Hawke's Bay Herald. THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1877.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3896, 12 April 1877, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1877.

The papers bought by the last San Franois<?<!> mail give details of the mea»S resorted to in America to solve thQ difficulty in connection with the Presidential election. The aim of those that desired that the solution, should not only be a peaceful one, but should be unattended with tiny after ill-consequences, was to secure the adoption of such measures as would not he open even to the suspicion of unfairness. But it was ■ not easy to find a solution of such a kind, particucnlarly as in one House of the American Congress there was a Democratic majority, and in the other a Republican majority. " The emergency," remarks the Spectator, " was great, because it so happened that the party witlt fclie largest popular vote, and therefore with a certain presumption in its favor, was the Opposition party, and not the party holding the reins of office ; and because, also, the defeat of that party by any means, either really unfair, or appearing to be so to the great masses of the American people, would have been very apt to cause, and not only to cause, but hi some measure to justify, the belief that there was a fixed intention not to give the Democrats and whites of the South, whose influence had carried the greater number of the Southern States for the Democrats, fair play. No impression could have been more fatal to the confidence of the people in institutions, and no doubt it Was an impression which at one time seemed very likely to become a, wide-spread one, and, indeed, one founded on very j plaxisible grovinds. The control of the Union for four years was at issYie; party-feeling was high ; the Republicans sincerely believed that the triumph of the Democrats might stimulate a new attempt at independence or secession j the Democrats sincerely believed that the triumph of the Republicans might stimulate a new inroad on State rights and a new effort at conquest. No more ominous collision could have been imagined." Still, though the emergency was great, the American Congress Jproved quite equal to it. A bill was introduced constituting a Commission consisting of five members of the Senate, five of the House of Representatives, and five of the Judges of the Supreme Court. With respect to the Judges the bill only named four of those that were to be appointed, leaving to the four Judges the appointment of the fifth. This, evidently, was done in order to render that section of the Commission as evenly balanced as was possible in a country where partizanship is not excluded even from the Bench of Judges. Of course the four Judges named in the bill were two from each party. There was no provision regulating the mode of choosing the fifth Judge, but that does not seem to have presented any difficulty. The function of the Commission was to decide in cases where there were two returns from a State, and its decision was to be final unless rejected by a vote of both Houses. Curiously enough, it was on all sides expected that the result of the scheme — " coi^romise" it is termed in all the papers — would be the election of Mr Tilden to the office of President, and thus the different attitudes of the American newspapers may be accounted for. Most of the Republican papers strongly opposed the compromise. Chief among these was the Rew York Times. That paper treated the " contrivance," as it termed it, as little less than ludicrous, in favor only " with business men, who are ready to welcome any means of escape from complications which injure trade and retard the recovery of public confidence." A very good retort to this was made by the Hew York Herald. Speaking of the cry that the bill would only benefit the industrial and trading interests, the Herald asked, " "Well, are not the < industrial and trading industries' a little more important than the question as to which set of partisans shall eujoy the fat offices of the Government for the next four years V One of the Republican journals spoke i of the compromise as an infraction of the Constitution. "This surely," it said, "is not preservative legislation. This is aggressive warfare on the Constitution. Thisis manipulation, specious and cunning, by which the whim of the ephemeral majority at Washington is substituted for written, stable, fundamental law. This bill so 'fearfully and wonderfully made,' is to our institutions, and, to the liberties they enshrine, more terrible than an army with banners, for it can pass at all only on the ruins of the Constitution." Nevertheless the bill did pass, and after all the opposition to it by the Republicans the result was the elevation of MiHayes to the Presidental chair, and thus has the " compromise" removed all cause for contention. The Republicans must be satisfied, seeing that their candidate has obtained the Presidentship ; and the Democrats are debarred from complaining, as the mode adopted for solving the difficulty [had their warm advocacy.