Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/384

358 considerable Republican majority in Louisiana is indeed strong. The same applies to the effect of intimidation and violence in the five parishes thrown out. I have also read General Van Alen's speech and consider him a sincere and truthful man. But all these statements, while making a very strong case, do not solve the question, why, if all these things are so certain and clear, the returning-board did not, in obedience to the law of the State, admit a Democrat as a member to witness and take part in these proceedings, but performed the decisive part of their duties as a strictly partisan body and in secrecy. Thus, by the action of the board itself, the doubt as to the merits of the case is increased in the public mind. It is useless to indulge in any delusion about this matter. I am aware that most of the party organs speak in a different tone, but as that feeling of uncertainty in most cases shrinks from public demonstration, the party press cannot in that respect be taken now as fairly representative of the constituency behind them. Under such circumstances it is more than ever necessary that the counting of the votes and the final determination of the result should be above suspicion as to fairness and impartiality. Nobody should be permitted to say that in determining the result anything extraordinary was done to take undue advantage of the position of power occupied by the party in the National Government. This is of the highest importance, for we now are going to establish a precedent fraught with good or very dangerous consequences.

It is maintained by some that the President of the Senate has, according to the Constitution, the power to count the votes, to decide doubtful cases and to declare the result, and that the two houses of Congress are only witnesses to the act, without any authority to interfere. Having studied that question, the law as well as the