Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1879 — Were Southern Electors Purchasable? [ARTICLE]

Were Southern Electors Purchasable?

One point appears to be taken for granted throughout the discussion over the cipher telegrams, and that is, that had the money been forthcoming the votes of one or more Southern Republican Canvassers or Electors could have been bought for Tilden. That being assumedi there is supposed to bo no escape from the Conclusion that but for conscientious scruples of Mr. Tilden, the money Would have been paid. But the venality of Southern Republicans who, either as members of some one of the Returning Boards or as Presidential Electors, controlled the issue of the campaign of 1876, is not a thing to be taken tot granted, it requires proof, just as much as the non-com-plicity of Mr. Tilden in the intrigues of Marble, Weed and Pelton, and the presumption of inaccessibility to Democratic bribes is as much in favor of the Southern Republicans as the presumption of ignorance of the doings of his agents is against Mr. Tilden. The supposition that the Returning Boards of the three doubtful States could have been bought, and that even after tlife certificates df all three had been given to the Hayes Electors the Presidency could have been secured for Tilden by the use of money, rests entirely on the testimony of the agents who' attempted to bribe them. Even were leading Southern Republicans to be rated as Tow in the scale of character as the Tilden emissaries who endeavored to corrupt them, they should not be convicted on the Unsupported assertions of men like Weed. Pelton, and Marble, and still less on the testimony of meaner rogues like Woolley, Littlefield, Maddox, etc. But the lower the estimate we place upon the fidelity of such Republicans to their party and their official oath#, the more difficult shall we find it to account for the fact that fiofie of them were bribed to betray their duty, and that in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the result of the election was finally declared in accordance with the law and the facts. If it be urged that a very simple explanation of thisis to be found in theTnvinciblerepugnance of Mr. Til-, den to spend any money for the corrupt purposes Avowed by Weed and Pelton, and rather ineffectually disclaimed by Marble, it must be replied that such an explanation taxes human credulity much more severely than the other assumption, that the Southern Republicans who controlled in 1876 the destinies of the country, refused to be bribed. All the testimony which we have from their side is, at least, to that effect, and such evidence is worth quite as-much as the statements of Weed and Marble that they were for sale. For example, State Controller Dunn, of South Carolina, kept his Republican friends, and notably Gov. CEamberlaili, fully advised of the efforts which were made to buy his vote on the Returning Board through the agency of Mr. Hardy Solomon. This latter gentleman, whom Weed referred to as “ the representative of the Returning Board,” was a former Republican, but a professed supporter of Hampton in the campaign ot 1876. Every step in the pretended negotiation curried on by Dunn was known to Republicans in Columbia, and if he was meditating a “sell out,” he took a most extraordinary way of preparing for it. When it came to the easting of the Electoral vote of the State, we have the testimony of Beverly Nash, a colored man, and one of the Hayes Electors, that he was offered by one Z. 1). Childs, a banker in Columbia, SIO,OOO down and $40,000 when Tilden was inaugurated, on condition that he would vote for the Democratic candidate at the meeting of the Electoral College. Turning to Florida, there is further evidence that the desire of the Tilden agents to buy a vote was much more pronounced than the willingness of any Republican to sell one. On Dec. 6, 1876, immediately after tbe decision of the Florida Board of Canvassers, our special correspondent at Tallahassee wrote with reference to the events of the preceding twenty-four hours, as follows: “Only one. day intervened before the derision must be rendered, and that decision, which was to make a Republican or a Democratic President of the United States for the next four years, depended on the vote of one man. * *• • Northern and Southern Democrats alike have for years been denouncing Republican officers in the South as'carpet-baggers,’ ‘thieves’ and‘scalawags.’ Here was one of them, comparatively an obscure man, entirely unknown to the country at large, occupying a small office with a petty salary, in a small State! His entire wealth would not suffice to pay a year’s rent of Tilden’s mansion in Oratrrercy Park. And yet all Of Tilden’s wealth could not buy his vote, ns Tilden's agents have found out to their utter dismay.” . dispatches sent to Washington by that sorry knave Maddox to his friend Fickett, informing all whom it might concern that he (Maddox) could get the decision of the Returning Board in favor of Tilden for a million of dollars. That, surely, was equivalent to saying that, the board could not be bought at all. Then, just before the meeting of the Electoral College, an attempt was made, according to the testimony of Judge Levissee, whose eligibility as a Presidential Elector had been disputed, to bribe him to refuse to accept his certificate. The attempt to buy a Republican Elector in Oregon to act with Cronin is sufficiently familiar,' and” lends fresh probability to the statements maeje by or on behalf of the Southern Republicans whom Tilden agents sought to bribe. It is hardly conceivable that these statements are mere imaginative fictions: it is still less probaplo ithat there were up for sale in three States a score of presumably unscrupulous men,the action of any one of whom could; have changed the result of the Presidential election, and that no Democrat was ready to find the money needed to buy a single mffrrnf thefh. If it must be assumed that Mr. Tilden’s readiness to furnish the money is still an open question, let.it Also be COn,ceded, jn the interests of truth aßd fairness, that it has not yet been proved that there were any Southern Republicans ready to be bought-—A'. Y. Times.