onclusion might have been
reached by other tribunals or persons.

"To guard the purity of the ballot; to protect the citizen in the
free and peaceful exercise of his right to vote; to secure him
against violence, intimidation, outrage, and especially murder,
when he attempts to perform his duty, should be the desire of all
men, and the aim of every representative government. If political
success shall be attained by such violent and terrible means as
were resorted to in many parishes in Louisiana, complaint should
not be made if the votes thus obtained are denounced by judicial
tribunals and all honest men as illegal and void."

Pending the action of the board I wrote to Governor Hayes the
following letter, giving a general view of the testimony:

"State of Louisiana, Executive Department,}
"New Orleans, November 23, 1876. }
"My Dear Sir:--I have not written you sooner, for the progress of
our visitation will be known to you through the papers sooner than
from my letters, and the telegraph office here is more public than
a sheriff's sale. We sometimes hear of private telegrams before
they are delivered. The action of the returning board has thus
far been open and fair and only confirms the general result known
before. We are now approaching the contested parishes. To five
of them, viz: Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana, Morehouse and
Ouachita, the evidence of intimidation is so well made out on paper
that no man can doubt as to the just exclusion of their vote. In
these parishes alone we ought to have a majority of 7,000, but
under the law the entire return must be excluded of all election
districts where intimidation has affected or changed the result.
If this is done the result will give the Hayes electors majorities
aggregating 24,111, and the Tilden electors 22,633, but in almost
every parish the official return varies somewhat from the stated
majorities, and thus far slightly reduces the Republican majority.

"The vote of each disputed parish has thus far been laid aside,
and among them two parishes where a most foolish blunder, or
something worse, was made in omitting from the Republican tickets
the names of all the electors but the two Senatorial and one district
elector. The Democrats claim this will lose over 2,000 votes, but
our friends, whose information we have generally found confirmed,
say it will lose us at most 1,193 votes. The law seems conclusive
that the defective ballot