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from Florida. Whether they should have been thus counted is a question
that affects the honor, the conscience, and the interests of the
American people. There is not a person living in this country who has
not a direct concern in a just answer. Not one will ever live in it
whose respect for this generation will not depend in some degree upon
that answer.

The 12 votes were not all alike. Some had one distinction, some another.
But, not to distract attention by the discussion of several transactions
instead of one, and because one in the present instance actually
determined the result, I will confine my observations to a single vote.
For this purpose let us take one of the votes from Louisiana, that, for
instance, of Orlando H. Brewster.

Brewster was not appointed an elector, inasmuch as he did not receive a
majority of the votes cast by the people of Louisiana, and inasmuch also
as he could not have been appointed if he had received them all.

HE DID NOT RECEIVE A MAJORITY OF THE VOTES.

It would be a waste of time and patience to go through the testimony
taken by the two Houses of Congress for their own information, before
they consented to call in the advice of the Electoral Commission. The
evidence of wrongs on both sides, and the irreconcilable contradictions
of witnesses, made President Seelye and Mr. Pierce, of Massachusetts,
declare it to be impossible for them to reach a satisfactory conclusion
upon the facts, and compelled them to break away from their party, and
refuse to abide by the advice of the Commission. There are certain
things, however, which we know beyond dispute, or about which there is
and can be no controversy, and these only will I mention. We know that
the number of votes cast in Louisiana for the Tilden electors, taking
the first name on the list as representing all, was 83,723, but that the
certificate of the Returning Board put them at 70,508, turning Mr.
Tilden's majority of more than 6,000 into a majority for Mr. Hayes; and
we know that the reduction was made by throwing out more than 13,000
votes of legal voters voting legally for Mr. Tilden, and that more than
10,000 of these were thrown out upon the assumed authority of a statute
of Louisiana, which in terms gave the board power to throw out votes,
upon examination and deliberation, "whenever, from any poll or
voting-place, there shall be received the _statement of any supervisor_
of registration _or commissioner_ of election,