American Citizen

COUNTING THE ELECTORAL VOTE

A FAIR COUNT OR FIGHT!

From the N. Y. World

The passage in Gen. Wade Hampton's speech at the Union square ratification meeting which the Times holds up to reprobation, is the following:

"We can have no relief, unless the great Democratic party will come out and pledge itself that we shall have a fair election—that the white people of the South shall vote; and I want you all to register an oath that when they do vote, their votes shall be counted, and if there is a majority of white votes, that you will place Seymour and Blair in the White House, in spite of all the bayonets that shall be brought against them. I only want to see the election fair—and if they do that, even with the members of black rule, we can carry the Southern States."

We can find nothing in this to disapprove. We should deprecate the necessity of a resort to force, but we pour scorn upon the craven, the pusillanimous notion that freemen may not vindicate their rights by arms. Courage to resist oppression is the ultimate security for government. This, at least, was the opinion of our brave forefathers, when they took care to provide in the Constitution that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The right to bear arms implies the right, on a sufficient provocation, to use them. The only debatable question relates to the sufficiency of the provocation.

If the Democratic party should fairly elect the next President, and the Republican Congress, by mis-counting or throwing out votes, should declare Gen. Grant elected, nothing could be plainer than the right of the people to vindicate their actual choice. Suppose, to illustrate the principle, that the result of the election should depend upon the electoral votes of the newly admitted state of Florida, that the three votes of Florida should be Democratic, and that Congress should throw them out and declare General Grant elected. Now, on the supposition of a fair election in Florida, ought the Democratic Party to submit? The question answers itself; only a negative answer is possible. That the Democratic party would resist, and make its resistance effectual, we have no manner of doubt.

We should have on our side the two main elements of success—right and numbers. The superiority of our numbers would be the foundation of our right; for if the Republican party fairly out-voted us, it would be our duty to submit. But if the election shall show that the Democratic party are a majority, and Congress shall nevertheless declare the Republican candidates elected, our right to resist will be unquestionable, and our power to resist successfully will depend upon the same superiority in numbers which made us a majority.

The chief advantage of republican institutions is, that they keep the preponderance of physical force always on the side of the Government. If the minority grows into a majority, they have only to await the next election to come peaceably into power, and for this reason, a resort to force is always inexcusable under republican institutions, so long as elections are fairly conducted. But if, by a change in public sentiment, the minority have control of the Government at the time of an election, and keep themselves in power by refusing to count the votes by which they are defeated, the very case arises for which the Constitution guarantees the right of all citizens to bear arms. The power of forcible resistance by a swindled majority is, in the last resort, the only security of republican institutions. Deny the right and you give full license to any unscrupulous minority, which happens to be in power, to render its authority perpetual.

It is quite true that the Republicans will have the counting of the electoral votes in the coming Presidential election, and that if they dishonestly exclude those given to Mr. Seymour, the Constitution provides no peaceable method of redress. It is all in vain to say that we may wait four years and try the result of another election; for if we submit to the dishonest precedent we have no security that we shall not be again cheated and our electoral votes again thrown out. This is an evil that must be met on the frontier. It is not in the power of Congress to prevent the Democratic party from ascertaining, in November, whether it is a majority. The votes which they refuse to recognize officially they cannot prevent us from counting unofficially. No political swindling can prevent our knowing, by the middle of November, whether the preponderance of physical strength is on our side, or on theirs. If they are in a majority, we shall submit, like good citizens, and swallow our chagrin as best we may. But if we fairly carry the election, and are cheated out of our victory by a dishonest counting of the votes, we shall find some other way to make the demonstrated superiority of our numbers recognized.