were plotting how to conceal what they pretended to be wishing to discover? Taken all in all, the sounding profession, the bustling search, and the studied concealment, make a drama, half comedy and half tragedy, the like of which this generation has not seen till now, but the like of which it and its successors may see many times, if the audience does not hiss the play, and remit the actors to the streets.

It has been objected, as a reason for not receiving offered evidence, that there was not time to take it before the 4th of March. How was that known? Perhaps it could have been taken in an hour. Why was not the question asked, how much time the evidence would take, before it was excluded? If the certificate was false, and the falsehood was susceptible of proof, every effort possible should have been made to receive it, and receive it all. It is not commonly accepted as good reason for not searching after the truth, that the search may be difficult. Nor is it an unusual occurrence to require an argument or decision to be made within a period limited. Ten minutes' speeches in Congress, two hours' argument in the Supreme Court, a jury shut in a room until they agree upon a verdict, a court required by statute to render its decision by a day fixed, are not so strange as to be remarkable, or found in practice so embarrassing as to cause the practice to be abandoned.

Nor is it any answer to say that, if the offer of evidence had been accepted, the proof would have fallen short of the offer. That does not lie in the mouth of any one to say, who excluded the evidence, or justified its exclusion. The characters of the counsel who made the offer, and of the commissioner who moved its acceptance, are a guarantee not only of their good faith, but of a reason for their belief. No man has any right to deny that the proof offered would have been made good, who refused the opportunity. They who closed their ears should in decency keep their mouths shut. But it was not the counsel and the commissioner alone who believed that the proof offered would be made good. Every one who witnessed the examinations in Washington, every one who read the testimony taken by the Congressional Committees in Louisiana, must have been satisfied that the conduct of the Returning Board was throughout unlawful, wicked, and shocking, to the last degree.

The title of the acting President, however valid in law, if valid at all, is tainted with fraud in fact. There was fraud in certifying that Brewster had received a majority of the votes of Louisiana, and fraud in attempting to evade that part of the Constitution which pronounced his disqualification. When the Electoral Commission advised Congress, and Congress accepted, by not rejecting, the advice, that fraud could not be proved, that advice being but the equivalent of saying that fraud was of no consequence; when it advised that the incompetency of the Returning Board, for want of jurisdiction, could not be proved, such proof being but the equivalent of proof that the pretended board was not a board at all; when it advised that the forgery, by direction of the board, of the statements and affidavits on which it pretended to act as true could not be proved, that proof being but the equivalent of proof that the pretended statements and affidavits were not statements and affidavits at all; when it advised that the barrier raised by the Constitution against the appointment of a Federal officer to choose a Federal President, was not a barrier at all—the moral sense of the whole American people was shocked. No form of words can cover up the falsehood; no sophistry can hide it; no lapse of time wash it out. It will follow its contrivers wherever they go, confront them whenever they turn, and as often as one of them asks the suffrages of his countrymen, he may expect to hear them reply, "Why do you reason with us, why seek to persuade us into giving you our votes, you that have taught us such a contempt for votes, that one fraudulent certificate is better than ten thousand of them?"

The Political Question.

The advice of the Commission, with the consequent action of Congress, was a virtual affirmation of this proposition, that if on the morning of the 6th of December the Federal general commanding in Louisiana had surrounded the State-House with soldiers, and marching in eight of his captains, had compelled the Returning Board to certify their appointment as electors, and the Governor to add his certificate, Congress and the country would have been obliged to accept the votes of these captains as the constitutional and lawful votes of Louisiana electors. Whoever supposes that the union of these States can endure under such an interpretation of their fundamental law, must be endowed with credulity beyond the simplicity of childhood. The doctrine is an open invitation to transgression and usurpation. The judicious disposition of a few troops in the capitals of disputed States, on the day of the electoral vote, will perpetuate an Administration just so long as the audacity of a President, or the cupidity of his office-holders, may find it desirable; unless, indeed, it be found, as is most likely, that the ways of fraud are cheaper, easier, and less palpable than the ways of force.

The Legal Question.

As to the conclusiveness of the Governor's and canvassers' certificates. The doctrine of the majority of the Commission, and of the Senate, is, that the certificate of the Governor "on and according to the determination and declaration" of the State canvassers, cannot be shown to be false, though it may have been obtained by force or fraud. This doctrine admits that the truth of the Governor's certificate can be inquired into, else why the qualification that it must be "on and according to" the canvasser's certificate. It is said to be good only when in such accord; therefore, when not in accord, it is good for nothing. We may, then, dismiss the Governor's certificate as of no account, and to be left therefore out of further discussion. The substance of the doctrine is, that the certificate of the State canvassers cannot be contradicted.

This language must, of course, be understood, as used in reference to the question at that time depending; that is to say, whether evidence to contradict or annul the certificate was then and there admissible. It had already been decided in the Florida case that no action of the State authorities, after the electors had voted, could affect the validity of the vote. Whether such action before the vote would have been of any avail was not decided, and will never be decided, unless a radical change is made in the laws, since, according to present legislation, the vote of the electors treads fast on the heels of their appointment. In Florida, they were declared appointed at three o'clock in the morning, and they voted at twelve, just nine hours afterward. In Louisiana the interval was even less. To suppose that any State action would or could be had in such an interval, or in any interval possible under present laws, would be as wild as to suppose that counting in a President by fraud will not be followed by imitators at future elections.

Taking the doctrine, however, precisely as it was applied in the instance of Louisiana, it is this: that the certificate of State canvassers cannot be impeached by evidence showing either that they had no jurisdiction to canvass the electoral vote at all, or that they had no jurisdiction to throw away votes that were actually cast, inasmuch as the power to throw away came into existence only when affidavits were laid before them, and there were no affidavits except such as they had caused to be forged, which, in the eye of the law, were not affidavits at