Daily National Intelligencer

MARYLAND ELECTION.

We have already stated the actual result of the Election in Maryland. To our utter astonishment at the profligacy of the purpose, we now learn, that the judges of the Election in Alleghany county, erecting themselves into a tribunal to judge of the legality of a return, have contrived to illegitimate the vote of one Republican district of the county, and to return four federalists as elected. So daring and high handed an invasion of the elective franchise, we have never heard or read of; unless it be in the pages of fiction. In the celebrated play of the "Provoked Husband," Sir Francis Wronghead, a member returned to serve in Parliament, is represented to have had scarcely a vote in the borough except that of the returning officer. His seat of course was vacated forthwith; and such, if indeed so surreptitious a title will enable them to take a seat at all, must be the fate of the Alleghany delegation. The pretence on which the return is set aside, is one of the most frivolous imaginable. If we understand it correctly, thus it is. Of three Judges of Election in that district, one (a Justice of the Peace) swore the other two, but neglected to be so sworn himself. And on this mere pretence, this shadow of a shade, the federal judges set aside the return, the nullity of which gave the federalists a majority in the county. The moral sense of every man revolts at the palpable fraud of this transaction. It was boasted, we recollect, on the day of the Election, from a very suspicious quarter, that the federalists had secured the Judges of Election, which was a great point gained. No man of the Republican party could read or hear that boast, without anticipating some deep-laid project for defeating the public will, if it should prove to be adverse to the dominant party. Such an opinion was formed and expressed by every man we heard speak on the subject at the time; and, we confess, the event has not more than realized the expectations we had formed from the mean arts practised by the factious leaders during the electioneering campaign. But this fraud, which has so justly excited the indignation of all Maryland, cannot, will not, succeed. It is impossible that the House of Delegates, federal as it is, should not eject these men from their seats on the first day of the meeting of the legislature. They owe it to the law, they owe it to the character of their party, they owe it to their own characters as men, to purge the Hall of Delegates of those who will, if they deign to avail themselves of the cheat, usurp those seats to which they know that other men are justly entitled. It is demonstrable, as we can and may show in a future paper, that the Judges have acted in defiance of law and precedent, as well as common honesty and common sense. The holy right of suffrage is invaded. Every man in the nation is interested in defending it.