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Show The Hayes-Tilden Controversy A CORRESPONDENT asks what votes were - thrown out by the election commission created creat-ed to settle the Hayes-Tilden dispute. It is a long story but condensed it is enough to say that after the election of 1876 a situation was presented that was not much removed from i anarchy. There were dual governments in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia; there was a clash over one electoral vote in Oregon. In those four states there were double returns and the election hung on a single vote. All kinds of charges were made. Charges of intimidation by tho stationing of soldiers near the polls in i South Carolina, of the use of cypher ballots in tho same state. From Florida came charges of fraud on both sides. In Louisiana, there were two governors gov-ernors and two returning boards, and a condition not one degree removed from anarchy. The Democratic Dem-ocratic governor of Oregon, on tho assumption i that one Republican elector was Ineligible gave a certificate to the highest candidate on the J Democratic candidate. i There were wranglings and contentions for weeks and threats of war. Henry Watterson was going to raise one hundred thousand men and inarch on Washington. But one U. S. Grant was president in Washington and without any noise he made a few preparations and the prospect of taking Washington by storm was not encouraging. Ik Then the Democarts in congress proposed that R a commission be formed to settle the question. r The commission, fifteen in number, was selected, I five from the senate, five from the house, four from the associate justices of the supreme court, and these last to elect the fifteenth member. It was expected that this member -would be Justice David Davis, but at that juncture Zach Chandler of Michigan and Governor Moreton of Indiana got in their work. They caused Judge Davis to be 1 elected U. S. senator in Ollinois, and this gave the t fifteenth membership to Justice Bradley, a Re- publican and the commission was then eight Ke lt publicans to seven Democrats, instead of Eight If " Democrats to seven Republicans, as had been i planned. The final vote was strictly partisan eight Republicans to seven Democrats, and the vote merely followed the previous claims of the ! two parties. That was the expectation from the first. 1 Democrats claimed of course that Mr. Tllden was elected, but Mr. Tllden was the most subtile manipulator of politics that the country had seen since the days of Martin Van Buren, and neither he nor his friends desired to see all his methods I . explored and exposed. L And four years later Mr. Tilden's party failed I to re-nominate him though all through that per- f iod all its members were wont to declare at every repetition of their grouch that they would noml- nate him in 1880. The episode came in reconstruction days when the passions of all the people were inflamed as never before, and nothing but the memories of the great war prevented a second Avar from being pre- t clpltated. Those memories and the unseen power that at first set the state and called the acts that caused the grinding off of every fetter of human slavery. |