Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
more than to any other man is due the preservation to the Republicans of
the fruits of their victory in that state. When the contest was
transferred from the states to congress, and, finally, before the
electoral commission chosen to arbitrate and decide who had been elected
president, Mr. Chandler acted as counsel, and assisted in preparing the
case as presented to the commission.
In the report of the special committee sent by the senate to investigate
the election in Florida, made January 29, 1877, by Senator Sargent, of
California, is contained a full statement of what the committee
considered to be the law with reference to the conclusiveness of the
declaration by a state canvassing board of the vote of the state for
presidential electors, which was the earliest formal exposition of the
principles of law which were finally adopted by the commission. The
authorship of this statement is freely attributed by Mr. Sargent to Mr.
Chandler, and the points, briefly stated, are as follows:--
I. The canvassing board was created by competent legislative
authority, with jurisdiction to ascertain, declare, and certify,
in due form, the result of the election, and in this case it did
certify that the Hayes electors had been chosen by nine hundred
and thirty majority.
This declaration, having been made by a tribunal having
unquestioned jurisdiction over the subject-matter, is
conclusive, and it has not been and cannot be reviewed, revised,
or reversed, by any power anywhere existing.
II. It cannot be reversed by any authority proceeding from the
state Of Florida. It cannot be reversed by a recanvass of the
votes.
III. As the decision of the canvassing board, that the Hayes
electors were chosen, cannot be reversed by a recanvass, neither
can the title of the electors be impaired upon proceedings of
_quo warranto_.
IV. If the declaration of the result of the election of
presidential electors in Florida, made by the state tribunal
authorized by the legislature to make such declaration, cannot
be reversed by any authority proceeding from the state of
Florida, neither can it be reversed by congress. The
constitutional provision, section 1, article 2, is, "That each
state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof
shall direct, a number of electors equal," etc. It is not
pretended by anyone that the president of the senate, or
congress, in counting the electoral vote, can do more than
merely ascertain whether or not the electors have been appointed
within each state in the manner prescribed by the legislature
thereof; and in the present case, if congress shall find that
the result of the late election was ascertained and declared by
the proper tribunal, created for that purpose and authorized by
the legislature to make the declaration, that declaration and
decision by such tribunal having jurisdiction over the
subject-matter is final and conclusive upon congress, and cannot
be reviewed, revised, or reversed. It does appear that the
canvassing board of the state of Florida, duly authorized by the
legislature, canvassed the result of the election, and declared
and certified that the Hayes electors were chosen, which result
appearing to the governor of the state, he issued certificates
to the electors so declared chosen, and they proceeded to
perform their functions. Beyond this authorized decision and
declaration of the proper state tribunal, it is respectfully
submitted that neither the president of the senate nor congress
can go.
V. In stating this doctrine, that neither the president of the
senate nor congress has the right, in counting the electoral
vote from any state, to go beyond the decision of that tribunal
authorized by the state legislature to ascertain and declare the
result of the vote of the people of the state for electors, it
is not meant to assert that the president of the senate, or
congress, cannot go behind the mere ministerial certificate of
the governor. It is the duty of the executive to give a
certificate to the electors chosen in the manner the legislature
may have appointed, and declared to be so chosen by the tribunal
authorized by the legislature to make such declaration. But if
the governor is, by the state statute, not a member of such
tribunal, his certificate is as purely ministerial as that of
the clerk of a court certifying a copy of a judgment. It is a
valid certificate if it is in accordance with the facts
appearing upon the record. It is utterly invalid and worthless
if contrary to those facts. Therefore the president of the
senate, or congress, in canvassing the electoral votes, even
ministerially, and with no authority to go beyond the
declaration of the election made by the state tribunal
authorized to decide the result of the election, may look beyond
the mere ministerial certificate of the executive, who has been
authorized to decide nothing, and whose certificate is of no
value or binding force unless correctly and truthfully issued in
accordance with the legally declared election. This distinction,
which enables the president of the senate, or congress, to go
behind the mere ministerial certificate of the governor of the
state, but yet prohibits them from going behind the declaration
as to the result of the election duly made by the proper state
tribunal authorized to make such declaration, although
technical, is as clear and distinct, and founded upon principles
of law as sound and wise, as those which allow any tribunal to
go behind a clerk's merely ministerial certificate purporting to
verify the result of a verdict or judgment in court, without
allowing it to go beyond the true record of the verdict or
judgment itself.
After Mr. Hayes had been by the commission declared elected president,
when his administration surrendered the state governments of South
Carolina and Louisiana into the hands of the Democratic claimants, Mr.
Chandler vigorously opposed it, and criticised the surrender and the men
connected with it in most scathing terms, in letters published in the
winter of 1877-78. His fidelity to his convictions of duty was
conspicuous; and his courage and boldness in attacking the Hayes
administration gave him a lasting hold upon the confidence of the
country.
In 1880 he was elected at the head of the ticket of Blaine delegates
from New Hampshire to the Chicago convention, and was especially active
in the contests in the national committee prior to the convention, and
as a member of the committee on credentials, of which Senator Conger was
chairman, and which made the successful report in favor of district
representation. The following is an extract from the report of the
committee on credentials:--
This long current of precedents, and this universal custom of
the past, most conclusively establish the right of congressional
district representation. It is a question of substance and not
of form. Whether the delegates have come certified from separate
district conventions, or whether they have come from a state
convention where the district members thereof have selected
their district representatives, and formally reported them to
the state convention, and their election has been certified, for
brevity and convenience, only by the officers of the state
convention, district representation in fact has always been
allowed. The right of the congressional district to two members
residing within it and representing its sentiments, has been
treated as sacred, and your committee do not believe that it
should be now for the first time invaded with the approval of a
national convention.
Not only does the call for the convention, and the practice and
precedents of the party in one unbroken line, indicate and
secure the right of single district representation, but every
consideration of the reason of the practice tends to confirm its
wisdom. The purpose to be secured in nominating a President is
the selection of a candidate the most likely to be accepted by
the people; and the nearer we get to the popular feeling, in the
manner of selecting delegates, the wiser and safer will be our
nominations. If a state convention called to choose delegates to
a national convention can, by a bare majority, over-rule the
choices of the congressional districts and select delegates
residing within the districts who do not represent its
sentiments, they might as well he allowed to select all the
delegates from one congressional district. Residence within a
district, coupled with misrepresentation of its sentiments, is a
mockery. The delegates thus selected by a state convention will
not fairly represent the masses of the Republicans of the state,
but frequently will misrepresent them. Nominations made by
conventions of such delegates will not be so likely to be
ratified at the polls; and, in the opinion of the committee, it
is the duty of the convention emphatically to disapprove these
attempts to over-ride time-honored customs of the party, and to
vindicate the right of every congressional district to be
represented in a national convention by two delegates of its own
selection, and expressing its own sentiments.
When his favorite candidate was withdrawn in the convention, he
supported General Garfield, and during the campaign which resulted in
his election was a member of the national committee and served on the
executive committee.
On March 23, 1881, he was nominated, by President Garfield, as
solicitor-general in the Department of Justice; but his confirmation was
opposed by Attorney-General MacVeagh, and also by all the Democratic
senators, on account of his extreme radicalism on the southern question.
The Republicans, with Vice-President Arthur's vote, would have had one
majority; but the whole Democratic vote, the absence of the New York
senators, the abstention of Senator Mitchell, and the adverse vote of
Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania, caused his rejection, on May 20, by
five majority.
Mr. Chandler had been, in November, 1880, elected a member from Concord
in the state legislature, which assembled in June, 1881, and he took a
leading position. He favored stringent legislation against bribery at
elections, and against the issuing of free passes by railroads, and was
in favor of controlling by law the regulation of freight and fares upon
all railroads within the state. After the close of the session of the
legislature, when consolidation was effected between certain
Massachusetts and New Hampshire railroads without the consent of the
proper authorities, and against the law, he contended against their
action in the courts, in the press, and in all legitimate ways. Its
success would have placed the whole railroad interest in the lines
running through the center of the state and their branches under the
control of Massachusetts capital and Massachusetts corporations. His
legal positions have been sustained by the court, and the custody and
control of the roads ordered to be taken and exercised by their rightful
owners.
The latest honor conferred upon Mr. Chandler was his selection by
President Arthur as a member of his cabinet. He was nominated, April 7,
1882, for Secretary of the Navy, and confirmed April 12, by a vote of
twenty-eight to sixteen; he qualified and took possession of the office,
April 17, 1882.