"_Private._
"_Thursday_ (_Nov. 23, 1876_).
"MY DEAR GOVERNOR,--I had a long talk with Curtis, and
have made it all right. He _volunteered_ the information that he
wrote the _Sun's_ article yesterday, but without entering into the
discussion of the merits of his argument I told him that all our
friends viewed the question differently.
"_He will keep quiet_, I know, and I hope Barlow has been equally
successful with Dana. No pains ought to be spared to get him all
right so as to end, as far as he can, the mischief of yesterday's
article.
"Curtis is anxious for your success, but he is a _vain_ man, who
likes to be made something of. I think some little notice of him by
you or your friends in the way of asking his legal advice or other
co-operation would secure him completely to your interests and
silence his constitutional croaking.
Yours sincerely,
"AUGUST BELMONT."
* * * * *
The editorial of the _Sun_ here referred to, after giving in detail
the provisions of the Constitution for the counting of the electoral
votes for President and Vice-President, proceeds to give the advice
which so disturbed Messrs. Belmont and Barlow:
"We[16] now proceed to state what, in our opinion, the Constitution
means by counting the votes. It is to be noted that the Constitution
commits the choice of a President and Vice-President, in the first
instance, to a body of electors who are to be chosen in each State
as its legislators may direct. These electors are to meet, to vote,
and to make and sign and seal up a certificate of their votes. These
instruments, denominated in the Constitution 'the certificates,'
are to be transmitted to the President of the Senate 'sealed.'
They are, in our opinion, not merely _prima facie_, but they are
conclusive, evidence that the Electoral Colleges of the States from
which they come gave the votes which they purport to certify.
[16] New York _Sun_, Wednesday, November 22, 1876.
"We can conceive of no reason why the Constitution required the
electors to make and sign and certify lists of the votes which they
gave, excepting that it was required in order to give legal verity
to the contents of the certificates. For the same reason we hold
that to 'count the votes' so certified does not import or imply a
power to inquire into the legality, sufficiency, or regularity of
the appointment of the electors whose appointment is duly certified
by the State authorities whose duty it is to give to the two Houses
of Congress legal information of that appointment. It will never do,
in our judgment, to draw analogies for the government of this matter
from the practice of legislative bodies in judging of the rights
of their members to seats. That practice rests upon an express
constitutional provision; and it is from that express power to
determine the legality of an election that their whole authority to
go behind the certificate of a sitting member is derived.
"But these Electoral Colleges are peculiar bodies, whose appointment
is committed wholly to the States, whose certificates, when their
official character has been duly vouched by their States, become by
force of the Constitution the sole and exclusive legal evidence that
the votes of those States have been cast for such and such persons
as President and Vice-President. It cannot be, therefore, that any
authority can reside anywhere to try any question, or to find any
fact, that is to warrant the two Houses in rejecting the votes of
any Electoral College of whose authority to give those votes the
State, through its constituted authorities, has legally informed
Congress. All such questions and all such facts belong to the proper
authorities of each State to try and determine before the persons
supposed to be chosen electors are assembled to give their votes.
Any attempt by the two Houses, or either of them, to go behind the
certificates and to determine the right of the electors to give the
votes which they have certified, when the State has determined that
right by its competent authorities, will lead to conclusions in
which the people of this country will not acquiesce.
"Thus, if it shall be found on an inspection of the certificates of
the Electoral Colleges, when they are opened in the presence of the
two Houses, that Mr. Hayes has received 185 votes, or more, that
result must be accepted by the people as the legal result, whatever
may have been the frauds committed in Louisiana or any other State
in taking or returning or counting the popular vote. It is perfectly
proper for Congress to ascertain the fact of such frauds in an
authoritative and conclusive manner for the information of the
people, but the certainty that there are such frauds cannot affect
the legally certified election. Mr. Hayes must be inaugurated and
acknowledged as President, even if the legal result is so tainted
with fraud that honest men revolt at the very thought they must
submit to. There is no alternative but civil war; and that forms
an unnecessary and inadequate remedy, and is not to be thought
of. If Hayes shall be declared President, with grave reason to
believe that he has not been honestly and fairly entitled to have
the electoral votes of certain States, he and his party must bear
the consequences. Those consequences, if his opponents are wise,
will be, not that his title to the office is to be resisted, but
that the people are to be appealed to to use their constitutional
and peaceful methods of redressing all wrongs and punishing all
outrages--namely, by the ballot-box. No such appeal can be made if
the country is to be plunged into anarchy by denying Hayes' title to
the office. Our government must be preserved and perpetuated; and
that it may be, grievous as the wrong will be that takes from Tilden
States in which he has certainly carried a majority of the popular
vote, we must submit to that wrong, in the entire certainty that the
party responsible for it will in due time be rewarded with political
annihilation.
"We shall therefore deprecate and oppose any action by the House
of Representatives looking to any dispute of the regular electoral
certificates from any of the States. The responsibility for what
is done in the three controverted States is with the Republicans,
and there let it rest. All that the House of Representatives can
properly do in the premises is to ascertain and determine the
precise nature, methods, and extent of the frauds, and then leave
the question to the judgment of the country, and to the legal and
constitutional remedy afforded by the next elections."