fear of social ostracism is another: will you
go into them? There seems no middle course between excluding all
inquiry into the causes of absence and the probable votes of the
absent, and allowing it in every instance where persons entitled to
vote have not voted. To my thinking, a certificate given after the
elimination of votes, in the manner indicated, certifying that the
electors have been chosen by the people of the State, is a palpable
falsehood. _It should have certified that they had been chosen by the
people of so many parishes or counties, out of the whole number._

It is impossible, without deranging our system of election, either to
reject votes actually cast, out of consideration for the motives with
which they were cast, or to add to them the supposed votes which might
have been cast. The ballot itself is a standing protest against
inquiry into motives. It enjoins and protects the secret of the hand;
much more should it enjoin and protect the secret of the heart. And as
for adding votes, on the supposition that they might or would have
been cast but for untoward circumstances, no plausible reason can be
given for it which would not apply to any case of disappointment in
the fullness of the vote. A rainy day of election costs one of the
parties thousands of ballots. If it happen to rain on that day, why
not order a new election in better weather; or, to save that
formality, make an estimate of the number who would have attended
under a cloudless sky, and add their ballots to one side or the other?
The rejection of the votes of a parish can be justified, if
justifiable at all, only on the ground that the votes cast do not give
the voice of the parish, either because they did not express the real
wishes of the voters, or because they would have been overborne by
other votes if they could have been cast.

Does not the foregoing reasoning lead to this conclusion, that whether
the charges of intimidation in certain counties or parishes of a State
be founded in fact or in error, they do not warrant the rejection of
the votes actually cast in those counties or parishes; and,
furthermore, that they who insist upon such rejection must accept, as
a logical conclusion, the rejection, for a like reason, of the votes
of the whole State? I submit that such are the inevitable conclusions.

It is insisted, however, that this is an inquiry which cannot be gone
into in the present state of the canvass. Certificates have b