way
would not affect the decision, and therefore no test was made.

The result was undoubtedly a great disappointment to Mr. Tilden, and
even greater to his immediate friends and supporters. They at once
raised the cry that they had been defrauded, that Mr. Hayes had
received title to his office against the law and against the evidence,
that he was to occupy a place which the people had voted to confer upon
Mr. Tilden. In every form of insinuation and accusation, by almost
every Democratic paper in the country, it was affirmed that Mr. Hayes
was a fraudulent President. This cry was repeated until the mass of
the party believed that they had been made the victims of a conspiracy,
and had been entrapped by an Electoral Commission. Yet the first
authoritative movement for the committee that reported the Electoral
Bill was from a Southern Democrat in the House, and the Electoral Bill
itself was supported by an overwhelming number of Democrats in both
branches; whereas the joint vote of the Republicans was, by a large
majority, against the bill.

The vote of the Democrats in favor of the Electoral bill, as compared
with the Democrats who voted against it in both branches, was in the
proportion of more than ten to one; whereas but two-fifths of the
Republicans in the two Houses voted for the bill, and three-fifths
against it. Only a single Democrat in the Senate, Mr. Eaton of
Connecticut, cast a negative vote; and he acknowledged in doing it
that the State Senate of Connecticut, controlled by the Democrats,
had requested him to support the bill. All the leading Democrats of
the Senate--Mr. Thurman, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Pinkney Whyte--made earnest
speeches in favor of it. Mr. McDonald of Indiana declared that the
popular sentiment of his State was overwhelmingly in favor of it, and
he reproached Mr. Morton for opposing it. Other prominent Republicans
in the Senate--Mr. Sherman, Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania, Mr. Hamlin,
Mr. Blaine--earnestly united with Mr. Morton in his opposition to the
measure.

The division was the same in the House. Mr. Henry B. Payne of Ohio,
Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, Mr. Clarkson N. Potter, Mr. Samuel S. Cox, and
nearly all the influential men on the Democratic side, united in
supporting the bill; while General Garfield, Mr. Frye, Mr. Kasson,
Mr. Hale, Mr. Martin I. Townsend, and the leading Republicans of the
House, opposed it. The House was stimulated to action by a memorial
presented by Mr. Randal