e 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 all.

One would say that such a doctrine, held up in its nakedness, need
hardly be attacked, for no man, not maddened by the fanaticism of party,
would be found willing to defend it; yet if not defended, the
disposition of the Louisiana case must be pronounced as unsound in law
as it was injurious in policy and offensive in morals. But I go further,
and deny the conclusiveness of the canvassers' certificate under any
circumstances. Suppose the question to be put thus: Can the certificate
of State canvassers, acting within the scope of their authority, be
questioned by evidence of mistake, fraud, or duress; what should be the
answer? Most certainly it can, should be answered.

The statutes of the State may or may not have declared the effect of the
certificate. In the case of Louisiana, this was the only statute
relevant:

"The returns of the elections thus made and promulgated shall be
_prima-facie_ evidence in all courts of justice and before all
civil officers, until set aside after a contest according to law,
of the right of any person named therein