e State give their votes? The Republicans made it, Whom does
the official authority of the State certify as elected? When the
commission came to vote, on the preliminary questions, it was apparent
that the party line was just as rigid among its members as between the
advocates who pled. And it was clear that the Republicans stood upon the
narrowest possible construction of the case before them. For example, in
the case of Louisiana, it was moved, first, that evidence be admitted
that the returning body was an unconstitutional body and its acts void.
No, said the Republican eight. Moved, next, that evidence be admitted
that the board was illegal because its acting members were all of one
party,--No. Moved, that evidence be admitted that the board threw out
votes dishonestly and fraudulently,--No. In each case, the Republican
eight refused to look a hair's breadth beyond the governor's seal to the
returning board's certificate. In the same way they dealt with Florida
and South Carolina.

Tilden's friends had contrived an ingenious scheme to put the commission
in a dilemma. They had managed that there should be two returns from
Oregon,--a Republican State where one of the three electors chosen was
claimed to be disqualified,--the return bearing the Governor's seal
naming one Democrat along with two Republican electors. They argued,
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if the Governor's seal is
taken as settling everything, we gain the one electoral vote we need;
if, confronted by the Oregon case, the commission decide that they may
go back of the governor's seal,--that opens the three Southern States to
our rightful challenge. But the commission, or its Republican members,
were not to be so easily posed; in the case of Oregon, they accepted the
seal of the Secretary of State, certifying the three Republicans. As the
Springfield _Republican_ bluntly put it, "The electoral commission
decided that there was no way of recovering the stolen goods in the
Louisiana case; it has found a way of restoring the Oregon vote to its
rightful owner."

That the goods were stolen, at least in Louisiana, there can scarcely at
this day be any doubt. Whether the commission did its duty in declining
to investigate and right the wrong may be debated, but the judgment of
history will probably say that neither equity nor statesmanship, but
partisanship guided the decision. Undoubtedly in Louisiana, and probably
in Florida, the returning b