Not to detain you [said Trumbull] as to this Government in Louisiana, I will only say that it is not a republican government, for it is a matter that I think this Commission should take official knowledge of, that the pretended officers in the state of Louisiana are upheld by military power alone. They could not maintain themselves an hour but for military support. Is that government republican which rests upon military power for support? A republican government is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people: but the Government in Louisiana has been nothing but a military despotism for the last four years, and it could not stand a day if the people were not overborne by military power.
His speech was about two hours long, and he was followed by Carpenter and Campbell on the same side. The leading argument on the Hayes side was made by Mr. E. W. Stoughton, of New York, who contended that neither the Commission nor Congress itself could go behind the official returns certified by the governor of the state of Louisiana, and that the recognition of Kellogg as governor by the President of the United States was conclusive evidence of the fact that he was the person empowered to act in that capacity.
By a vote of eight to seven the Commission decided in favor of Stoughton's contention, and the same rule was applied to all the other disputed returns, and by this ruling the presidential office was awarded to Rutherford B. Hayes.
Under the circumstances then existing, and with the characters then holding office in Louisiana, it is obvious that the latter had power to throw out an unlimited number of Tilden votes if necessary to make a majority for Hayes. It is not obvious that the supporters of Tilden had power to intimidate an unlimited number of negroes; the number of the latter was slightly less than the number of whites in the State, and it was known that some of the negroes had joined the conservative party. Moreover, the Kellogg government was shamefully illegal, even as measured by the standards then enforced upon the South. It is fair to presume, therefore, that Tilden was justly entitled to the electoral votes of Louisiana. That is my belief although I voted for Hayes.
It does not follow, however, that the decision of the Electoral Commission was wrong. That body was bound to consider the remote as well as the immediate consequences of its acts. It was engaged in making a precedent to be followed in similar disputes thereafter, if such should arise. If Congress, or any commission acting by its authority, should assume the functions of a returning board for all the states in future presidential elections, what limit could be set to their investigations, or to the passions agitating the country while the same were in progress? In short, the Electoral Commission was sitting not to do justice between man and man, but to save the Republic. Even if it made a mistake in the exercise of its discretion, the mistake was pardonable.
On the 3d of November, 1877, the subject of this memoir was married to Miss Mary Ingraham, of Saybrook Point, Connecticut. The lady's mother was his first cousin. Two daughters were born of this union, both of whom died in infancy.
In 1880, when the next presidential campaign, that of Garfield and Hancock, opened, the Democrats of Illinois nominated Trumbull for governor of the State, without his own solicitation or desire. He was now sixty-seven years of age, with powers of body and mind unimpaired. In accepting the nomination he gave a brief account of his political life extending over a period of nearly forty years. He acknowledged that he had made mistakes, but said he had never given a vote or performed an act in his official capacity which he did not at the time believe was for his country's good. He made a vigorous campaign, but the traces left of it in the newspapers contain nothing that need be recalled now. The Republican majority in the state was between thirty and forty thousand. The Republicans nominated Shelby M. Cullom for Governor and he was elected.