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most bitterly partisan character. Garfield was asked to go, said Grant, because 'Governor Kellogg requests that reliable witnesses be sent to see that the canvass of the vote is a fair one.' 1 And so Garfield went, taking up his residence with a carpetbagger and joining with other reliable witnesses, including John Sherman, 'Pig Iron' Kelley, John A. Logan, Matt Quay, Lew Wallace, John A. Kasson, and Stanley Matthews. Whereupon Tilden selected representatives to watch the count. Three of these had wrecked their political careers through their devotion to principle and hostility to corruption-Lyman Trumbull, George W. Julian, and A. G. Curtin. Among the others were John M. Palmer, W. R. Morrison, Joseph E. McDonald, later a distinguished Senator of Catoesque integrity, Henry Watterson, former Senator Doolittle, and W. G. Sumner, the economist. There could be little doubt which group would make the stronger appeal to the confidence of the conservative and independent element of the country.

III

2

Soon the St. Charles Hotel lobbies swarmed with national celebrities who were not a little amused, openly or secretly, at Grant's show of military strength. The city was perfectly quiet. Julian thought that 'sending troops was an insulting farce.' The returns had given the Tilden electors a large majority ranging from six to eight thousand, and this could be overcome only by throwing out thousands of votes. The claim that there had been intimidation was based on the theory that there were 23,914 more negroes than whites, and that every negro had voted, and voted for Hayes. The latter clung ardently to the theory. But where did the 23,914 majority come from? asked the Tilden representatives. The census of 1870 had given the whites of voting age almost a thousand majority, and that of 1880 was to give the whites a majority almost identical. Some were prone to recall the scandals of false negro registration by the Kellogg clique in the campaign of 1874, when a congressional committee found no less than fiftytwo hundred false registrations in New Orleans alone. Charles Nordhoff's book, 'The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1 Life of Garfield, 1, 614. * MS. Diary, December 10, 1876.

1875,' had been published within the year, and he, a supporter of Hayes, had told of witnessing the failure to secure a jury in a country parish because thirty-six of the forty-eight names drawn for the panel from the registration list had been found to be fictitious.1

This, however, furnished a pretext for lofty posing by pious statesmen of renown who were really depending confidently on the notoriously corrupt character of the Returning Board. It was not a Board with which they were unfamiliar. It was the same Board a Republican congressional committee had mercilessly denounced but a year before. The chairman was none other than James Madison Wells, Surveyor of the Port of New Orleans, and former Governor, whom Sheridan had described to Stanton nine years before as 'a political trickster and a dishonest man' whose conduct was 'as sinuous as the mark left in the dust by the movement of a snake.' Sheridan assured Grant that Wells 'has not a friend who is an honest man.' From that time on, according to Rhodes, the historian, he had 'done the dirty work of Louisiana politics and had steadily deteriorated in character.' Another member was Thomas C. Anderson, who literally stank of corruption, and the other two members were negroes without character or honesty. It would be impossible to conceive of a lower combination of men with whom to determine the destiny of a nation.2

The law provided for a fifth member, a Democrat, but the Democrat had resigned long before and the four members stoutly refused to name a successor or to permit one to be appointed. Thus the Board was not only composed of members of one party, but there was not an honest man upon it. This had been conceded by all decent men in both parties during the two years preceding the election of 1876.

The Democratic 'visiting statesmen' invited the coöperation of the Republican visitors to secure 'an honest count and a true return of the votes.' Nothing could have been farther from the thought of John Sherman and his associates. A true return and an honest count would have given Tilden a decisive majority. 'Counting the ballots as cast,' wrote a supporter to Hayes from New Orleans, 'would be in my judgment as great an infamy as

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was ever perpetrated.'1 To count. Hayes in, and Tilden out, would require the throwing out of thousands of Democratic votes, and there was nothing to prevent it. The partisan Board of corruptionists had it in their power to disfranchise whole parishes on the pretext of intimidation. However, the pretext had to be as strongly buttressed with affidavits as possible, to meet public opinion and the test in Congress, and this was the work to which the 'visiting statesmen' named by Grant set themselves with a zest. Before finishing its work, the Board would disfranchise 13,214 Democrats; and do it in utter violation of the all-too-convenient law expressly framed for such purposes. This law provided that action could be taken only where affidavits were annexed to, and received with, the returns. In many instances the provision was disregarded, and a large part of the affidavits received with the returns related to previous elections.2

The process was all too simple. Five members of each visiting party were invited to attend the opening session of the Board. The returns from each parish were opened and the vote on presidential electors examined. Where there were no protests, these returns were sent to a room to be secretly tabulated by clerks every one of whom was a Republican, and five of whom were common criminals and under indictment for crimes.3 Some were under indictment for murder. No Democrat was permitted to witness the tabulation.

Where affidavits charging intimidation and fraud accompanied the returns, testimony was taken on both sides; and it was in the active preparation of these affidavits that John Sherman and his associates were deeply concerned. These divided the parishes among them, and each man privately interviewed witnesses, and, where necessary, suggested changes in the testimony.

The activities of James A. Garfield will illustrate the work of the men Grant sent to see that the count was 'fair.' He was living at the home of a carpetbagger, and there he remained for eighteen days. In an inner room of the office of Packard, Republican leader and candidate for Governor, he sat for days alone, undisturbed, shut off from prying eyes and ears, examining affidavits, noting

1 Life of Hayes, 1, 504, note.

• Ibid., Cowley.

2 Rhodes, VII, 232.
'Life of Garfield, 1, 616.

weaknesses, sending for witnesses, whom he saw alone, suggesting changes through leading questions, preparing the case for the Board. Copies of all the affidavits were furnished by the Board to Garfield and his fellow partisans. It was he who examined Amy Mitchell, whose husband's death was being used to prove intimidation. Not content with her affidavit, he asked questions and the replies were added. There at the Custom-House she was drilled for her appearance before the Board. Later, she was to declare that her answers to all Garfield's questions were false, and that she said what she did because told to do so.1 Because of these activities, Hendricks was to denounce Garfield's connection as 'one doubtful in character and worse than that of any other man now living.' Perhaps his work was not different from that of others, except for the fact that he was to serve on the Electoral Commission.

Thus, and by such were the affidavits made. Men like Sherman, Garfield, and Matthews pretended to be outraged by the 'revelations' - especially in the case of the prostitute, Eliza Pinkston. This appealing creature had been tried for the murder of a child and acquitted only because the chief witness was too young to understand the nature of an oath. Later the congressional committee that pried into the proceedings at New Orleans refrained from a full delineation of her character because 'too indecent to print.'

Meanwhile, as the evidence was being taken, there can be no doubt that the corrupt Board was seeking a buyer. Scarcely had Julian reached New Orleans when he concluded that 'the rascalities of the Board exceeded anything I had dreamed of.' 2 Wells was willing to sell to the Democrats if the price were high enough.3 It was openly charged at the time that he sent an agent to Grant and Cameron to announce his price, with the threat to sell to the Democrats if the Republicans would not buy; and then on to New York City with the offer to sell to the Democratic National Chairman at a reduced figure. Henry Watterson, the 'argus-eyed,' remembered years later that the air reeked with talk of corrup

1 Garfield in Louisiana, by Thomas A. Hendricks, September 6, 1880, based on the congressional investigation.

2 MS. Diary, December 10, 1876.

"Manton Marble, 7-8; Bigelow, Retrospections, v, 299.

• Marble, 7.

tion. "That the Returning Board was for sale and could be bought was the universal impression,' he wrote.1

Through some strange magic in this air reeking with corruption, Grant's 'visiting statesmen' underwent a grotesque metamorphosis in their attitude toward the Board that all had agreed, but a year before, were shamelessly corrupt. Garfield was dining with them. 'Dined at Governor Kellogg's,' he wrote in his diary, '‘with J. Madison Wells and General Anderson of the Returning Board. ... Of our party Sherman, Hale, and Stoughton were with me. My opinion of the Returning Board is far better than it was before I came.' But the change in John Sherman was most miraculous. Writing Hayes of the Board, he said: 'I have carefully observed them, and have formed a high opinion of Governor Wells and Colonel Anderson. They are firm, judicious, and, as far as I can judge, thoroughly honest and conscientious.' Meanwhile, having finished their labors in the interest of an 'honest election,' the President's 'visiting statesmen' hurried away about the time the Board went into secret session to reach a decision.

2

This was on December 2. The next day, three days before the decision was announced, the United States Marshal was telegraphing Senator West in Washington that he had 'seen Wells, who says, "Board will return Hayes sure. Have no fear." And on the fourth day, the Board threw out 13,250 Tilden votes and gave the electoral vote to Hayes. In the mean time the 'visiting statesmen' had stopped off at Fremont, to ‘emphatically endorse' the 'general fairness and honesty of the Board's conduct' and to speak 'highly of Wells and Anderson, and frankly of the two colored men.' Reviewing the proceedings years later, Rhodes, the historian, and a Republican, was to write: 'As a matter of fact, Wells and his satellites in secret conclave determined the Presidency of the United States; but, before returning the vote of Louisiana for Hayes, there is little doubt that he offered to give it to Tilden for $200,000.' 5

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1 Marse Henry, 1, 298.

2 Life of Garfield, 1, 622.

* Life of Hayes, 1, 502–03: Sherman, Recollections, 1, 558.

'Hayes diary, Life, 1, 506–07.

5 Rhodes, VII, 233.

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