The eight Commissioners did not stop there. They went much farther. They practically justified and sustained 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. Judge Clifford, the President of the Commission, laid it down as a maxim of the common law that fraud vitiates whatever it touches, and proved it undeniably. He might have proved more. It is not merely a maxim of the common law: it belongs to all countries and all ages; no code can claim it exclusively; it pervades all systems of jurisprudence; it has its home in every honest heart; it is the universal sentiment of all just men; it applies to all human dealings. Judge Field looked in the face of the majority, and told them plainly that their disregard of this great principle was "as shocking in morals as it was unsound in law," and added: "It is elementary knowledge that fraud vitiates all proceedings, even the most solemn; that no form of words, no amount of ceremony, no solemnity of proceeding, can shield it from exposure, or protect its structure from assault and destruction." 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 shield it, protect it, and save it, interposing the broad ægis of their authority to cover it against every attack.

The Eight persistently denied their power or that of Congress to do what they were commanded by the law to do, that is, decide who were duly appointed. They would only decide that certain persons were named as electors by a Returning Board. They would not understand that the appointment by the people might be one thing, and the action of the Returning Board an

other, or that the latter, even as evidence of the former, was worthless if it was fraudulent.

They insisted that the Returning Board certificate must be received with all the honors; to question its verity would be usurpation upon State rights which they (the Eight) were most careful to preserve intact and unimpaired. "But," said they, "if a Returning Board behaves unfaithfully, the State herself, by her own authorities, must see to it and correct the wrong." Thereupon came Florida, and showed that she had, in fact, made the correction. All the departments of her government - her legislature, her courts, and her executive-had at different times examined and revised the action of her Returning Board; pronounced it false, fraudulent, and void; declared that the Tilden electors were duly appointed, and left the Hayes candidates without a shred of authority to vote for the State. There stood the State herself, upright before the august Commission, with all the evidence in her hand, protesting against the fraud and demanding that no vote should be received except the vote of her own electors duly appointed by her people. But the Commission answered that under the circumstances of this case she had no right to defend herself against the fraud of a Returning Board any more than she had to be defended by the Federal authorities. Whatever she might do, or decide, or resolve upon, the Great Fraud was her master and she must submit. So it appeared, after all the fine speeches about State rights, that Florida had but one right, the right to be cheated out of her vote by the same knaves who had already robbed her of her property. That right was sacred and intangible, and the Commission promptly put her in full possession of it.

In the case of Florida there was one piece of evidence offered which not only commended itself strongly to the consideration of just men, but, being supported by certain artificial rules of pleading and practice it was expected to find acceptance in the narrowest mind on the bench. This was the record of a judicial proceeding commenced in a Florida court by writ of quo warranto at the suit of the State upon the relation of the Tilden electors against the Hayes electors. The parties came into court and pleaded, and the issue made between them was, whether one set or the other (the relators or the defendants) were duly appointed electors of President and Vice-President by and for the State of

Florida. Evidence was taken, the cause was debated by counsel on both sides, and after consideration it was adjudged by the court, against the defendants and in favor of the State, that the relators were duly appointed and the defendants not. This fact, thus determined by the court, was precisely the same fact afterward controverted by the same parties before the Commission. When submitted to the latter tribunal, it was res judicata; not only true, but fixed and settled beyond the reach of contradiction. The judgment was not impeached for fraud or reversed for error. It was in full force and virtue. It was not denied that the court which made the adjudication had entire and complete jurisdiction both of the subject-matter and of the parties. By all reason and all authority the Commission was bound to respect this judgment as conclusive evidence. But to have done this would have made Tilden President and defeated the purpose of all the frauds in Louisiana and Florida both. They did not do it; they allowed the judgment to have no effect at all. They but looked to see what it was and immediately swept it out of sight. They put it far from them, and then proceeded to pronounce a different judgment, which suited the Hayes men better. How could they break all the bars of legal authority which fenced them about? What starting hole did they find to escape from the corner into which they were driven and penned up by the law of the land? We shall see.

They said the judgment of the Court was too late; it was pronounced after the Hayes electors had met and made out their votes, and sent them to the President of the Senate. Here were two sets of electors, each claiming the exclusive right to vote for the State, and both of them actually sent up their ballots. One of them was duly appointed, and had the authority claimed; the other set was necessarily composed of mere pretenders, who were not duly appointed, and, having no authority, their vote was a mere nullity. Which party was right, and which wrong? The conflict must be settled somehow. Where was the jurisdiction to determine it? Undoubtedly, and by universal admission, the power was in the courts of the State from which both claimants professed to derive their authority. The proper State court did determine it; but the Commissioners said that however competent the jurisdiction of the court, it was too late in making its decision, and then they proceeded, in the exercise of a jurisdiction exactly similar, to decide the same questions of fact and law the other way. Now comes the

query If the court's decision was worthless because it was late, what was the value of the Commission's judgment, which was LATER? The Eight did actually, not in words, but in substance and effect, give vent to the bald absurdity that it was too late in January to decide the dispute in favor of Tilden, but not too late in February to decide it in favor of Hayes.

Another thing they said: This judgment, though it proved the fact that the Hayes claimants were not duly appointed, and had no title to the office of electors, did not invalidate the acts previously done by them while they were de facto in the exercise of the powers they usurped. There is a just and necessary rule of law which declares that the validity of acts regularly done by an officer shall not depend on the title by which he holds the office. You may remove a sheriff by a quo warranto without destroying the titles of all who purchased land at his sales, or a judge without vacating his decrees, or a treasurer without saying that his payment of a public debt is not satisfaction; but where a person assumes a special authority to do a particular thing the validity of the act does depend on the authority to do it. This latter rule applies here. These electors claimed a right to vote for the State under a special appointment given them to do that one act. When a competent court adjudicated as matter of fact that the Hayes electors had no appointment, it was a logical and legal necessity which declared the unauthorized votes to be null and void. If this were not the principle, then any impostor, or any number of impostors, might send up their ballots, and one would be as good as another. But again, let it not be forgotten that the Tilden electors had also voted at the same time in the same way. Why did not this fact make as much weight for them as for the others? It will excite the wonder of the world to learn that, in the opinion of the Eight, a person who voted under an appointment given him by the people according to law could not be even a de facto elector, but another person who had nothing to claim by except the false, fraudulent, and void declaration of a Returning Board was good de facto, if he was good for nothing else. This doctrine of de facto sanctification, saving acts which have no other "relish of salvation in them," and making the votes of unauthorized men as good as if they came from persons duly appointed, cuts a great figure throughout the whole case. It is not applicable, but the Eight apply it verywhere, and, strange to say, they never use it when it does not

court, against the

relators were duly thus determined ward controvert When submitted only true, but fixe The judgment wa It was in full fore which made the a both of the subje all authority the as conclusive evi Tilden President Louisiana and F the judgment to what it was and far from them, a ment, which suit all the bars of le starting hole did were driven and

They said the nounced after the and sent them t of electors, each and both of the duly appointed, was necessaril appointed,

Which p

mind a Court of Quar

a pauper cannot tie up e defending a fundamental en Grenville, in 1766, cited the

cases to show that America might be taxed

tation, Pitt answered: "I come not here armed a with the statute-book doubled down in dog's ears to the case of liberty. I can acknowledge no veneration for

re, law, or ordinance, that is repugnant to reason and principles of our Constitution. I rejoice that America has So spoke the defiant friend of our race in the presence stile Parliament ten years before the Declaration of Inde ce And now, after this long interval of time, we behold greatest right-the right on which all other rights depend,

fully assailed in our own Congress with the same small weap that Grenville used. If brute force had crushed it out, we might have borne the calamity with fortitude; but to see it cir vented by knavery and pettifogged to death, is too much to be endured with any show of patience.

If the majority of that Commission could but have realized their sponsibility 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

uld not come up to the height of the great subject. Party passion so benumbed their faculties that a fundamental right seemed

ing to them when it came in conflict with some argument sup ed by artificial reasoning and drawn from the supposed analo gs of technical procedure. The Constitution was in their judg reighed by a void statute and the action of a corrup

things be remembered by our children's children, and s of free government shall ever again have such a con the care how they leave the decision of it to a tri

which betrayed the nation by enthroning the Great