The New York Herald Newspaper, March 20, 1876, Page 6

6 NEW YORK HERALD | BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. | THE DAILY HERALD, pwlliched every in the year. Four cents per copy. elve dollars per year, or one dollar per month, free of postage All business, news seed be - : hie | despatches must be addressed New Yous | Henap. Letters and packages should be property Rejected communications will not be re PHILADELPHIA OFFICE--NO. 112 SOUTH SIXTH STREET. LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK | HERALD--NO. 46 FLEET STREET. PARIS OFFICE—AVENUE DE V/OPERA. Subscriptions and advertisements will bo | received and forwarded om the same terms— as in New York. ME XL. -+-+-++ seeseeee cove KO, 80} AMUSEMENTS 'TO-NIGHT. TWENTY THIKD ATREFT OFERA HOC ER. CALIFORNIA MineTheLs on or Met aoe ot ar VOL on woods w0Skum O'PLANIGAN, at 8PM Matinee af oP LYCKUM THEATER VARIETY, at 8 P.M WALLACK § THEATER SIIB STOOPS TO CONGU RE, »: 5 P.M. Lester Watiack, TONY PASTOR'S NEW THEATRE, VARIETY, at 8PM CHICRERING HALL BEETHOVEN RECITAL. « M Below, CHATEAU MABILLE VARIETING, VARIETY, ot 8 PM BROOKLYN THEATER. ROSE MICHEL at 81M Miss Rese Eytingm UNION SQUARE THRATRR, FERREOL, at 6 PM Pak THEATRE, George Fawoett ewe, BOWERY THEATRE DARLING, at 8 TM. Miss Moria Mordeont, FIrrH AVENCE THEATRE. j PIQUE, at 8PM. Fanny f wt, i por THIRTY. FOURTH STREET OPERA HOUSE, VARIETY, at 8 P.M TIVOLI THEATRE. VARIETY, at 8 P.M. GERMANIA THEATRE, ZIEGENLIESCHEN, ™. ’ GLOBE THEATRE, VARIETY, at 8 P. M. PARISIAN VARIETIES, | VARIETY, at 8P. M. SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, at 8P. Me EAGLE THEATRE. PEAKED, at 8 P. M. BRASS, at 8 P.M BOOTIES THEATRE, JULIUS CESAR, ats P.M. Mr. Lawrence Barrett OLYMPIC THEATRE. MONDAY. MARCH 20, 1876, TRIP YORK From our reports this morning the probabilities are that the weather to-day will be cloudy, ‘Tue Henarp py Fast Matt Trarxs,— Neves. | dealers and the public throughout’ the country | will be supplied with the Dairy, Weexxy and Bunpax Henaxp, free of postage, by sending Weir orders direct to this office. Aw Iranian Minisrertan Crisis hands over the government to the combative Parliamen- lary party ofthe Left. Tax Frencu Rerusiicans are content to ask only for what they can obtain. We may be sure they will take all they can get. A Sxow Brockape on the Scotch railways is unusual enough to be worth telegraphing, but that in the little span of earth north of the Tweed a railway train should be lost for three days is very strange. “To Maxe a Creanance of an objection- able set,” is what the London Times tersely, and we trust truly, regards as the desire of the American people, sickened by the revela- tions of official corruption. Anousp Maramongs the delightful uncer- Jainties of Mexican rule are felt to their full extent. The pickets of the revolutionists are in sight of the city and the governmental general is afraid to arm some of his men lest they should ‘‘pronounce.” The case appears to stand thus :—The soldiers want their pay and the commander has no funds. If they join the revolutionists they can share in the forced loans, and the latter way of collecting money is irresistible to your true Mexican, There is no sign at present that the Diaz movement is more than sporadic. Taz Two Mew arrested in Paris on the tharge of negotiating forged American rail- way bonds in Belgium will probably be re- {eased on bail, the United States officials not taking hostile action regarding them. We think this is a matter our Belgian Minister might well look after, at least to the extent of seeing that such offences do not inure detrimentally to the negotiation of genuine American shares and bonds abroad. We have no doubt the swindled brokers will protect themselves, but the Legatione should see that if the offences can be proven the crimi- nals do not escape by a compromise. Tre Boston Herald claims that in the city of Worcester the free soil movement had its prigin, and that there also the first efforts were made to save Kansas from becoming a Blave State. Encouraged by this record itan- ticipates important results from the meeting of independent republicans held in Worces- ter last week, and we, too, trust that the determination to reform the party will have 2 wholesome effect in the Presidential cam- paign. Everywhere the people should hold such meetings and make their indignation | known. The motto of the Worcester inde- | pendent republicans is a good one—“No thronic aspirant for the Presidency need apply at Cincinnati.” Sparm’s Dirricunties mm Ova are so enor- tous that we do not wonder the friends of Spanish rule lose heart. The burning of targe estates continues. A handful of in- surgents inflict damages apparently at will. A large and useless army is eating up the re- sources of the island and a host of corrupt officials makes the oppressive taxation only go half way in its power to support those sharged with overwhelming the rebellion. | With the high taxes it becomes questionable | to planters whether it wonld not be as well | to abandon their estates for the time being rather than pay the government, which can- not protect them. The additional troops promised will only prove an additional bur- den. They can, doubtless, be supported for time off the loyal people, but when these have no more to give the end will come with ‘a crash, | | eventually pass the Senatg, either with or | | onght to be substituted in its place. j stitution, Regulations for Counting the Elec- toral Votes. The subject of debate on the last day the Senate was in session has been under con- sideration in that body several times of late, and we presume the bill intended to super- sede the twenty-second joint rule will without amendments. As to the necessity of repealing that joint rule there is no dif- ference of opinion, but there are almost as many opinions as Senators respecting what It is pretty generelly admitted that the matter ought to be regulated by o law of Congress, and not merely by a joint rule of the two houses. The difficulty of agreeing upon a proper law results from the am- dignity and absurdity of that part of the constitution; but as there is not time to secure amendments previous to the next counting of electoral votes | it is to be hoped that Congress . may find some makeshift for the immediate occa- sion, and that soon after the next President is in office the constitution may be changed by dropping the whole of its second article and substituting a better method, not only for | choosing the Chie{ Magistrate, but ofenforcing | Executive responsibility. Even if the Senate should agree on a bill the Honse may refuse | ite concurrence, for there is no possibility of framing one not exposed to grave objections so long os the constitution remains un- altered. As Senator Christiancy said, in his speech on Thursday>—‘It would almost seem, and some Senators appear really to be of the opinion, that our fathers, in framing the constitution, must have acted upon the | Irishman's plan of constructing a cannon, which was first to make a large hole and then cast the cannon around it. The con- | in one view of it, certainly | to heave taken one step in process and seems to have left us only the ingenuity of taking the other.” This satire is not undeserved if limited to that article of the constitution which relates to the Executive. After ex- plaining his own views as to the best method of flanking the difficulty Mr, Christiancy said in conclusion, in an equally satirical vein:—‘‘L am far from being very confident of the correctness of this conclusion or the reasoning by which I have reached it, and | may change my opinion entirely in the | course of the diseussion. The silence, the apparently utter hiatus in the constitution, makes it very difficult to find any landmarks | by which I can, with any confidence of cer- tainty, guide my course. And I feel some of the same kind of uncertainty as I can im- agine I might feel if thrown out into void space beyond sight of the stellar universe, and should there undertake to ascertain courses and distances and to divide that void space into definite areas.” The only effectual remedy is a thorongh revision of this part of the constitution; but as that cannot be done this year some sub- stitute must be discovered for the twenty- second joint rule, which puts it in seems that the power of either house to throw out the electoral votes of any State, It happened once that the returns of Arkansas were thrown out, on the objec- tion made by a Senator that they had not the great seal of the State affixed, but only the seal of the Secretary of State, and it was not discovered until after the election was de- elared that Arkansas at that time did not possess a great seal. So trivial may be the excuses of informality on which, under this twenty-second rule, a State may be deprived by either house of its Presidential vote. It is proposed by a Senate committee which has investigated the whole subject to remedy all the defects of the present electoral system by a constitutional amendment caus- ing the President and Vice President to be | elected directly by the people, who are to vote in districts similar to and the same in number as Congressional districts, each | State having also two electors to be chosen on a general ticket. The vote of each dis- trict is to count one in the electoral returns for those candidates who have, not a major- ity, but a plurality. By this plan the Presi- dent would at any rate be the choice of the people, though having only a plurality. / Under the present system he may be, and often has been, the choice of the minority | when only two candidates were voted on, For instance, fifty thousand votes properly | distributed may now elect a President | by a majority of States, at the same time | that his defeated opponent would have an | actual popular majority of half a million | votes. The following figures show how wide | has been the disparity between the popular | vote and the electoral vote in Presidential elections:—In 1872 General Grant received only fifty-five per cent of the votes of the people, but in the Electoral College he re- ceived eighty-one per cent; in 1868 General Grant received but fifty-two per cent of the popular vote, but seventy-three per cent in the Electoral College. In 1864 Mr. Lincoln received fifty-five per cent of the popular vote, and ninety-one per cent in the elect- oral body; in 1860 Mr. Lincoln received bat forty per cent of the popular vote, and fifty- nine per cent of the Electoral College. In 1856 Mr. Buchanan received « forty-five per cent of the popular vote, and yet had fifty-nine per cent in the Electoral College In 1852 Mr. Pierce had fifty-one per cent of the popular vote, but eighty-five per cent of the electoral vote. In 1848 General Taylor—like Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Lincoln in his first election, a minor. ity President—received but forty-seven per cent of the popular vote, but got fifty-six per cent of the electoral vote, In 1844 Mr. Polk, | another minority President, received lessthan | fifty per cent ofthe popular vote, but sixty-two per cent of the electoral vote, It shows the essential falsity of the returns under the present system to compare the Electoral College returns with those of the popular vote during this series of years. Party lead- ers, and, more still, the people, are deceived by an apparent but fictitious preponderance of opinion. For instance, in 1872 General Grant was popularly believed to have swept the country by an overwhelming majority, | He had eighty-one per cent of the votes in the Electoral College, and he and his party seemed to have received an extraordinary token of popular approval, while, in faet, on the popalar vote his administration barely escaped condemnation and defeat. If there were no other reason for the pro-, | required to so momentous an interference | the counting of the electoral vote. The | of thieves and jobbers are ranning down to | sessed by devils, Over all we see drawn, with posed change, to prevent such a mystifica- tion would justify it. But there are other reasons, among which one strikes us as very | important—the localization and easier pre- vention of frauds. At present successful frauds in the New York, Philadelphia or New Orleans city elections might give the whole electoral vote of New York, Pennsylvania or Louisiana to the guilty party; under the proposed amendment such frauds would affect only the district in which they occurred; the temptation to commit them would, therefore, be less; the temptation to connive at and conceal them in counting the electoral vote would also be less. As to the ‘twenty-second joint rule,” that ought in any case to be at once either abol- ished orchanged. Itis not well that one house shall have the right, without debate or scru- tiny, and simply on the motion of a member, to throw out the electoral vote of a State. At least the consent of both houses should be with the right of the people of a whole State to have their vote for President counted. Under the present rule the presumption is actually against the vote of any State being counted. Any member of either house may object to its reception ; thereupon the two houses separate and vote yea or nay, not upon the electoral vote of the State of be received? And the rule absurdly and mis- chievously requires that ‘no vote ob- jected to shall be received, except by the coneurrent votes of the two houses.” There is no constitytional warrant for making Con- gress a “returning board,” or giving it power to scrutinize the returns. The two honsas are to be witnesses, and no more, to twenty-second joint rule, adopted by the re- publicans in 1865, is undoubtedly unconsti- tutional; but there does not appear to be any method of testing the question without the most serious disturbance of the regular order of the government. As it stands it may be easily made the means of upsetting the popular verdict at the next election, and that in a very dangerous manner, When the electoral vote comes to be counted in the presence of the two houses a democrat may object upon some technical point to the counting of a republican State; if he is supported by the democratic majority in the House of Representatives the vote of that State, under the rule, would be thrown ont. Thereupon, again on some technicality, a republican might object to a democratic State, and the republican Senate might throw that out. This paring down of the electoral vote might go on until no can- didate could receive what the constitution requires, ‘ta majority of the whole number of electors appointed,” and the election would be thrown into the House of Repre- sentatives, where, the vote being by States, it is possible that nineteen States, with only forty-five members, out of the total of two hundred and ninety-two, and representing less than a fifth of the total population of the Union, should impose a President upon the country. Evidently such a course would be very unsatisfactory to the people, and very unjust as well, for it would impose upon them a policy to.which the majority might be utterly opposed. The constitutional amendment proposed in the Senate would prevent all such possi- bilities as we have mentioned, and would remand the election of President to ‘those who are furthest removed from the'influence of his patronage—that is, to the whole body of American citizens,” as Mr. Benton once said. Independent Journalism. It is always pleasant for the Hrnarp to acknowledge the enterprise and indepen- dence of its contemporaries, especially those who have strong political predilections. ‘Thus the manner in which Mr. Tom Nast, the brilliant artist of Harper's Weekly, treats the Belknap business shows that he has a soul above partisanship. In his magnificent cartoon we have Belknap and Babcock, Grant and Shepherd, held up to public censure as the enemies of the public virtue, Columbia stands in the attitude of the great Master (for, as our readers know, Mr. Nast is fond of illustrating his comic pictures with sacred themes), and the drove the sea before her like the swine when pos- that effective vigor which marks the efforts of Mr. Nast, the rising of the sun of ecénomy and patriotism. This cartoon is the more re- markable because in the faces of the swine as they rush toward the sea we discover the | portraits of Babcock, Belknap, Shepherd, Williams, Delano, and the Dresident himself as the head pig of all. The moral of this cartoon is salutary and striking, and remem- bering the devotion of Mr. Nast to the Presi- | dent, and his unfaltering allegiance to the republican party, we cannot too highly praise him for the sacrifice of personal feeling he makes in the interest of pure and donest government, While commending Mr. Nast for his mast- erly cartoon we must also note the vigorous and trenchant manner in which the Word | has treated the Pendleton case, Always on the alert to detect corraption and show up the villanies of men in power, the World im this ease, like Mr, Nast, rises above tho | temptations of party and personal associa- There is bably no man in the democratic party, / unless, perhaps, itis our Unele Dick, who would make the money of the people go fur- ther and do more good then “(Gentleman George.” Therefore when the editor of the | World found it necessary to hold up this | trusted leader and charming gentleman to the censure of the party and the country | we know what the saecr must have been. The lash whieh has flayed Blaine, searified | Babcock, torn the hide of the impenetrable | Butler and stripped from his qnivering | limbs the flesh of Belknap was not withheld | from the back ot the bribe-taking Pendleton, | fine » gentleman and true a democrat as he | is, These trenchant, biting, severe, illumi. | nating, sarcastic, ironical articles of the | World on “Pendleton, the unworthy demo- : erat,” will live in our newspaper history as evidences that even s democratic editor ean | rise above the temptations of party and do his duty. They will live with the great car- / toon of Nast showing how the administra- tion hogs possessed by the devils of corrup- | which are in too many cases incompetent to | the stiff-collared theologians, whom he would | tion ran down into the sea, The Republican State Com re Conkling’s Prospects. The State Convention for choosing dele- gates to represent the republicans of New York at Cincinnati will assemble at Syra- cuse day after to-morrow. The composition of this Convention is already known, and the Presidential preference of the conventions has been so fully declared that Mr. Cornell, the chairman of the Repab- lican State Committee, ly sent a telegram to Senator Conkling congratulating him on the ascertained fact that the party in this State is practically unanimous in adopting him as its candidate. We regret that our esteemed republican contemporary, the Times, is un- happy over this result, and tries to console itself by telling its readers that, although Mr. Conkling may have the unanimous support of the New York delegation, he has no chance of securing the Cin- cinnati nomination. We commiserate the leading republican organ on its dis- comfort in finding itself out of harmony with the general sentiment of the party in this State. The Times entertains a faint hope that, although the New York delegates will all vote tor Mr. Conkling at Cincinnati, they may not be bound todo so by positive in- structions. Our contemporary hugs a vain phantom, for although it is true that a few scattered Assembly district conventions have expressed a preference that the New York delegation to Cincinnati shall not be pledged, the greater part of them have taken a differ- ent view, and the Syracuse Convention will be controlled by its strong Conkling ma- jority. When the Times expresses the opinion that the unanimous support of Mr. Conkling by the delegates from his own State will be an idle compliment the wish is father to the thought. Why should it be construed as a vain com- pliment so long in advance? What other candidate will go to the Convention with so strong a support? Not half the number of votes to which New York is entitled has been pledged to any of his rivals, and both on the score of fitness and the score of expedi- ency we know not which of them can claim any advantage over our distinguished Senator. His eminent abilities are conceded and speak for themselves, but the point of expediency may require some elucidation. New York is the pivot of the Presidential canvass; neither party can succeed without the electoral votes of this State. If anybody can rescue the State from democratic hands it is Mr. Conkling. It would be preposter- ous to say that Morton or Blaine or Hayes or Washburne would have the same strength with the New York republicans as their own favorite candidate. If the Cincinnati Con- vention should think that a repub- lican President can be elected with- out the electoral votes of New York, it may nominate Mr. Morton’ or some other of Mr. Conkling’s numerous rivals; but that would be a perilous cast of the dice. New York will be the most closely contested of all the States, and its electoral vote is so large that the recovery of the State from the democrats will make the whole dif- ference between victory and defeat. There is no concentration of republican sentiment on any other candidate, and the divisions among Mr. Conkling’s opponents are favor- able to his chances; and if the party should be convinced that New York is indispensable to success Mr. Conkling, who can probably carry it, while no other candidate bas anything like his strength in the Empire State, ought to receive a strong support at Cincinnati after the delegates from other States shall have distributed complimentary votes on Morton, Blaine, Hayes, Washburne and other personal favor- ites. It is doubtful whether Morton would get the electoral vote of his own State ; but even if he could Indiana is entitled to only fifteen electoral votes, whereas New York has thirty-five. Blaine could undoubtedly carry his own State and all the other New Engla: States except Connecticut ; but Conkling would carry them with equal certainty, while Blaine would have no chance of carrying New York. But these five New England States, which would be equally certain for Conkling or Blaine, have only thirty-four electoral votes, and New York, which Conkling may carry and Blaine cannot, has thirty-five. No nomination at Cincinnati has any chance of success if it puts New York in peril, and there is no likelihood that any other republican than Conkling can carry this State. It is said and trumpeted that Morton is strong with the republicans of the Southern States ; but it makes little difference whether he is or not, since it is certain that nearly every Southern State will support the demo- eratic candidate. In the strong republican States any candidate of that party would succeed, and nothing is to be gained or lost | by the selection. In the strong democratic States, on the other hand, no republican has any chance, and it would be absurd for the Cincinnati Convention to select its candidate with a view to those hopeless States, It is indispensable to carry New York, which can be wrested from democratic hands by no other candidate than Mr. Conkling. If the Cincinnati Convention looks at facts as they are, and makes a true estimate of the situn- tion, it will see that New York is the grand | hinge of the Presidential canvass ; that it is adoubtfal State at best ; that it would be | bad strategy to nominate any of Mr. Conk- ling’s rivals, who have no chance of securing its thirty-five electoral votes. His advan- tages are so manifest and so solid that the shrewd politicians who will pledge the New York delegates to him at Syracuse have no idea of doing it as a pure compliment. The Sanitary Neglect of the Schools. ‘The very careful inspection of the sanitary condition of a number of the downtown public schools made by the reportorial staff of the Heranp, the details of which we print on another — page, shows that our strictures on the man- agement of these important institutions are fully justified. No matter where the blame should rest, the facts demonstrate that many of our schools are dangerously overcrowded and that nearly all are defectively ventilated or otherwise sanitarily neglected. Perhaps the pelicy of turning over for political pur- poses the immediate control of the schools to local boards of trustees, tho members of fill the offices with intelligence, may be NEW YORK HERALD, MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1876.—TRIPLE SHEET. properly regarded as the primary cause of. the evil. There can be no possible doubt regarding the importance of separating the education of our children from the contami- nation of politics, and it therefore suggests a possible cause when we find mismanagement walking hand in hand with the powerful motor referred to. Nothing is easier than to establish standard rules for the regulation of attendance and sanitary precautions in the schools, and it is a serious reflection on the official character of the Board of Education that such im; are now in such a chaotic condition.” The rapid growth of the population has undoubtedly complicated the daties of the school officials very consid- erably and has thrown on men deficient in resouree the difficult task of providing ac- commodation for the increasing numbers of pupils, But there can be no excuse what- ever for the neglect of the simplest precau- tions demanded alike by sanitary and moral decency. Why are not the ideas of rigid dis- cipline of the class room extended to every part of the school building? We do not hesitate to say that the men who govern the schools, be they commissioners or trustees, and who tolerate the abominable condition in which the closets are kept and who permit the exposure of the children to the de- moralizing influences’ of the slums, even within the sacred precincts of the school, are unfitted by their natures and ideas to exer- cise any control over the higher orders of brate animals, much less to minister to the education of human beings. Would these men permit the invasion of their own homes by ruffians from the street? Certainly not, and yet they forget that they have volun- tarily assumed the most sacred of duties when they accepted the implied responsi- bility for the education and care of the ris- | ing generation; when they have undertaken, as it were, to mould the morals of the im- mediate future in New York. Of the few schools from which we print reports, and which have been selected as illustrating the average condition ofthe large number in- spected, there is scarcely one which really comes up to the sanitary condition which the health and morals of the pupils im- peratively demand. The fact that disease has not caused serious ravages among the children during the past winter is not due to any meritorious precautions adopted by the school officials, but to the extreme mild- ness of the season. Had we passed through a really severe winter such as has been ex- perienced frequently during the past ten years, and will inevitably recur, the records would show a terrible falling off in the at- tendance of the pupils, and a vast increase in the death list. We pity the hard working teachers and the zealous scholars who are compelled to impart and receive instruction under the paternal (?) administration of school commissioners and trustees who are false to their commission and their trusts. The Return of the Fugitive Marsh. Everybody but the culprits against whom he is to testify will be glad that Marsh, the frightened witness who fled to Montreal, has received assurances of protection and par- | don, and will presently be on his way to Washington. The steps taken to bring him back would have reflected more credit on the President if they had not been so tardy. If it be proper to give Marsh a guarantee against personal prosecution now it was equally proper seventeen days ago, when he absconded. What excuse can the President give, or can anybody give for him, for keep- ing the wheels of justice blocked for so long a period for want of evidence when it was in his power to call back the fugitive witness by the same means he has at last adopted ? He confesses by taking this step now that | there was no legal objection to his taking it | at once, for there has been no change in the law since Marsh's flight. Ifthe assurance of protection is given in the interest of justice the delay is indefensible, for it equally’con- cerned justice to have Belknap impeached and indicted as soon as his crime was brought to light. Both the impeachment | proceedings and the action of the Grand | Jury have been kept at a dead halt for more than two weeks by the failure of the Presi- dent to do promptly what he now, at last, acknowledges to have been his duty. Although it is impossible to justify the delay, it is easy enough to explain it, or, rather, to account for the action of the Presi- dent now without any change in the legal | aspect of the case. As soon as it was dis- | covered that Marsh and his wife were im- portant witnesses against Pendleton and that | a distinguished democrat could be dragged down in the same disgrace as Belknap, the President suddenly overcame his reluc- | tance to promise safety to the fugitives and | induce them tocome back. Pendleton stood | | higher in the democratic party than Belknap | did in the republican party, and when it | was found that both could be engulfed in the same ruin by the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Marsh the President was quick to rec- ognize the duty he had so long neglected. | We think it utterly disereditable for him to | have waited until he found that their testi- mony would be as blackening and fatal to a | prominent democrat as to a prominent re- publican before recognizing his obvious duty in so important a matter. The Sermons Yesterday. It often happens that several of our leading preachers select similar themes for their ser- | mons, and yesterday the wide-branching one of God's providence received a number of diverse interpretations. Dr. Hepworth thinks that ‘His blessings are scattered with such | strange and apparent confusion that to our human jndgment they have no meaning.” | } Nevertheless, we must take all on the faith | that God knows what is best. Mr. Backus | in his sermon said, ‘‘We may sow and water, but it is God that gives the increase.” Mr. Frothingham, in drawing the’ line between creed and conduct, says that “If a man in society trusts implicitly in Providence for everything he is called in- sane.” Dr. Bellows says, as if in answer, | ‘Providence does not mean interference.” ‘The inquiring Christian in reading over our sermon reports can compare these utterances with his own belief. Mr, Beecher defended | the “gospel of gush” on the ground that it is a gospel of goodness, and championed the | right of a man filled with the spirit to preach | | what is in him without asking the leave of | not hesitate to ridicule with Dryden as “God Almighty’s gentlemen.” In the Cathe, olic churches the virtues of St. Joseph wero duly praised. The Twenty-Second Joint Rule. Senator Morton, the chairman of the Com- mittee on Privileges and Elections, has brought in a bill providing for the. counting of votes for President and Vice President. The Senate has been for a week and is still engaged in the consideration of this impor- tant subject, and it would be well should it receive more general attention. . The object of the bill is to prescribe a method of counting which shall take the place of the twenty-second joint rule. That rule, lately referred to in these columns, was adopted in 1865, and retained until this year by the two repnblican houses of Con- gress. It empowered a mere majority in either house to refuse, without a word of debate, to count the vote of a State. The country was thus unable to judge of the fair. ness of such rejections, and those who might be guilty of any criminal partisanship in objecting to votes cast for an opponent could escape in silence and with impunity. In 1873 Louisiana and Arkansas were disfran- chised and the three votes cast by Georgia for Mr. Greeley were thrown out, according to the following clause of the rule:—‘And no vote objected to shall be counted except by the concurrent vote of the two houses, &e., and upon any such question there shall be no debate in either house.” » It was fortunate for the peace of the coun- try during the present administration that the rejection of those eighteen electoral votes did not change the result, and that Mr. Grant was lawfuliy elected President, even without taking them into account, Early in this session of Congress the Senate, without consulting the democratic House, retired from the joint rule to which two re- publican houses had so long remained par- ties, and referred this whole matter of count- ing to Mr. Morton’s committee. As might have been expected, the spirit of the legisla- tion proposed and advocated by Mr. Morton and his friends, in 1876, is quite the reverse of that which we find in their rule of 1865, 1869 and 1873; and the new bill provides that no vote of a State shall be rejected ‘‘ex- cept by the affirmative vote of the two houses,” and gives ample opportunity fox debate. While Senators are exercising their inge. nuity in establishing some method not only of counting the votes, but also of question- ing and deciding the legality of electoral certificates, we may inquire what cone stitutional authority they have for so doing, The twelfth amendment says that ‘the Presi- dent of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President.” This means that the President of the Senate shall open the cer- tificates, and that Congress shall count the votes—that is, may adopt convenient modes of computing the number cast for each can- didate, and shall declare the result. But can this be construed to give either or both houses power to reject the list ofythe votes of a State sealed and certified by the electors, together with a list of the names of the electors certified under the Executive authority of such State? Are not these cer- tificates primary evidence of the true vote of a State, which Congress is bound, under the constitution, to accept? And apart from constitutional objections is it expedient that Congress should have the jurisdiction claimed, and could a debate in that body, during the exciting process of counting the votes ina close contest, ever satisfactorily set- tle the questions which might arise? It seems, however, necessary that some tribunal should decide which of two sets of certificates are to be counted and which rejected; for it has been seen that a State had two Legisla« tures and two Governors, and conse: quently transmitted to the seat of govern. ment two sets of votes. Still, had it not been for federal and military interference, Louisiana would not have made two returns at the last election and occasioned an appar- ent necessity for legislation. But whatever law may now be devised and whatever trib- unal may be provided, the country will not soon forget the twenty-second joint rule of 1865, nor that the Senate and the House have, for three elections, usurped a power to silently disfranchise a State ; that this power has been exercised, that it is only because of. overwhelming popular majorities in favor of one candidate its dangerous consequences -have not already been upon us, and that although they are now anxious to place themselves on the record in condemning their own rule, it is only to-day that the re- | publican leaders are proposing a remedy. Mr. Boutwell says, ‘‘at that time (1869) there was a decided opinion that the rule was a bad one.” Mr. Morton refers to a former speech in which he said:—*But ‘it was cer- tainly adopted without much consideration, and with a view apparently of farnishing an additional safeguard against receiving elec toral votes from States that had been in re- bellion.” At the same time he says:—‘It is, in my judgment, the most dangerons con- | trivance to the peace of the nation that hae ever been invented by Congress ; a torpedo planted in the straits with which the ship of state may at some time come into fatal col- lision.” Yet these leaders have dared to maintain their “dangerous contrivance,” their “torpedo” during President Lincoln's last term, and daring President Grant's two ' terms, and until their opponents had gained control of the other house. Will they be held responsible? Bismanck’s Soctat, ann Hemonovs charag teristics are not those usually regarded by the world which, ontside his immediate friends and relations, has judged him im hit high, hard character of “‘The Man of Blood and Tron.” To show how amiably and enjoyably this lion of diplomacy can pun at the proper times is the object of a book ot the Imperial Chancellor's letters and sayings recently published at Leipsie, an interesting réswné of which will be found elsewhere in our letter from Berlin. Two Carnotic Bisnors were consecrated yesterday, Dr. Galberry as Bishop of Harte ford and the Right Reverend J. Twigg as Bishop of Pittsburg. In addition, Bishon