Tilden's engineer, and Clarkson N. Potter 2. That the real aims of the conspira runs back and forth between Washington and tors were carefully sought to be concealed. Gramercy Park, and Speaker Randall is dragooned into promising to rule in a motion of inquiry as a question of high privilege, the caucus is invoked, and all the party machinery is brought to bear to get passed a resolution of investigation. 3. That the conspirators sought by illegitimate and riotous means to carry their points. Falseness and duplicity of the Democratic pretext for the Potter InvestigationContradictory House action as to meddling with Hayes' title-How fright will disguise itself. 4. That the usual pretexts and concomi tants which mark the courses and methods of revolutionists were manifest in the movements of the Blair and Tilden conspirators. Can a Democratic Minority overthrow a revolution, once started, became a whirlwind, and the beggarly and contemptible minority swept the majority out of the Union in a twinkling, and thousands upon thousands of honest Union men carried rebel muskets through the war, or died fighting in a cause which they cordially hated and despised. Even Robert E. Lee was a Union man, but de All this is done on the Mexican pretext that preciated by the people. The people imagine The conspirators know some things not apnothing is intended but the unearthing of a that the Government can be overthrown only fraud; but see the falseness and duplicity. A by the majority, but the Democratic leaders motion is sought to be made to declare that it know that a few bad, cunning, and desperate is not intended to question the title of Hayes, men can so wield the masses that a revolution and it is squelched with yells, and the most once started takes on a momentum entirely out talented, most distinguished, and one of the of proportion to numbers or the merits of the most venerable sages of the House is inde-case which they present. Virginia, Tennessee, cently hooted down, because the conspirators and North Carolina were strong Union States dared not trust their scheme to the test which from conviction in 1861; but the storm of is always applied to honest proceedings. The conspirators knew their scheme could not succeed if put to such a test, and so they choked the test and the mover by riot and Bedlamite howls. A few weeks later, however, the House got frightened into passing the resolution that the title of Hayes could not be meddled with, but if they were really of this opinion their howling it down at the start can-luded with a notion that he must follow his not be accounted for. Their intentions had not changed, evidently, but they found it necessary to endeavor to conceal them awhile longer, and hence the resolution was allowed to pass; but neither Potter, McMahon, S. S. Cox, Knott, Blackburn, Southard, Springer, nor A. S. Hewitt voted for it. It did not commit the next House; and nothing pre-end no man can see. vented the next Democratic House from carrying out Democratic revolutionary designs, but Nip it in the bud-Three Revolutionary the voice of the People, expressed in a greatly decreased Democratic majority in that Body. The Hale Amendment and Potter's Jesuit ical offer. Mr. Hale made an offer to investigate Tilden's attempted frauds, and the conspirators pretending to desire the evidence of fraud, voted it down. Mr. Potter pretended that he was willing to do this if Mr. Hale would say he had new evidence, but he well knew Mr. Hale and the Republicans had regarded the case as finally settled and had not been looking for new evidence, and had no occasion to connive with liars and perjurers to get a show of new evidence on which to hang a pretext of revolution, and knew they wouldn't had there been occasion. State. Now the delusion will be that they must follow their party, and must have one and another have already been whipped vengeance for an imaginary "fraud," and so in, and others will continue to be till the torch of revolution is lighted, and then the Mexican methods will be fairly inaugurated, and the Constituents. The only way to stop revolution is to nip At the commencement there it in the bud. are in revolutions three parties-those who are in the movement, those who oppose it, and those who think nothing will come of it. The first are usually a small minority; but the vicious classes in our cities, the fanatics, the soldiers of fortune, all instinctively rally to the support of any deviltry; the timid are scared in or into neutrality, and the desperadoes soon have their own way, and confusion, desolation, and destruction abound on every hand. How France was strangled in one night by one weak, shallow man !-Our greater danger from the crafty, “still-hunting" Tilden-Tilden's Democratic bonbons. Victor Hugo has pronounced the French Revolution of Louis Napoleon "the assassination of a people by one man." Yes, and that man was considered by most intelligent Frenchmen as weak, shallow, and so utterly wanting in heroic and magnetic qualities that they laughed at the idea of a coup d'etat down | avowed this, and so did others. The scheme to the very night it was accomplished. Then, was growing, and moderate men would lose to their intense disgust, they found their control of it. When the torch of revolution throats grasped by the hand of the insignifi- in a country like this is once lighted, hell cant villain, and there was no help. The itself follows. The stormy passions of men nation was strangled in a night, and, to the are unchained and rage with bloodthirsty viosurprise of everybody, the assassin was sup-lence, and the scenes become indescribable. ported and sustained by men of more ability Victor Hugo, in trying to describe the French than Montgomery Blair, and more character revolution, says: The gloomy armed men, than Sam Randall and Clarkson Potter. Such scoundrels are always supported by better men than themselves, and Tilden had secured his coterie already. Some had been allured by promises of being made cabinet ministers; others fooled with the notion that there was to be some fun, but not to amount to a revolution, while the natural cussedness of a goodly number, which circumstances had hitherto kept suppressed, would improve the occasion for a little antic; and so, altogether, there were no lack of allies. The rank and file came from the million of Democratic place-hunters, who pretended to feel that the counting in of Hayes cheated them of an office which they would get without fail if Hayes were bounced. Montgomery Blair admitted that there were many members wholly opposed to the revolution; but they were to be forced in by this mighty pressure of a million ravenous officeseekers, who could not wait two years for a regular election. "Revolutions never go backward ”. massed together, felt an appalling spirit enter into them they ceased to be themselves and became demons. There was no longer a single French soldier, but a host of indefinable phantoms, carrying out a horrible task, as though in the glimmering light of a vision. There was no longer a flag; there was no longer law; there was no longer humanity; there was no longer a country; there was no longer France-they began to assassinate." Even this language fails to depict the horror and misery which a revolution brings. Men turn into brigands and women become fiends. Homes and hearthstones are abolished. All that is held sacred is violated. and where peace and plenty and security reigned, want, famine, and terror come in and take their places. The only way to avoid all this is to crush the Democrats right out of Congress by electing Republicans. It was to avoid this terrible condition of things that the people reduced the Democratic majority in the House. To avoid this condition of things in the near future, the solid Revolutions grow in these days by a natural South-the conspirators who through Hancock law. and they cannot be controlled when would work revolution-must be dealt a stagunder full headway, nor stopped except in gering blow. But this can only be done by their earlier stages. See how Tilden's had electing Garfield to the Presidency by an elecaugmented. When the Manhattan Club ga-toral vote so large that none will dare dispute thering was held it passed away like a smoke- it, and by electing a Republican House that whiff. When Tilden made his revolutionary will set the seal of condemnation upon the speech in October there was no response. It.volutionary proceedings of the last two Confell flat. When Blair introduced his resolu- gresses. tion in the Maryland Legislature it was almost unanimously condemned by the members; and yet it went through. It came to Congress and had but few friends; but a few weeks of cunning manipulation by Blair, Field, and Potter, under direction of Tilden, and a great investigation is inaugurated. Men are put on the stand to blacken the character of eminent statesmen--that on the stand confess them selves liars, owning that they could be and were bribed, and confessing that they are without moral character, and the respectability of Clarkson Potter is obliged to associate with them, and he and McMahon are compelled to defend as manifest a set of rascals as ever came to the surface. And this was but the work of a few months. What as many more months would bring forth no man could imagine. PART II. The Potter Letter-He would 66 The horrors to which the pallid, halfpalsied old man of Gramercy Park The fact that Clarkson N. Potter, of New would have doomed the American people. York, the next door neighbor, at Gramercy The conspirators meant mischief. The Park, of Samuel J. Tilden, was at the head of investigation had no significance in it if not the House Committee striving, by a one-sided aimed at the title of the President. Blair investigation of alleged electoral frauds to sponsible to nothing and nobody—It can act alone! It is the "sole judge" whether the people have elected or not, and need not wait the word of any informing body outside! The Constitution has provided for no person or body to notify the House that there has been no election for President by the electors, nor, by deciding whether to make or withhold such notification, to judge of that fact, but has left the House sole judge of the happening of the contingency calling for its action. As one of the counters of the electoral vote the House in a choice, and, so knowing, does not require notifimust necessarily know whether that vote has resulted cation of the fact. Accordingly, had the Constitution provided for a notification to the House, it would have been to make its action in that respect dependent on some other judgment of the happening of that contingency than its own. But instead it leaves the House to act upon its own knowledge, independent of the action of any other body or person, and directs the House in that contingency, of which it necessarily has knowledge, and is itself to be the judge, to proceed to choose a President. And to whom could the question, of whether the power was to be exercised, be so properly committed great popular branch of the Government which specias to the body which is to exercise the power, to that ally represents the people, and whose members, of all those connected with the Federal Government, are alone elected by the people. make political capital to help his party at the | The House a higher law unto itself-kecongressional elections and to lay a basis for the conspiracy to seize the Presidency, naturally drew attention to his famous letter of November 21, 1876, published in the New York Herald, of the day following. In that letter he argued for the Tilden cause with fallacious subtleties which, were they living, would have turned the old Greek sophists green with jealousy and envy, and would do honor to the casuistry of the disciples of Loyola. Then, grown bold upon his platform of sophistries, he proposed the most violent measure of all the wild and anarchical plans advanced by the Tildenites of that troubled period. He wanted the Democratic House to "take the bit in its mouth," declare that the people had failed to elect, and proceed to the election of a President. In the following pages it will be found that on March 3, 1877, by a strict party vote, the House did "take the bit in its mouth" so far as to declare that Tilden and Hendricks were duly elected President and Vice-President; and it is because of this foolish and untrue declaration that we now hear so much of the so-called "Fraud Issue" and that Democratic demagogues allude to Mr. Tilden as President Tilden before Democratic audiences. This letter, written by Tilden's next-door neighbor at Gramercy Park, and ostensibly concocted at his Wall Street office, was believed at the time to have been inspired by Tilden himself; and but for the fact that a few Democrats refused to be governed by the Tilden revolutionary caucuses, the treasonable programme which, under Tilden's influence, Potter had laid down, might, probably have been carried out to the letter. The firm attitude of President Grant in declaring that whoever, under the electoral count, was duly declared elected President, would be inaugurated, and the knowledge, ascertained by secret emissaries, that the army would stand firm and could not be corrupted by Tilden's "bar'ls of money," had much to do Gentlemen who talk lightly, therefore, of having the with the destruction of the Tilden-Potter pro- Vice-President of the Senate receive and count the gramme or pronunciamento for Mexicanizing the vote of Louisiana against the Ljection of the House, or of choosing some energetic man President of the United States. Besides exhibiting what the Senate that they may have a forcible officer to lead revolutionists originally intended to do, the the Republican party after the 4th of March, or of an Potter letter throws some light upon proceed-interregnum in which General Grant shall hold over, talk rebellion. The House of Representatives w. not ings in the Democratic House after the electoral count, and upon the new treasonable departure which was taken under the personal lead of Potter himself. Following is the closing portion of the Potter letter aforesaid: He would have had the Election thrown into the House, which would have insured Tilden's Election. "If, then, the vote of Louisiana shall not bo counted, and Mr. Hayes should be allowed Florida and South Carolina, he will have 177 votes and Mr. Tilden 184, and then either Mr. Tilden will be elected, or there will be no election of President. And it will then become the immediate duty of the House of Representatives, under the express direction of the Constitution, to proceed to choose a President by the votes of States, each State having one vote, and if Mr. Hayes should then be chosen President, be will be chosen absolutely in strictest compliance with all the provisions and forms of law, and will be as absolutely and lawfully President as any man ever was. So, too, if the House should choose Mr. Tilden." The Democratic House being "supreme,” who could dispute the Presidential authority of Neighbor Tilden? every superior body, invested with the exercise of a Having, then, the ordinary and usual authority of supreme function, of determining for itself the occasion when it may be lawfully exercised, and having, therefore, the authority to decide for itself whether a President has been chosen by the electors or not, and, if not, to then itself choose the President, who can lawfully dispute the authority of the President whom the House of Representatives may thus choose? All who talk otherwise "talk Rebellion" against the Lord's anointed. refuse to attend the counting of the electoral vote; it will permit the counting of every vote which it may judge lawful to be counted. No electoral vote valid unless agreed to by the House, and unless its "judgment" agrees with its "concurrence" and "direction." And no vote can be lawfully counted without its concurrence or against its judgment and direction. Resistance to Tilden is defiance to law. Whomever, by the vote so counted, shall appear to have the majority of all the electors appointed will be President, and will be accepted by the Democratic party as such; and whomever, if no President be so chosen, the popular branch of the Government shall then, in due form, choose to be President, will be so accepted by them; and it will be those who may see fit to resist the Executive, thus lawfully elected, who will be defying the laws. No slight irregularity can impair the title of "me Neighbor" Tilden—If a majority of each one of a majority of States votes for Tilden in the House then he is Presi dent. with, and which they propose by revolutionary methods to overturn, was essentially a Democratic measure. The Senate vote was 47 yeas and 17 nays-10 not voting. Of the Republicans 20 voted yea, 17 voted nay, and 9 declined to vote. Of the Democrats 26 voted yea, 1 voted nay, and 1 declined to vote. The majority for it therefore comprised 26 Democrats and 20 Republicans. The vote against it comprised 17 Republicans and only i Democrat. The vote in the House, on passing the act, illustrates the feeling of the two parties even more strongly. That vote was 191 yeas and 86 nays-14 not voting. Of the Republicans only 33 voted yea, 68 voted nay And even if there has been an omission in the Constitution, so that, strictly no one may be elected according to its provisions, what could be so in accord with the spirit of our Government as to agree upon an Executive, chosen by the House of Representatives, acting by States? That is, chosen by men, elected directly by the people as the electors are, and acting by States, as the electors do. It was to the House that dent in the only contingency of a failure to choose by electors then foreseen. Had the Convention foreseen the contingency now assumed by some it would, of course, have committed the election in such contin--not voting. Of the Democrats 158 voted gency also to the House of Representatives. the Constitution committed the election of a Presi Why, then, not adopt this course-(The House did adopt it)—And thus sall as near to the “spirit of the Constitution" as india-rubber constructionists like Tilden and Potter choose to. Why, then, should not this great people forbear strife, and adopt a course which, if no course be provided for by the Constitution, would accord most nearly with the spirit of the Constitution? The more, as the result thus reached would conform to the wish of the great body of the people, as just expressed. And here let me add that to talk of a Senate, in which a majority of the Senators represented less than one-fourth of the people, whose power to choose a President is, by the Constitution, confined, first to the failure of the electors to choose one, and next to the failure of the House of Representatives to choose one by the 4th of March following-setting up as their presiding officer a military dictator, to take possession of the Government against the President regularly chosen by the House of Representatives and backed by an enormous popular majority, seems to me, even in view of Mr. Frank Blair's famous prophecy, idle. Doubtful the supremacy exercised by the Federal authority of late years, and the desire of property owners for order, even at the price of Constitutional liberty, has produced a pretty general belief that any one who can command Federal troops can do anything. Tilden's claim to be Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Army-Potter believed the people would sustain it. But the question is not what Federal troops can do, but who it is that is entitled to be their commander and head-a wholly different question; and, upon that question, I do not believe the people will be found so anxious to sustain fraud to keep the minority in power, or so unwilling to maintain their constitutional rights as is assumed. Truly your obedient servant, November 21, 1876. CLARKSON N. POTTER, PART III. The Electoral Commission Act— Analysis of the votes by which it passed-It was essentially a Democratic measure--The votes in full in both Houses. It will be observed by analysis of the votes cast in the Senate and House upon the passage of the Electoral Commission Act-given herewith-that this act, now so much abused by the Democrats, and the findings under which they now pretend to be dissatisfied yea, only 18 voted nay-7 not voting. The The Senate vote in full. The vote in the Senate, January 25, 1877, on the passage of the Electoral Commission Bill was, in detail, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Alcorn, Allison, Barnum, Bayard, Bogy, Booth, Boutwell, Burnside, Chaffee, Christiancy, Cockrell, Conkling, Cooper, Cragin, Davis, of West Virginia, Dawes, Dennis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Goldthwaite, Gordon, Howe, Johnston, Jones, of Florida, Jones, of Nevada, Kelly, Kernan, McCreery, McDonald, McMillan, Maxey, Merrimon, Morrill, Price, Randolph, Ransom, Robertson, Saulsbury, Sharon, Stevenson, Teller, Thurman, Wallace, Whyte, Windom, Withers, Wright-47. NAYS-Messrs. Blaine, Bruce, Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Cameron, of Wisconsin, Clayton, Conover, Dorsey Eaton, Hamilton, Hamlin, Ingalls, Mitchell, Morton, Patterson, Sargent, Sherman, West-17. NOT VOTING-Messrs. Anthony, Ferry, Harvey, Hitchcock, Logan, Norwood, Oglesby, Paddock, Spencer, Wadleigh-10. The House vote in full. The vote in the House of Representatives, January 26, 1877, on the passage of the Electoral Commission Bill, was, in detail, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Abbott, Adams, Ainsworth, Anderson, Ashe, Atkins, Bagby, G. A. Bagley, J. H. Bagley, Jr, Banning, Beebe, S. N. Bell, Bland, Bliss, Blount, Boone, Bradley, Bright, J. Y. Brown, Buckner, S. D. Burchard, Burleigh, Cabell, W. P Caldwell, A. Campbell, Candler, Caulfield, Chapin, Chittenden, J. B. Clarke, J. B. Clark, Jr., Clymer, Cochrane, Cook, Cowan, Cox, Crapo, Culber son, Cutler, Darrall, J. J. Davis, Davy, De Bolt, Dibrell, Douglas, Durand, Eden, Ellis, Faulkner, Felton, D. D. Field, J. J. Finley, Foster, Franklin, Fuller, Gause, Gibson, Glover, Goode, Goodin, Gunter, A. H. Hamilton, R. Hamilton, Hancock, Hardenburgh, B W. Harris, H. R. Harris, J. T. Harris, Harrison, Hartridge, Hartzell, Hatcher, Hathorn, Haymond, Henkle, Hereford, A. S. Hewitt, G. W. Hewitt, Hill, Hoar, Holman, Hooker, Hopkins, Hoskins, House, Humphreys, Hunter, Hunton, Jenks, F. Jones, Kehr, Kelley, Lamar, F. Landers, G. M. 5 Kansas. States. 8 Maryland... Landers, Lane, Leavenworth, Le Moyne, Levy, Lewis, | Votes. NAYS-Messrs. J. H. Baker, W. H. Baker, Ballou, NOT VOTING.-Messrs. Bass, Cason, Collins, Egbert, Hays, King, Lord, Odell, W. A. Phillips, S. Ross, Schumaker, Stephens, Wheeler, Wiggington-14. The Electoral Count The vote as an 3 Nebraska... 3 Nevada .... ........ 5 New Hampshire. .... 9 New Jersey.. 35 New York. 10 North Carolina...... David Dudley Field's Quo Warranto BillBeing one of the moves in Tilden's crafty game. March 2, 1877.-The very same day when the vote for Hayes was declared by both Houses, David Dudley Field, from the select nounced-Final separation of the Houses Committee on the privileges, powers and du-Subsequent revolutionary proceedings ties of the House of Representatives in countin the Democratic House before adjourning the vote for President and Vice Presi I watching how the cat jumped." In detail the vote was: YEAS.-Messrs. J. H. Bagley, Jr., Banning, Beebe, S. N Bell, Boone, J. Y. Brown, W. P. Caldwell, Candler Cate, Caulfield, J. B. Clarke, J. B. Clark, Jr., Collins' S. S. Cox, J. J. Davis, De Bolt, Eden, Ellis, D. D. Field, J. J. Finley, Franklin, Fuller, Gause, Glover, A. H. Hamilton, Hardenburgh, J. T. Harris, Hartzell, Hatcher, Hill, Holman, Hooker, A. Humphreys, T. L. Jones, F. Landers, Lane, Levy, Lord, Luttrell, Lynde, Meade, Morrison, L. T. Neale, Payne, Poppleton, A. V. Rice, J. Robbins, M. Ross, Seales, Schleicher, Sheakley, Slemons, Sparks, Springer, Teese, Terry, Thomas, Tucker, J. L. Vance, R. B. Vance, G. C. Walker, E. Wells, Whitthorne, Wiggington, B. Wilson, Yeates-66. NAYS-Messrs. Abbott, Adams, Ainsworth, J. H. Baker, W. H. Baker, Ballou, Banks, Belford, Blair, Bradford, Bradley, W. R. Brown, Buckner, Burleigh, Buttz, J. H. Hayes. Tilden. Caldwell, Cannon, Caswell, Chittenden, Conger, Crapo, Crounse, Culberson, Cutler, Danford, Darrall, _Davy, Dennison, Dobbins, Dunnell, Eames, Forney, Foster, Freeman, Frye, Garfield, Goodin, Haralson, B. W. Harris Hathorn, C. Hays, Hopkins, House, Hubbell, Hunter, Hurlbut, Jenks, Joyce, Kasson, Kehr, Kelley, Kimball, G. M. Landers, Lapham, Lawrence, Le Moyne, ynch, MacDougall, McDill, Mills, Monroe, New, Oliver, O'Neill, Packer, Page, W. A. Phillips, Pierce, Pratt, Rainey, J. B. Reilly, Riddle, M. S. Robinson, Sampson, C. P. Thompson, Thornburgh, M. I. Townsend, W. Townsend, Tufts, Wait, Waldron, A. S. Wal 3 ii 21 .......... ........ |