Address of Union State central committee of 1861 Journal of the convention of border slave States, held in Frankfort, Kentucky, May 27, 1867 .... Testimony of Madison Conway Johnson.. Testimony of T. B. Oldham.. John Miller.. CASE OF JOHN D. YOUNG. FOR THE PROSECUTION. Spotswood Dedman, (colored) Henry H. Ewing Michael Carpenter, jr George M. Ewing.. William S. Sharp.. William H. T. Moss. Willis Hockaday John E. Rice.. Edward A. Thomas. H. C. Rainey James Hall Page 14 To the House of Representatives of the United States : Respectfully referring to the enclosed official certificate, and to the depositions nd other papers which will be found in the office of your clerk, as constituting he grounds upon which I deny and contest the right of the honorable Robert T. Van Horn to represent the sixth Missouri district in the present Congress, uch action is respectfully solicited in respect thereto as may best promote a roper investigation and decision of the questions thus presented for consid ration. WASHINGTON, March 4, 1867. JAMES H. BIRCH. OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF STATE, I, Francis Rodman, secretary of the State of Missouri, hereby certify that the nnexed page contains a true, complete, and full copy of the abstract of votes ast in the sixth congressional district for the office of superintendent of public chools and member of Congress, on the sixth day of November, A. D. 1866, as ppears by comparing the same with the original election returns now on file, as e law directs, in this office. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my official al. Done at office, this fourteenth day of February, A. D. eighteen hundred nd sixty-seven. [SBAL.] FRANCIS RODMAN, PLATTSBURG, MISSOURI, January 9, 1867. SIR: You are hereby notified that I shall contest your election and right to a seat as a member of the House of Representatives in the fortieth Congress, from the sixth congressional district of the State of Missouri, upon the following grounds touching the election held for said district on the 6th of November, 1866: 1. I charge that I received a majority of the votes that were legally cast for a representative in Congress at the said election, and that they should have been counted for me in the returns from the various townships and counties of the district instead of being rejected, (as they were,) and omitted from my court by the election judges and other returning officers. Of the legal ballots thu cast for me, but which were not counted in my favor, about 170 were so cast by legal voters in the county of Clinton; about 100 in the county of Caldwell: about 200 in the county of Ray; about the same number in the county of Carroll; probably about 100 in the county of Chariton; about 500 in the county of Saline, and probably about an equal number in the counties, respectively, of Lafayette, Jackson, Platte, and Clay; and the votes thus cast for me, but rejected and not counted in my favor, were so cast by loyal citizens, who had duly complied with the test-oath provision of the new constitution, but were denied the right of registration as qualified voters, their names registered as rejected voters, and their ballots placed in the boxes of rejected voters accordingly. I shall hence demand such a comparison or inspection of the balls thus cast for me as may be sufficient to verify the allegation thus made that you were not, and that I was, elected to Congress from this district 2. I charge that the test oath, or what is called the oath of loyalty, required of voters by what purports upon its face to be a "new constitution" of the State of Missouri, was unauthoritative and not binding upon those who wer voters under the pre-existing constitution for the following reasons: First, because the convention of delegates, which assumed authority to eart or ordain the said "new constitution," had been endowed with no legal or l gitimate authority to do so, but simply to enact certain amendments to the ex isting constitution; and that the sanction which was subsequently alleged the usurpation, in its pretended ratification by that portion of the people slo who were not denied the right to vote upon it, was not less invalid to establis L. 8. McKoy. |