The Anonymous Hypothesis of Creation. A Brief Review of the socalled Mosaic Account. By JAMES J. FURNISS. New York: Charles P. Somerby. 12mo. pp. 55. The Washington-Crawford Letters. Being the Correspondence between George Washington and William Crawford, from 1767 to 1781, concerning Western Lands. By C. W. BUTTERFIELD. Cincinnati : Robert Clarke & Co. 8vo. pp. xi, 107. Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian. By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 864. Worthy Women of our First Century. Edited by Mrs. O. J. WISTER and Miss AGNES IRWIN. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 328. The Principles of Psychology. By JOHN BASCOM. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 16mo. pp. xi, 404. The Growth of Children. By H. P. BOWDITCH, M. D. Boston. pp. 51. Reply to Hon. R. W. Thompson, Secretary of the Navy, addressed to the American People. By F. X. WENINGER, D. D., of the Society of Jesus. New York: P. O'Shea. 8vo. pp. 86. The Money Problem. Inquiries concerning the Nature and Office of Money, and the Source of its Value; with Remarks on Inflation, Commercial Lunacy, and the Downfall of Prices. By HENRY BRONSON, M. D. New Haven. 8vo. pp. 94. A Practical Treatise on Lightning Protection. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen, & Haffelfinger. By HENRY W. Spang. 16mo. pp. 180. By W. H. FUR The Power of Spirit Manifest in Jesus of Nazareth. A Short History of Rhode Island. By GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, Providence J. A. & R. A. Reid. 12mo. pp. xxvi, 356. NORTH AMERICAN AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCLVIII. SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1877. ART. I.-THE "ELECTORAL CONSPIRACY" BUBBLE EXPLODED. "The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them: whither are they vanish'd? Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted As breath into the wind." POLITICAL literature, contributed by violent and disappointed partisans, seldom deserves or takes a high rank in the esteem of men, either for style or permanent usefulness. That contained in the last number of this Review, entitled "The Electoral Conspiracy," furnishes no exception to this rule. Its author, the Hon. J. S. Black, was one of the counsel for the defeated Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President before the Electoral Commission. Having been long a member of that party, and especially distinguished, when Attorney-General of the United States, for his devotion to the fortunes and the schemes of the Secession leaders of the South, he saw in the defeat of their favorite nominees, Messrs. Tilden and Hendricks, only another triumph of Northern principles and of Northern Union men, both regarded by him with sincere dislike. In view of this, was he wise "to remind the reader of certain points in our political history which have within the last twenty years divided the two parties and defined their antagonism"? Or fortunate in unfolding the bloody leaves of that treasonable record which contains the history of those with whom he and other leadVOL. CXXV. - NO. 258. 13 ers of his party sympathized during the Rebellion? His position as counsel before the Electoral Commission, his Republican hatreds and prior rebellious proclivities, should have inclined him not to question the motives of a majority of that tribunal, although professional propriety might not have absolutely prohibited fair and moderate criticism upon its legal opinions. Such criticism he has not been content to make, but whilst declaring that "a question is raised which demands fair, full, and free discussion, so that truth may prevail and justice be done," he has charged eight of its fifteen members with conspiring to violate their oaths and duty for the purpose of upholding the fraudulent action of Returning Boards, and with accomplishing this by a wilful disregard of law and evidence, that the people of this nation might be defrauded of the President of their choice. Stated in the hideous language he employs, "All that once ennobled the nation seemed to be buried in this deep grave dug by the Returning Board and filled by the Electoral Commission." This general mode of libelling a majority of its members did not, however, satisfy the taste or temper of that gentleman. He yearned for more specific methods of presenting his estimate of their motives and conduct, and these he found and employed by means of language distinguished for both strength and coarseness, and, it may be added, not losing in vigor or brutality for lack of perversion or misrepresentation. Thus he says: They prac "The Eight Commissioners did not stop there. . . tically sustained and justified all the infinite rascality of the Returning Boards. They not only refused to take voluntary notice of the atrocious frauds perpetrated by them, but they excluded the proofs of their corruption which the Democratic counsel held in their hands, and offered to exhibit. These Commissioners choked off the evidence and smothered it as remorselessly as Wells and his associates suppressed Democratic returns. And this they put on the express ground that to them it was all one whether the action of these Boards was fraudulent or not. They would suffer no proof of corruption to invalidate the right claimed by a Hayes man to put in the vote of a State for his candidate. "This monstrous and unendurable outrage was resisted to the utmost. All of the Seven implored and protested against it. . . . . But the Eight were as deaf as adders to the voice of reason and justice. They would not permit the fraud to be assaulted, much less to be destroyed. They stood over it to protect it and save it, interposing the broad ægis of their authority to cover it against every attack." And again: "In all the discussions of the subject the men disposed to favor the conspiracy professed a most profound veneration for the "forms of law." This was the keynote struck at New Orleans by the visiting committee, and it is heard in every subsequent argument of counsel and commissioner on that side. It seemed to be understood among them that a formal cheat was perfectly safe from exposure." These are but a few of the many bitter and groundless charges with which this article abounds, showing its author's hostility to that majority of the Commission which ventured to decide the great questions before it contrary to his views. After alluding to the circumstances which led to its creation, he says: "The Democrats consented to this in the belief that no seven Republicans could be taken from the Court or from Congress who would swear to decide the truth and then uphold a known fraud; if mistaken in that opinion of their adversaries' honesty, they felt sure, at all events, that the umpire would be a fair-minded man. They were bitterly disappointed; the Commission went eight to seven for the Great Fraud and all its branches; for fraud in the detail and in the aggregate; for every item of fraud that was necessary to make the sum total big enough, eight to seven all the time." In closing this series of assaults upon members of a Commission earnestly favored by his own party as a means of ascertaining and counting the electoral vote, he says: "If the majority of that Commission could but have realized their responsibility to God and man, if they could only have understood that in a free country liberty and law are inseparable, they would have been enrolled among our greatest benefactors, for they would have added strength and grandeur to our institutions. But they could not come up to the height of the great subject. Party passion so benumbed their faculties that a fundamental right seemed nothing to them when it came in conflict with some argument supported by artificial reasoning, and drawn from the supposed analogies of technical procedure. The Constitution was, in their judgment, outweighed by a void statute, and the action of a corrupt Returning Board. "Let these things be remembered by our children's children, and, if the friends of free government shall ever again have such a contest, let them take care how they leave the decision of it to a tribunal like that which betrayed the nation by enthroning the Great Fraud of 1876." Amazement that charges so grave and wicked, against Judges, Senators, and Representatives so able and pure, should have been deliberately written and published by a distinguished member of the American bar, is only equalled by astonishment that they could have been printed and circulated without encountering the indignation, if not disgust, of the respectable representative men and press of the entire Democratic party. Instead of this, however, responsive echoes have been heard along its front and from its thronging masses, until, coupled with prior and somewhat similar charges made by its leaders, we are led to conclude that the political war-cry of that party is hereafter, and until the next Presidential election, to be that signalled by the article in question, "The Great Fraud of 1876." A late convert to the Democratic party, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, was, it is believed, the first to congratulate Mr. Tilden that he had been defeated by a fraudulent count of the electoral vote. Mr. Tilden, Mr. Hendricks, Senator Beck of Kentucky, and many others of that party, have not hesitated to repeat this charge, for the purpose of discrediting the title of Mr. Hayes to the great office he holds. The cunning and the baseness which have inspired this plan of attack upon the President of the United States, upon the party he leads, and upon the majority of the tribunal which, in an unprecedented and trying emergency, was created to aid, by its learning and its ability, in counting the electoral vote, will be apparent when the causes which led to its organization are referred to. The whole country remembers the result of the last Presidential election. The Republican party was unanimous in the belief that its candidates were entitled to a majority of one vote in the Electoral College. A Democratic committee of the House of Representatives had reported that Republican electors had been appointed in South Carolina. Canvassing Boards, having for that purpose exclusive power, duly appointed by the Legislatures of Florida and Louisiana, had returned Hayes electors; and the Secretary of State for Oregon, its only canvassing officer, had declared their appointment for that State. For a brief period there was seen in its political firmament, whilst Cronin seemed in the as |