It will be observed that the popular vote of Louisiana is given in two forms. Political affairs in that State were in a chaotic condition both then and subsequently. The Governor, Henry C. Warmoth, had been elected as a Republican, but had joined the Greeley movement, and was disposed to do all that lay in his power to give the vote of the State to the Democratic candidates. The votes of the State were at that time canvassed by a "returning board," consisting of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, and two others. The Lieutenant-Governor and one of the unofficial members became disqualified by being candidates for office. The Governor then removed the Secretary of State and appointed another man in his place; and he, with this new Secretary, proceeded to fill up the vacancies in the returning board. But the old Secretary of State, before his removal, and the remaining unofficial member of the board, had previously filled the vacancies. Accordingly there were two returning boards. The official returns were canvassed only by that board of which the Governor was the head; the other board made up returns from the best sources of information it could command. Each board seems to have manipulated the figures so as to bring about a desired result. This is a very brief account of a long and compli>cated controversy, full particulars of which may be found in the newspapers and in official documents of the time. Two sets of electors met, voted, and forwarded their returns to Washington; but the vote of the State was excluded, as will be noticed in the report of the electoral count. The votes of the electoral colleges as actually cast, including both the votes of Louisiana, are given be low. For convenience, those which were rejected by Congress are marked with an asterisk:

Many questions arose during the count of electoral votes, which took place on Feb. 12, 1873, was conducted in accordance with the twenty-second joint rule, and occupied seven hours. The first objection was made by Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts to counting the three votes cast in Georgia for Horace Greeley, on the ground that Mr. Greeley was dead at the time the votes were given. This raised the question whether Congress might take cognizance of the ineligibility of a candidate for the presidential office. The next objection was raised by Senator Trumbull of Illinois to the vote of Mississippi, on the ground that the certificates did not state that the electors voted by ballot. Mr. Potter of New York also objected especially to one vote of Mississippi, cast by an elector chosen to fill a vacancy, the choice of whom was certified only by the Secretary of State of Mississippi, and by him only upon information and not of his own knowledge. Upon these three objections the two Houses separated. The House of Representatives voted to reject the Greeley votes in Georgia; the Senate voted to accept them; under the joint rule they were cast out and not counted. Each House overruled both objections to the vote of Mississippi, and it was counted. Upon the resumption of the count, when the State of Missouri was reached, attention was called to the fact that votes were cast for Mr. Brown both as President and as Vice-President, but the objection that this was contrary to the provision of the Constitution that electors shall vote for two persons, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves," was obviated by reading the concluding part of the certificate, that no person who voted for Mr. Brown as President also voted for him as Vice-President. vote of Texas was next objected to, on the ground that the choice of the electors was certified to only by the act

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ing Secretary of State, and not, as the law required, by the Governor. A second objection was made on the ground that only four of the eight electors (not a majority) had met and filled vacancies. Both objections were overruled by each House, and the vote of Texas was counted.

The count then proceeded until the only votes remaining were those of Arkansas and Louisiana. The votes of both States were objected to. The returns for Arkansas were certified to only by the Secretary of State, and his office seal was the only one which the papers bore. Both sets of electors for Louisiana were objected to. The two Houses having separated, the Senate passed a resolution that the votes of Arkansas should not be counted; the House of Representatives agreed to admit them. The vote in the Senate was a consequence of the bad rule that no debate should be allowed. In fact the only seal in use in the State was that of the Secretary of State; and the rejection of the vote was a hasty act upon the most frivolous of pretexts. Each House voted not to count any votes from Louisiana. The result of this action, under the twenty-second joint rule, was that the votes of Arkansas and Louisiana were excluded. The joint session of Congress was then resumed, and the result of the election was declared according to the totals in the table already given.

XXIV.

THE DISPUTED ELECTION.

THE events of General Grant's second term which had an influence upon the election of 1876 were, in addition to the Southern question, the financial panic of 1873, which caused great distress and led to the formation of a strong party in various sections of the country, but particularly in the West, favoring an increase of the greenback currency, and its permanence as a standard of value; and the condition of the public service, which, in the popular view of the matter, if not as a matter of fact, was brought into startling prominence by the revelation of official complicity in the frauds of the "Whiskey Ring," and by the discovery of the transactions of General Belknap, Secretary of War, who was impeached for his offences, but escaped punishment by having resigned his office before the House of Representatives could act. The people be gan to be somewhat weary of the Southern question, and as the States in that part of the country had become almost "solid" already in the support of the Democratic party, it required but a slight change in the North to give a majority to the Opposition. The effect of hard times in inducing people to vote against the government of the day is well known, and this effect was felt strongly in the congressional elections of 1874. It was almost universally believed, when those elections had resulted in the choice of a Democratic House of Representatives for the first time in eighteen years, that the Democrats would carry the election of 1876. Subsequent events did not

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