The Vote That Made the President

by David Dudley Field

This offer the Commission rejected by a vote of 8 to 7.

In the Commission Mr. Abbott moved the following:

"Resolved, That testimony tending to show that the so-called Returning Board of Louisiana had no jurisdiction to canvass the votes for electors of President and Vice-President is admissible."

This was rejected by the same vote.

In explaining the reason of their decision in the case, the Commission used the following language:

"And the Commission has, by a majority of votes, decided, and does hereby decide, that it is not competent, under the Constitution and the law as it existed at the date of the passage of said act, to go into evidence aliunde, the papers opened by the President of the Senate, in the presence of the two Houses, to prove that other persons than those regularly certified to by the Governor of the State of Louisiana, on and according to the determination and declaration of their appointment by the returning officers for elections in the said State prior to the time required for the performance of their duties, had been appointed electors, or by counter-proof to show that they had not; or that the determination of the said returning officers was not in accordance with the truth and the fact, the Commission, by a majority of votes, being of opinion that it is not within the jurisdiction of the two Houses of Congress, assembled to count the votes for President and Vice-President, to enter upon a trial of such questions."

Whether, therefore, the decisions of the Commission or the reasons given for them be sound or unsound, it may be assumed, that Brewster did not receive a majority of the votes cast by the people of Louisiana, and that the action of the Returning Board in cutting down the majority of his competitor, so as to reduce it below his, was taken without jurisdiction, and upon the pretense of statements and affidavits which they themselves had caused to be forged.

Brewster could not have been appointed Elector if he had received the Votes of all the People of Louisiana.

He had been made Surveyor-General of the United States, for the District of Louisiana, on the 2d of February, 1874; was recommissioned by President Grant on the 11th of February, 1875, and is at present exercising the office. Whether he has ever been out of the office depends upon the facts now to be mentioned. Eight or nine days after the election of November 7, 1876, at which he was a candidate on the Republican electoral ticket, there was received at the Department of the Interior, from the hands of the President, this letter:

Monroe, November 4, 1876.