed the latter it could not consistently participate iu the fruits of usurpation.