The Presidential Fraud

The Hou. Willintn Htrong, of Pennlvaiiia, ík one of tin; Associato Justices )f tlie Supremo Court of the Unitcd -Stiltes. He va oiic of the flftoen mem)pi"8 who constituted the Electoral i nission through whoso nctiou Kutherford 3. Hay es wns deelared to be elected President of the United Status. Had Júágo Stroug, as a momber of thftt , mitwion, voted the other way, Mr. Hayes would hnve heen exeluded froin the oftiee of President. It is thercforo to the vote of Judge Strong that Mr. Haycs owes ïis office. Tlie coinmission couBisted of afteen, of whoui, le&ving Judge Strong in doubt, seven were for Mr. Hayos and ' aeyen were agaiust hitü. The grand re3ult depended upon the way Judge Strong should vote. Uivler tliese I i-nniKtaneoB, and with such consequencee j hanging upon his vote, Judge Strong j made up his mind to vote for Mr. Hayec. It ïuiw appears, liowevcr - and it appear by e letter uuder hls own hand - that in arriving at this conclusión Judge Strong was gevemed by a strictly techQÍcal rule, ind that, althoughhe cast the determiniüg vote in favor of Mr. Hayes for President, he does not believe, and m-ver diil believe, that Mr. Hayes w,s lawfu'ly elected to tliat office ! The view tantea by Judge Strong was that Congress has no right to inquire iuto St.ite elections for State electors; that the Electoral Commission had no more ! power than Congress had; and so he voted for Haycs althongh he feared a great wrong had been perpetaited by the Louisiana ïleturning Board ! All tliis fully appears in a letter addre ssed by Mr. Justice Strong to an old personal friend of his, the Hon. George W. Jones, of Tennessee. This letter, being entirely npon a public question of overshndowiiig iuiportance, üas been forwarded to us by Mr. Jones for publication, and we print the two letters, which are as follows, in iull: FAïnrrEviLLE, Tenn., Oct. 1G, 1877. Hon. Charle A. Dana: Dub Bib Dariog the Fitting of the Electoral Commission in Wastiingtua laat winter, I wrutt to Mr. Justice Strong, of the United States Supreme Conrt, and amemberof the commisBion, with hum I had bten assr.ciated formerly in öougress. I did not keep a eopy of niy letter, hut, :iddressing him, I wrete in ub.-tance a follow : " When yon and I were in Congress togethor you were a Democrat, and ru;iuúed as an honest man. Do you believe that the people of Jjoiái-iana elected or voted for the Huyes tlcctors?" I incloío hfrewith a co;-'y of Juatice StrongV letter in response to mine. If you think hie ietter worth pobllshing, you are at liberty tu give it to the public. Iu my reply to Justice Strong's letter I wrote : " Cv the conslitution of tbe United States it in provided that lreRÍdential olectors i-hult be appointed iu such manier as shall be prescribed by the State I.egislatures ; but the return of the electoral votes are to be returned to thé President of the Seuate, and hall be opeued in the pret-'ence of the two houses of Cougresá. and be then counted. CongiCHS clearly ha the right to inquire and dcteinvne whethtr or not the electora of the several Statca had been appointed in the mauner preciibed by thiir respective States." I never write secret nor keep copio of the letters I write. And I do not believe Ihat the official acts of public srrvant and tbc coaspiui for their acts phonJd ba ri;arcULd as private aud secret. Vtrv ruiectful v vour. G. W. Jones. Washington, Fob. 20, 1877. Tbc Hod. Gcorge W. Joues : My Deab Kir : I was a Dcmoerat when you and 1 wcrc together in Congreso. I am a Demoerat now. I hold to all the opinión the I KUte-liights Demócrata have alway lield, and wliich the acknowledged leaders of the party have avowed up to the prosout winter - novur more cleflrly tban in 1H7IJ to 1H75. I do not believe tbat Congross bas any consütulional right to imjnire into State eloetionifor Stato elootora. Congress hap. of lale yeara, interfered quite too much with the State.-. The Eleoto-al Uommission han no more powor than Congresa has. and I think it woukl be a ino-t danrcrous usnrpntiou were it to do what the States alone have a right to do, (von to eure what I fe:ir wan a groat wrong of the LoniHiana Roturning Board. I can uoi dou't that snob will be your opinión when yon raBeot to what tlie asptnion of uch apuwrr wdiilil lcad. It wouM place the right oí the State, respecting tbc ohoice of electora, at the mer'cy of the Federal Government, and be the groatest stride over made towards oentrallzation. etter suffer a prerent evil than open snob a door, botter than abandon all the tinic-hoiiored principies of the Dtmocratie party. I am youid, very rstpeeffnlly, W. Stkoxo. The letter of Jndgc Strong is in one sense very creditnble to bim. It shows that be acteil trom couyiction. We can not give our assent to the coneetness of his conclusión, but we oan unilerstand tliat his view is ouc wliiclimight bo honestly taken by a technioal lanyer, not much acWicted to f quity and to going to the bottom oí things. The. great and mom, ntous fact which appears frcm the correspondeiiee, and wliich presses itself, by it gigantic magnitude upon the serious consideration of the whole country, is thnt Kutherford B. Hayes occupies the office of President of the Ui it 'd Stutes by f orce of the vote of a man who doesn't bilitve he was legally tlected. From tbis conclusión there is no escape. It stands forth now, and will stind torever, as an historica] fact, established by conclusivo and unquestionable evidence. To urge that every otlier vote in the , Electoral Commission had the same ' poteücy as tbat of Judge Strong does not all detract from the btrength of ovir ! argument. Conceding that, because it is undeniable, the stubborn laot ttill remains that without Judge StroDg the rnembc rs of the commission were equally , divided, and that if Mr. Hayes ha l net , received the vote of this member of the ! commissiou, who cid not, believe he wtis legally elecU d, hè would neverhavc boen declaied President. Kvllcnr' Against thft Ixinisimia Hcturninu: lioavti. [From the New OrloanB Tinirp.] Soon aftf r th informition against the ; members of the lato Eelurning Board was filed, the Timen made the statement ' that the original returns of tl. e parish of Vernon were not in this city, but were in j posseesion of David DuJley Field, who managcd Tilden's case in Congress. It seeins that the returns of that parisli were never in the possosRton of the present State authorities. In fact, all of tho evidence relating to the alteriug and ! forging of the Vernon parish returns was , eollected by an agent of Mr. Tilden, under the direotion of Col. Pelton, fr. Tilden's Private Secretary. The anthorities here, as far as cnn be gathered, knew nothing of Littlefield or his evidence, or thé marmer in wliich the j turn of Vernon had been tampt red with, uutil Littli field appeared bt'fore the eommitt.ee at Washington. Yesterday ] ex-Gov. Wiekliffe, returned from New Yörk, irhere he had been for the pnrpose of getting these origiual returns of VerBon parish. He suceeeded in gctting them, and tbey now aro nader loek and key, in the safe of the St. Charles Hotd. Gov. WiokliffiJ exeeuted his mission very quietly, and iiis return to t'nis city was ptrbaps the first iutiniation to tbe public tliat he had been engnged in looking after tlieee returns. Of covirse it wonld have been impossible to have proceeded with the trial without them, and it is rensocable to suppose that the delay in arraigning the iu'ousod parties was caused' by the absence of the: evidence, siuce it is hiurdly probable that the Attoruey General cared to have them plead to the charge agaiust them until he was suro of liis ability to proceed with the oafe. It seems that Gov. Wieklifie had Bomedifficulty in seouring the reiurns, not beeaune tliere was aay obj ctioa to give ;hem up, but because Mr. Field had })ermitted thein to paee out of his keepiDg, and it was only ifter diligent senrch and inquiry thnt thoy were discovored. Gov. Wiekliffo sueeeeded in getting thein, honever, and it is not probable thnt they will be lost sight of until the trial is over. The returns f-how very clearly that t'ioy have boon altered. Origmally tliey showetl -100 I t mooratic nntl two Elepublioan voté. The dti rntion makes the returns show 149 KepuWican rotes. It wns paid whön the ohangc -ttns first noticed that it liad been mude for the purpose of nmisting one of Wells' cromes, who wns a candidate in the district of which Vrüon j-orifih forms a put. öov. Wickliffe expresses the opinión (that with these returns no great diílit'ulty ought to be t xperieuced in securiug n successful prosecution.