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THE

AMERICAN

LAW REVIEW.

1877-1878.

EDITORS:

MOORFIELD STOREY,

SAMUEL HOAR.

VOLUME XII.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

1878.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by

LITTLE, BROWN, & Co.,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

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In the winter of 1876-77 the government of the United States found itself confronted with the immediate presence of a new peril and a new problem; from which peril, and for the solution of which problem, neither the Constitution nor the laws had provided a definite means of security or disposition, understood in the same sense by the two great political parties of the country, or even by jurists and statesmen of the most moderate views.

In the election for President serious and sincere disputes had arisen in respect to the bodies of Electors chosen in the States of Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon, and questions, more or less important, existed touching particular Electors in other States.

Whether Mr. Hayes or Mr. Tilden had been elected depended upon the disposition of these disputes and questions. The bias of party led nearly every Republican, without any study of the exact condition of the facts or the law, to believe that Mr. Hayes was elected, and the same bias and the same freedom from information and reflection led nearly all Democrats to the belief that Mr. Tilden had been elected.

There was a Republican President and administration, a Republican Senate, and a Democratic House of Representatives. There were many States with governments under Democratic control, and many under Republican management. There was between the two great parties in the country a mutual and ample supply of distrust and condemnation of each other; of the selfishness of those who desired to obtain offices, and of those who desired to retain them; and of that determination to grasp

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