U. S. Grant, President United States, Washington, D. C.
The reappointment was made on the 5th of January, 1877. The Chief of the Appointment Division in the Interior Department was asked and testified about it as follows:
"Q. Who recommended his appointment in January?
A. I think the probability is (although there is no evidence of it) that there was no recommendation, further than his own application to the President.
Q. You do not know of any recommendation?
A. I do not know of any.
Q. There is none on file?
A. There is none on file to the best of my knowledge. There is none on file in the Interior Department."
Who does not perceive the shallow trick by which Brewster pretended to have divested himself of his Federal office that he might vote; only to be reinvested as soon as he had voted?
The letter of resignation, with its false date, and its pretended acceptance, to take effect as of a time past, were evident shams to make it appear that he was not holder of a Federal office when he was elected; his affecting to be absent on the 6th of December, and coming in immediately to fill the vacancy occasioned by his own absence, in order to make it appear that his appointment was made on that 6th of December, instead of the 7th of November, and his barefaced application on the third day thereafter to be reappointed to the Federal office, from which he could not possibly have perfected his resignation before the 20th of November—all these were but so many contrivances to evade the highest enactment known to our civil polity. In the eye of reason and of law, he acted during the whole period under that influence of office which it was the design of the Constitution to prevent, and he must have entered more thoroughly into the work of his Federal master than if he had not gone through the form of resigning, inasmuch as that placed him, more than before, in his master's power.
Let us now place side by side the commandment of the Constitution and the resolution of the Electoral Commission:
| COMMANDMENT. | RESOLUTION. | |
| "No Senator or Representative, | "The Commission by a majority | |
| or person holding an office of trust | of votes, is also of the opinion that | |
| or profit under the United States, | it is not competent to prove that any | |
| shall be appointed an elector." | of said persons, so appointed electors | |
| as aforesaid, held an office of trust or | ||
| profit under the United States at the | ||
| time when they were appointed, or | ||
| that they were ineligible under the | ||
| laws of the State, or any other matter | ||
| offered to be proved aliunde the | ||
| said certificates and papers." |
It would be unjust to cast upon the Electoral Commission the blame of all the wrong that has been practised in this presidential count. The Commission was but a council of advice, which Congress might have taken or not, as it pleased, the only condition being that, in order to reject it, both Houses must have agreed. The responsibility of the final decision lay, after all, upon Congress, or rather, upon the Senate, which voted throughout to follow the Commission.
The facts thus briefly recited present certain questions—moral, political, and legal—which cannot be considered too soon for our good repute and our self-respect.