[Sidenote] Stanton, Speech at Philadelphia, February 8, 1858.

  [Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, October 19, 1857.  Senate Ex.  Doc. 
  No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong.  Vol.  I., p. 103.

  [Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, Oct. 22, 1857.  Ibid., pp. 104-6.

  [Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, October 19, 1857.  Senate Ex.  Doc. 
  No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong.  Vol.  I., p. 104.

That the pro-slavery cabal would permit power to slip from their grasp without some extraordinary effort was scarcely to be expected.  When the official returns were brought from the various voting-places to the Governor’s office, there came from Oxford, a single precinct in Johnson County, “a roll of paper, forty or fifty feet long, containing names as thickly as they could be written,” and a large part of which were afterwards discovered to have been literally copied from an old Cincinnati directory.  This paper purported to be a return of 1628 votes for the eleven pro-slavery candidates for the Legislature in that district, and if counted it would elect eight members of the House and three of the council by a trifling majority, and thereby change the political complexion and power of the Legislature.  Inspection showed the document to be an attempt to commit a stupendous fraud; and after visiting the locality ("a village with six houses, including stores, and without a tavern”) and satisfying himself of the impossibility of such a vote from such a place, Governor Walker rejected the whole return from Oxford precinct for informality, and gave certificates of election to the free-State candidates elected as appeared by the other regular returns.  A similar paper from McGee County with more than 1200 names was treated in like manner.  Judge Cato issued his writ of mandamus to compel the Governor to give certificates to the pro-slavery candidates, but without success.  The language of Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton in a proclamation announcing their action deserves remembrance and imitation.  “The consideration that our own party by this decision will lose the majority in the legislative assembly does not make our duty in the premises less solemn and imperative.  The elective franchise would be utterly valueless, and free government itself would receive a deadly blow, if so great an outrage as this could be shielded under the cover of mere forms and technicalities.  We cannot consent in any manner to give the sanction of our respective official positions to such a transaction.  Nor can we feel justified to relieve ourselves of the proper responsibility of our offices, in a case where there is no valid return, by submitting the question to the legislative assembly, and in that very act giving the parties that might claim to be chosen by this spurious vote the power to decide upon their own election.”