Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/51

Rh the elections of October and November cannot be mistaken. The following table of the votes of the States in which State officers were chosen, and of New Jersey, is, in this connection, very instructive:

Compare these figures with those of the votes cast by the same States at the last Presidential election, to wit:

An examination of these two tables reveals the fact that at the late elections there was in the Republican ranks a large silent vote; even allowing that the gain of 89,606 in the Democratic vote of 1867 in these States came from the Republicans (which is almost beyond the bounds of probability, if not of possibility), there remain 164,042 Republican votes unaccounted for except on the hypothesis that they were not polled. The Democrats, it is clear, voted almost to a man, especially on the negro suffrage issue, but their opponents failed to show their strength. Ohio furnishes a very pertinent illustration of this point. In that State the Republicans polled 243,532 votes for Governor, whereas, on the question of negro suffrage, there were but 216,987 votes cast in its favor; while on these two issues the Democratic votes were respectively 240,622 and 255,340, showing very plainly that at least 26,500 Republicans refrained from voting at all on the question of negro suffrage, or voted against it, yet came to the support of their candidate for Governor. There is, therefore, every reason for believing that the vote of 1867 was intended by the moderate Republicans to convey the same moral to the leaders of their party that the