JOHNSON VS OVERSTREET CONTEST
Mr. McCULLOUGH called up the special order, being the consideration of the majority and minority report of the Committee on Elections in the matter of the contest for the seat of the Counties of Johnson and Morgan-see pages 63, 66, 214 and 221 of the Brevier Reports.
Mr. VOYLES in view of all the evidence he had heard believes this seat in all justice and right belongs to the contestor in this case, and the conduct of the sitting member has been such as should deprive him of his seat as Senator. There were thirty-two illegal votes cast for Overstreet in Morgan County, and some seventeen or twenty-one in Johnson County. Then there was a corrupt bargain by which the contestor was defeated made with a man by the name of William Rude. He claimed that Richard M. Johnson was elected, but is barred out by eighty-five votes resting upon fraud and illegality. There were at least fifty votes illegally cast for Overstreet through fraud and intimidation, which are twin brothers. He hoped Richard M. Johnson would be seated. He spoke with considerable difficulty on account of not feeling well.
Mr. LOCKRIDGE, a member of the Committee to whom the contest was referred, declared that simplifying the grounds of contest, they are but two-the first and fourth clauses under Section 4,756 R. S. 1881. But at the eleventh hour of this page: 280[View Page 280] proceeding, when the Senate had been in session several days, and on the very day the Senate met to consider this case, a new ground of contest is filed, under the guise of an amendment, and is admitted by a majority vote of the Committee, and thus we have a third cause of contest, in direct violation of the statute providing for the manner of proccedure in contested cases in Section 4,747 R. S. And what is the nature of this amendment? That the contestee bribed or offered to bribe, on the 7th of November last. There are no specifications, but only a vague and indefinite charge. A cloud of witnesses are subpenaed at the expense of the State, and all this time the contestee is denied his right to have his specifications of the charge against him made known - a right that is denied to no defendant, in any Court of Justice in Christendom outside of an autocratic form of Government. He asked whether such a proceeding is in the interest of justice and fair play. Whether the admission of the amendment to the grounds of contest at the late hour it was done, and in the face of the statute which prescribes that it shall be done within ten days after the election, and the refusal of the contestor to furnish specifications of his charge against the contestee, is in accord with the spirit of the Constitution, which says that "justice shall be administered freely and without purchase; completely and without, denial; speedily and without delay," and that the accused shall have the right "to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and to have a copy thereof " Under the sanctity of his oath he bad reached the conclusions embodied in the majority report, that the charge is not sustained by sufficient evidence to entitle the contestor to a seat in the Senate.
Mr. McCULLOUGH confined his remarks more particularly 10 the charge of bribery. Were he sitting as a Juror to try the question he would hare to conclude that the contestee had violated the law of the State in that particular and should suffer for the crime. He regarded the testimony of the contestee as a sham, and the testimony of a guilty man-having no mild words for a man who will use such means to secure an election, for if there is one danger above another that threatens our institutions, it is the danger that threatens the corruption of the ballot-box. Before he concluded-
The Senate took a recess till 2 o'clock
