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1857.

No. 1.

[No. 1.]

REPORT of Committee on Election.

Mr. Brooks, from the committee on Election, to whom was referred the petition of Hezekiah D. McCulloch, contesting the seat of Peter McKinley, beg leave to submit the following report:

It appears from facts admitted and evidence adduced, before the committee, they have come to the conclusion that Peter McKinley was an elector in the county of Manitou.

And the undersigned recommend the pasage of the following resolution:

Resolved, That Peter McKinley is entitled to a seat in this House.

JOHN A. BROOKS,

JOHN CLARK,

ALFRED GULLEY,

STEPHEN F. BROWN.

REPORT of the Minority of the committee on Elections in the contested seat of McCulloch vs. McKinley.

To the Honorable House of Representatives:

Feeling the full force of the obligations imposed on me by the Constitution of the State; and after a careful review of the whole evidence, regarded in a legal aspect, I am constrained to believe that the present occupant of the seat from Manitou county is not justly entitled thereto, and that H. D. McCulloch is the legal representative for that county, and so report.

It was established by several witnesses that some four or five years ago, Mr. McKinley was a resident of Manitou county, and was compelled by force of circumstances to leave that county or was driven away; whilst at the same time, it was apparent from the testimony that mutual aggressions and grievances were committed by both parties, all of which. was frankly admitted by the contestant in this case, who claimed that he should not be held responsible for these acts, and that at best they were irrelevant and not pertinent to the issue of residence or non-residence. Unmoved by prejudice I must come to the same conclusion.— Franklin Johnson, a resident of Manitou, testified that Mr. McKinley came to the town of St. James ten days or two weeks before the November election, and at that election was allowed to vote the State Ticket, but not the County Ticket, as he had, according to his admission, previously voted the county ticket of Mackinac county. It was further proved by Mr. Johnson, that immediately after the election at Manitou, he went with McKinley to Mackinac and sojourned with him and his family for several days at his dwelling. It was also in proof, that from the latter part of June, the time of the Mormons leaving the Island, until November, a period of four or five months, that full and free facilities were afforded Mr. McKinley to gain a residence in Manitou, but instead of so doing, he voted and participated in the election of

county officers for the county of Mackinac during this time, thereby manifesting his actual and legal residence to be in Mackinac.

The Hon. Mr. Wendell testified, also, that Mr. McKinely has lived in the town of Mackinac for the last three or four years; has held an office or offices, but of what character he does not know, in that county, and that he has occupied with his family, consisting of three daughters, a house opposite his own for the last two years.

He also testified that McKinley had expressed at various times, a purpose to return to Manitou county, whilst residing at Mackinac, but not a particle of proof was produced that any action on the part of McKinley constituting a legal residence was performed. True, McKinley visited the Beaver Island at various times, as was in proof, but it was simply to look after a branch of his business established there as other merchants of Mackinaw have similar establishments on the adjacent islands or the north shore of Lake Michigan, whilst their residence was at Mackinac.

T. S. Andrews, an officer of the steamer Michigan, usually stopped at Mackinac and Beaver Island during the season of the boats running. He testifies that he knows McKinley; that he is a resident of Mackinac and that his family resided there during the middle or towards the close of October last; saw his daughters there and knew them to be residing there during that month; knows that they were also there in November; brought letters to them and delivered them to McKinley; always regarded him as a resident of Mackinac county, as living there and doing business there; and so far as he knows, was so generally regarded.

Considerable testimony was elicited before the Committee in reference to the bad deeds of the Mormon population, and though this may be true, I cannot but regard it as foreign to this issue; and although Mr. McKinley may have been compelled some years since to leave Manitou county and however deeply I may sympathize with him for losses of property, yet I deem there is no legal ground for considering that he has maintained his residence through this long period of time: and if such legal ground did exist from his constrained residence in the county of Mackinac, the evidence before the committee fully proves that he forfeited this right by voluntarily voting the county ticket for Mackinac county, at a time when he could have freely returned to the county of Manitou and gained a legal residence therein.

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