THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Evening Star, Issue 4337, 22 January 1877, Page 4

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

By cable on Saturday •we learned that the ultimate decision as to who will be President of the United States for the next term, which dates from March next, rests jointly with the Supreme Court of the country and the two houses of the Legislature, iro what threatened to be a very serious difficulty, which might lead te bloodshed, is now most Mkelj to hare a peaceful solution. There is little doubt th*t its det rmination hj d rested with the Returning Boards, the losing party would hare resisted by force the inauguration of a President elected by such a narrow majority—if the majority did exist —and under such circumstances. It may not be uninteresting to give some particulars regarding the Presidential election. THE POLLING took place throughout the Union on November 7, and within twenty-four hours afterwards the result in thirty-eightj States of the Union was known. Never was such heavy voting before. This arose, of course, from the exceptional interest taken in the trial of party strength, though due allowance roust be made for the fact that the constituency has greatly increased by natural causes during the last four years. The results of the poll, as announced by the American papers on the day after, may be thus tabulated Democrats : Tilden and Hendrichs.

This left Louisiana with eight voles and Florida with four undecided. Tilden had a majority of votes, hut needed yet another to give him that absolute majority required by the Constitution ; while Hayes, to bo victorious, must carry both the disputed States. Thus the counting of votes in Louisiana and Florida became a matter of incalculable importance. Grant, with a firmness that fcontra-ts markedly with many of his recent acts, ordered troops into Florida and Louisiana to protect the ballot-boxes from the interference of violent and unscrupulous partisans, threw the whole power of the Administration upon the side of fair play, and invited a number of prominent Ke-

publicans to be present at the official count. “ Either party,” said he, “can afford to be defeated, but no man worthy the position of President could bear to be counted in by fraud.” Inf .rmation by cable leaves room for no doubt that the Returning Boards of the two States, which count the votes, have given them to Hayes, as nearly everybody acquainted with the politics of those states expected they would. The effect of that is to give Hayes a majority of one vote. But the Democratic party dispute half-a-dozen other states given to the Republicans, and claim Oregon on a technical point, folate as December 6 we find Tilden, when waited on by deputations of Democrats, stated his belief that “ Congress would never sanction the frand committed by the Electoral Boards. He and Hendrichs claim not only that they are elected by a majority of the electoral vote, as well as the popular vote, but also that they will be quietly and peacefully inaugurated.” Both Governors agreed that the Vice-President had nothing to do with the counting of votes but simply to open them, and that Congress alone counts the votes. Tilden believes the House has not the power to declare that there has been no election, and then elect Samuel J. Tilden ; but he does think the House can prevent an election, and peacefully defeat the inauguration of Hayes, sending the whole thing back to the people within a year. Such seems to be the drift of the Democratic programme. It is hard to say how the investigation by the mixed tribunal, appointed by Congress, will go. Hayes’s claims will have the great moral support of the Grant Administration, which has everything tojgainby his election : Tilden, on the other hand, has the masses behind him. Except on one point, there is not, as we pointed out some time ago, much difference between the two “platforms,” and both the candidates have by their past actions proved that they possess great ability. Tilden wou'd undoubtedly prove the greater administrator, while he is pledged to effect sweeping reforms in the Civil Service of the Union - the need of which is universally admitted, as may be guessed when the Service is condemned by all shades of politics, ; Tis not many days since that Mark Twain, himself a .Republican, described the Civil Service system of the United States as “ so idiotic, so contemptible, so grotesque, that it would make the very savages of Dahomey jeer and the very gods of solemnity laugh.” It was because they have faith in Tilden’s promise to alter all this—and knowing by what he has been able to do in his native State that it is no idle promise—that so many moderate Republicans threw in their lot with thenopponents, as the voting in some hitherto pronounced Republican States shows.

FEATURES OF THE roi.LIXC

As return after return c une in from the Western and Pacific c-tates, it became apparent that the only one carried by the Democrats was Indiana, and that, instead of the South being “solidly” Democratic, there were doubts about the result in the Carolinas, Louisiana, and Florida. The returns received left, however, no doubt about the Democratic majority of the South, and the means by which it had been obtained. The negroes had been cowed into submission everywhere except in South Carolina—where a large force of United States troops had compelled the white population to treat them fairly—in Louisiana and in Florida, where the Republicans were in possession of the State offices. In the latter Sates there had been violence, but the negroes bad, notwithstanding, managed to poll a large number of votes. In Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi they had not dared to put in an appearance at the polls. For the first day or two after the election, and while the Democratic party were in a state of exaltation at their success, there was little or no atteu.pt to disguise the terrorism to which the negroes had been subjected, or the cruelty v ith which they had been trea'ed. One paper boasted that 200 negroes had gone to one booth, and that they had been supplied by some white scoundrel with Republican tickets, but, added the South ;rn journalist, “ a few white gentlemen rode up, applied some persuasive arguments, and a 1 ter a few minutes’ colloquy, the colored people slunk away, looking very foolish.” The figures showed accurately enough the state of affairs which existed in the far South. Alabama has 94,791 white, and 118,777 colon d voters, which would make the State Il< public; n since every negro votes that ticket; hut the Democratic majority was 35,000. In Ue >rgia there were 118,188 white, and 138,285 colored voters, and yet the Democrats claimed J ft majority of 75,000. Xu Mississippi there arc

68.816 white and 111.050 colored electors and j yet the State vCent Democratic by 75,000. I ' As telegram after telegram reached New j .York- and Washington the nature of the i Democratic vote became apparent. T1 • majority for Air Tildeu in the great state of New York was 30,000 out of a million votes ' which had been recorded, while his maj rity in the city itself and Brooklyn was 108,000. ‘ , The strength of the Republicans had been ; in the West, in New Fngland, in Pennysyl- j ▼ania, and in the rural districts of New i York. The Democrats bad carried almost everything before them in the South, and in those portions of New York, Now Jersey .and Connecticut, which were within 100 miles of the commercial capital, and in which the foreign or naturalised vote was ; the strongest. The Republican newspapers j were full of accounts of the outrages that j had been committed in the South. In some j places in Alabama Republicans were not | allowed to vote, the authorities refusing to | receive the Republican ticket ; in another j the county judges threatened any unfor- I tunate negro who came to tie poling place j with the terrors of the law, a sort of threat | which, being rather vague, was all the more i efficacious. But even more significant of I the state of feeling in Alabama than any- ; thing which occurred upon election day were the jubilations indulged in for a day or 1 two afterwards, when it appeared certain that the Democrats had achieved a decisive victory. Negroes who had voted the llepubl can ticket were cruelly beaten, their cottages burnt, and they were told that, unless they left the State within seven days, worse would happen to them. In Lonisiair.i, where the State administration is in* the hands of the Republican--, there were many large parishes in which the Democrats had I driven the negroes from the polling places : j there-were others in which the unfortunate wretches, remembering the cruel massacres of 1868 and 1873, when fifty-nine negroes were shot in cold hh-.od at Colfax, had kept at home and had locked and barricade! their houses upon the day of e'ection. In Mississippi the state of affairs was even worse. Not three weeks from the elections, negroes wdio wished to vote the Republican ticket . were shot, hung, or flogged ; others were deceived by being *.ivcn ticket- having the portrait of Hayes and Wheeler upon them, while the names were those of the Democratic candidates. At some polling-places all the officers appointed were violent Democrats, and ability to read or write was made a disqualification to a negro for holding office as a poll clerk. The result of the mode adopted by the Democrats to stifle the Republican vote has only been too successful. In Ya/,00 County, with a white population of 4,881, a.d a black population of 12,395, which gave in 1872 Grant 2,432 votes,, and Greeley 9-2, the Democrats polled this ye ir 4,044 voLs, and the Republicans only two. In other counties the disproportion ;s almost equally fr,e. In Madison County there were on'y seventeen Republican votes ; in Lowndes the same number; and in Amite there was not one. In North Car dina, where, owing to its greater proximity to the civilised portion of the Union, a better state of tilings nvgbt be expected, the Democrats took possession of the polls, and no person was allowed to obtain ready access to them unless he was a known Democrat, The Republican voter was not treated with any violence, but his vote was challenged in every case ; he was c mpelled to pro !nee proof of bis identity, and so much time was I consumed that when the polls closed thousands of Republicans It ad been unable to vote. The policy pursued by the Democrats of Carolina might not have been successful bad the Republicans been of the same race and of the same condition in life as the Democrats. But the great majority were ignorant negro s, without leadets or advisers, except of tluir own color, accnsj turned throughout the r lives to lie bullied and hectored into subm ssion. With such voters the Democratic plan has been only too successful, and North Carolina went for Tildeu by a majority of 12,000.

Votes Votes Alabama . 10 Missouri ... . 15 Arkansas .. 6 New Jersey . 9 Carolina, N. .. 10 Now York . 35 Connecticut ... .. 6 Torn:ssc-e . 12 Delaware .. 3 Texas 8 Georgia .. 11 Virginia ... . H Indiana .. 15 Virginia, W. . 5 Kentucky .. 12 — Maryland . 8 Total , 181 Mississippi ... Republican .. 8 : Hayes and Whcelek. Votes. Votes. California ... 6 Now Hampshire 5 Colorado .. 3 Oregon 3 Illinois .. 21 Ohio . 22 Iowa .. 11 Pennsylvania . 29 Kansas ... 5 Rhode Island . . 4 Maine . 7 8. Carolina . 7 Massachusetts .. 13 Vermont . 5 Michigan .. 11 Wisconsin . 10 Minnesota ... .. 5 — Nebraska . 3 Total . 173 Nevada . S