Field David Dudley
The Vote That Made the President
Brewster could not have been appointed Elector if he had received the Votes of all the People of Louisiana
He had been made Surveyor-General of the United States, for the District of Louisiana, on the 2d of February, 1874; was recommissioned by President Grant on the 11th of February, 1875, and is at present exercising the office. Whether he has ever been out of the office depends upon the facts now to be mentioned. Eight or nine days after the election of November 7, 1876, at which he was a candidate on the Republican electoral ticket, there was received at the Department of the Interior, from the hands of the President, this letter:
Monroe, November 4, 1876.
Dear Sir: I hereby tender my resignation of the office of Surveyor-General of the State of Louisiana, with the request that it be accepted immediately. With many thanks for your kindness,
I remain, yours respectfully,O. H. Brewster.
U. S. Grant, President United States.
When the letter was written does not appear. It is certain that Brewster was acting as Surveyor-General on the 10th of November.
On the 16th of November a letter was addressed to the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, as follows:
Department of the Interior,Washington, November 16, 1876. }
Sir: I have received the resignation of Mr. Orlando H. Brewster, Surveyor-General of Louisiana, which he has requested may take effect immediately. Please inform Mr. Brewster that his resignation has been accepted by the President, to take effect November 4th instant, that being the date of his letter of resignation to this Department.
Very respectfully,Z. Chandler, Secretary.
At what time, if ever, the Commissioner informed Brewster of the acceptance of his resignation we do not know, but it could not have been earlier than the 20th of November.
On the morning of the 6th of December, the four men who assumed to act as the Returning Board of Louisiana filed in the office of the Secretary of that State a certificate that Brewster, with seven other persons, had been appointed presidential electors. There was then on the statute-book of Louisiana this enactment:
"If any one or more of the electors chosen by the people shall fail from any cause whatever to attend at the appointed place at the hour of 4 p. m. of the day prescribed for their meeting, it shall be the duty of the other electors immediately to proceed by ballot to fill such vacancy or vacancies."
What Brewster did is thus told by Kellogg, one of the Hayes electors, on his examination at Washington in January:
"Q. Did Levissee and Brewster vote at the meeting of electors?
A. I believe they did.
Q. Was not an appointment made for somebody to fill Brewster's place?
A. I believe that that is the case.
Q. Who was appointed to fill Brewster's place?
A. Brewster himself.
Q. The same man?
A. The same man.
Q. Were you also instructed by these committees (National and Congressional Republican Committees) how to dispose of Brewster and Levissee?
A. My recollection is that some one of the electors had received a letter suggesting that in case of a vacancy or in case of the absence of Levissee and Brewster, they should be chosen in their own places. That is my recollection.
Q. And yet they absented themselves from the electoral college, and you filled their vacancies with themselves?
A. They were absent from the college when the college met, and we filled their vacancies by themselves."
Being thus installed, they voted for Mr. Hayes within an hour after they were chosen to fill their own vacancies; and three days afterward Brewster addressed the following letter to the President:
New Orleans, Louisiana, December 9, 1876.
Sir: I respectfully apply to be appointed Surveyor-General for the District of Louisiana. Commendations from prominent gentlemen will be submitted to your Excellency to justify the appointment.
I have the honor to remainYour very obedient servant,Orlando H. Brewster.
U. S. Grant, President United States, Washington, D. C.
The reappointment was made on the 5th of January, 1877. The Chief of the Appointment Division in the Interior Department was asked and testified about it as follows:
"Q. Who recommended his appointment in January?
A. I think the probability is (although there is no evidence of it) that there was no recommendation, further than his own application to the President.
Q. You do not know of any recommendation?
A. I do not know of any.
Q. There is none on file?
A. There is none on file to the best of my knowledge. There is none on file in the Interior Department."
Who does not perceive the shallow trick by which Brewster pretended to have divested himself of his Federal office that he might vote; only to be reinvested as soon as he had voted?
The letter of resignation, with its false date, and its pretended acceptance, to take effect as of a time past, were evident shams to make it appear that he was not holder of a Federal office when he was elected; his affecting to be absent on the 6th of December, and coming in immediately to fill the vacancy occasioned by his own absence, in order to make it appear that his appointment was made on that 6th of December, instead of the 7th of November, and his barefaced application on the third day thereafter to be reappointed to the Federal office, from which he could not possibly have perfected his resignation before the 20th of November – all these were but so many contrivances to evade the highest enactment known to our civil polity. In the eye of reason and of law, he acted during the whole period under that influence of office which it was the design of the Constitution to prevent, and he must have entered more thoroughly into the work of his Federal master than if he had not gone through the form of resigning, inasmuch as that placed him, more than before, in his master's power.
Let us now place side by side the commandment of the Constitution and the resolution of the Electoral Commission:
It would be unjust to cast upon the Electoral Commission the blame of all the wrong that has been practised in this presidential count. The Commission was but a council of advice, which Congress might have taken or not, as it pleased, the only condition being that, in order to reject it, both Houses must have agreed. The responsibility of the final decision lay, after all, upon Congress, or rather, upon the Senate, which voted throughout to follow the Commission.
The facts thus briefly recited present certain questions – moral, political, and legal – which cannot be considered too soon for our good repute and our self-respect.
The Moral Question
Whatever differences of opinion there may be about the political and legal questions involved, there can be none about the moral. The presidential office is the gift of the people of the several States, of their own free-will, expressed according to the laws. A falsification of that will is an offense against the State where it is committed, and against all the States. If the falsification is beyond the reach of the law, it is not beyond the reach of the conscience. A robbery is none the less a robbery because it is beyond the range of vision or the arm of justice. If the possessor of an estate has entered through the forgery of a record or the spoliation of a will, which although believed by every neighbor is beyond judicial proof, all the world pronounces his possession fraudulent, even though he scatters his wealth in charities and gathers many companions around his luxurious table. The example is corrupting, but it is against the eternal law of justice that the act should be respected or the actors continue forever to prosper.
It is no answer to these observations to say that frauds have been practised on the other side. Unhappily there is too much reason to believe that neither party is free from practices which are at once a scourge and a dishonor. Neither has the disgraceful monopoly of such practices, whichever may have the bad preëminence. But this is certain: one wrong neither justifies nor palliates another.
