Coffroth vs. Koontz continued...

Back at the end of November I spent some time looking into the controversy in Pennsylvania's 16th district during the 1864 election. The district included Gettysburg, and the incumbent representative Alexander Coffroth faced off against Republican challenger William H. Koontz. Those who have seen the film Lincoln know that the disputed result of the election serves as a background story for one of the minor side plots - Republican efforts to convince Coffroth to switch his vote on the 13th Amendment.

When we last left the story a controversy had erupted over the soldiers' vote. In my last blog post I quoted from several articles written at the time in the Adams Sentinel and Gettysburg Compiler, describing the dispute - albeit with clear partisan leanings. Essentially - several units at the front  failed to observe the strict letter of the election law when conducting their polls. The vote totals from these units contained a significant majority for Koontz, enough to win the election. However, Democratic Return Judges decided to toss out many of the returns, thereby giving Coffroth a narrow victory. Republican Return Judges in return refused to add their signatures to the election certifications, and charged the Democrats of playing politics by tossing out the soldiers' votes on technicalities. Each side claimed victory and sent in their own returns to the governor, neither of which contained the correct signatures to be considered legal.

On January 3, 1865, the Adams Sentinel ran the opinion of Pennsylvania's Attorney General, W.M. Meredith:

Two papers, purporting to be returns of the recent election in the 16th Congressional District, have been sent to the Secretary of the Commonwealth.... One of these papers is signed by four persons, viz: Messrs. Man, of Bedford county; Leker, of Franklin; Winter, of Fulton; and Diehl, of Adams, styling themselves a majority of the return judges of the above named counties; and the paper goes on to state that they have examined and counted the votes cast for Congress in the district... and that Mr. Coffroth having a majority of all the votes cast as counted before the board, is declared duly and legally elected....

The other paper is signed by five persons, viz: Messrs. Wills, or Somerset county; Curt, of Adams; Wilhelm, of Franklin; Winter, of Fulton, and Peek, of Bedford, styling themselves as being appointed return judges of the election held in the several counties composing the 16th Congressional District.... The paper goes on to state that having carefully examined the returns of the said several districts, and added together the votes therein contained, according to law, they... declared that Mr. Koontz, having received the greatest number of legal votes, is duly elected. Both bodies claiming to be the district return judges met on the day and at the place fixed by law....

On this state of facts the Governor has requested my opinion on the question, which of the two candidates ought to be proclaimed by him as having been returned as elected?

Meredith's opinion - supported by two full columns of detailed analysis of both returns - stated that neither return was legal. As a result, Governor Curtin declined to issue credentials to either Koontz or Coffroth for the next session of Congress, set to convene in December of 1865. Instead, he would leave the controversy for the House of Representatives to decide on its own.

When the House convened , the Clerk declined to seat either candidate, and the House referred the contest to its Elections Committee, with instructions to determine which candidate had a prima facie (as in, "on first examination") right to the seat. You can find some pretty good primary source material on the whole affair in the Digest of Election Cases: Cases of Contested Election in the House of Representatives from 1865 to 1871, Inclusive. On February 19, 1866 Coffroth was seated with the prima facie right to the seat, but Congress allowed Koontz to appeal the decision and prove his right to the seat. The Committee of Elections then took up the full case, to determine the merits of each side. On July 9, 1866 Republican Joseph W. McClurg of the committee made a full report to the House. The report detailed how the committee took up each and every disputed return and considered both arguments. For instance, take this excerpt from the report:

No. 8. One hundred and eighty-fourth Pennsylvania regiment, Koontz 39, Coffroth 21.

The sitting member [Coffroth], in his answer, alleged that 'said election is illegal and void, not being held in accordance with laws,' and that 'the persons voting were not qualified electors of the district.' But he did not specify in what manner the laws were violated or electors not qualified. In his brief he seems to admit that all should be counted but one, as he says: 'Rejected return of Company K, One hundred and eighty-fourth regiment, if counted, should be counted, Coffroth 21, Koontz 38.'

In his argument he objected to the return because it contained a voter in Franklin County.

That objection cannot deprive the qualified voters of Adams County of their right, when a perfect return, as this is, is properly certified by the prothonotary.

But the certificate of prothonotary of Adams County is not evidence to us of a vote in Franklin County. In the absence of other testimony we reject one vote from this return for Mr. Koontz, and count for Mr. Koontz 38, for Mr. Coffroth 21.

 In the end, the House Committee on Elections determined the legality of each disputed return in a similar manner, hearing evidence from both sides and judging on the merits of each argument. McClurg ended his report with a summation of the vote totals:

The conclusion to which the committee have arrived is:

From the majority of the uncounted votes for Mr. Koontz, as shown by table last above named...............159

Take the majority for Mr. Coffroth, as appears in the official count. 88

Leaves a majority for Koontz of................... 71

Should any doubt the correctness of counting the vote of Companies B and G, One hundred and thirty-eighth regiment Pennsylvania volunteers, where the two companies voted together, a deduction of Mr. Koontz's majorty at that poll 32-1.....31

Gives a majority for Mr. Koontz of.........40

The committee therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolutions:

Resolved, That Alexander H. Coffroth is not entitled to a seat in this House, as a representative from the sixteenth district of Pennsylvania in the thirty-ninth Congress.

Resolved, That William H. Koontz is entitled to a seat in this House, as a representative from the sixteenth district of Pennsylvania in the thirty-ninth Congress.

 Nine days after the report, on July 18, 1866 - the House decided. Before the vote, McClurg stood to address his fellow members. First he noted that Coffroth had intended to speak, but had become indisposed and was forced to leave the city the day before.  McClurg then gave a speech of his own, summarizing his report, and noting that "the policy of the sitting member, both in his allegations and his argument, is to attack upon the soldiers' vote, persistent attack. He offers to disenfranchise many who voted for himself, that in so doing he may disenfranchise more who voted for the contestant."

Koontz also received permission to have a 30 minute speech printed in the record. After summing up his case for election, Koontz closed very powerfully:

Beaten upon the home vote largely, my election was saved by the brave men in the field, who for a brief time stopped their work of putting down treason in the front to send a crushing blow against its allies in the rear. To the brave men in the front, with cannon in front of them, cannon to the right of them, and cannon to the left of them; to the brave men, hurrying to the front to join the deadly strife; to the brave men who had been to the front, but alas! then lay prostrate in the hospitals with fevered brows, [unreadable] limbs, and bodies pierced with shot and torn with shell, is due the credit of having saved the sixteenth district of Pennsylvania to the Union cause. Many of them have since the close of the war returned to their homes, and are now engaged in the peaceful pursuits of life, while many others were stricken down upon the battle-field or by disease contracted in the service to their country, and were not permitted to return to their homes and firesides, but now rest among the patriot dead of the Republic.

'They sleep their last sleep, they have fought their last battle,
No Sound can awake them to glory again.'

 Justice to the martyred dead and heroic living of the brave soldiers of the sixteenth district of Pennsylvania demanded that I should make this contest and vindicate their rights by preserving the purity of the elective franchise. Impelled by these considerations, sir, I have gone through this long and annoying contest, to find at last, as a reward for my time and labor, that justice is about to be done to myself and the majority of the legal voters of the sixteenth congressional district of Pennsylvania.

The House agreed to the resolutions, installing William H. Koontz as the duly elected representative of the 16th District, a year and nine months after the election.

Whether the disputed election provided the Lincoln administration and allies in Congress an opportunity to flip Coffroth's vote on the 13th amendment in January of 1865, we may never know. It is certainly a possibility though. What we do know is this:

1. Coffroth voted against the amendment in the summer of 1864
2. In January of 1865, with his reelection still in serious doubt, he shocked many by changing his vote on the amendment, as chronicled in an earlier blog post.
3. In February of 1866, he received prima facie right to his seat.
4. In July of 1866, the House Committee on Elections endorsed William H. Koontz's right to the seat, and by resolutions passed in the House Coffroth lost his seat on July 18, 1866.

A fascinating political story.

The Case of Coffroth vs. Koontz

By now the reviews have all come in - and there were a lot of them. Indeed, some seem exasperated by the amount of coverage Lincoln received from historians and bloggers. I've had my say as well on the movie - I liked it. But after weighing in a bit, I've personally found myself more interested in digging into primary sources to learn about the real story than debating what Spielberg got right or wrong. And it seems I've gotten myself a bit side-tracked exploring one of the more interesting side-stories.

A few days back I posted a bit on what I had found about Alexander Hamilton Coffroth's decision to switch his vote - he opposed it in June of 1864 but voted for it in January of 1865. The movie has its take on the flip-flop: Coffroth's reelection that fall was under considerable dispute, and voting with the administration would presumably pull some strings to ensure that he could remain at his post. In the film, Coffroth agrees to vote for the bill, and switch to the Republican Party in the next session.

In real life, such a party switch did not materialize - and Coffroth was seated in early 1866 only to lose his seat to his Republican challenger in July.  I decided to dig a bit deeper into this election - and discovered that it has some Gettysburg connections. In the next series of posts I will use primary sources to take a look at the controversy surrounding the election, and the resulting decisions that led to Coffroth taking his seat in January, 1866, and subsequently losing it in July.
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Alexander Hamilton Coffroth first earned election to Congress in the wave election of 1862 that swept many Republicans out of power. Coffroth ran in the 16th district, and narrowly unseated Edward McPherson, a Gettysburg native who had studied law under Thaddeus Stevens. Most remember McPherson today for the farm that he owned on the first day's battlefield (though he rented it out at the time of the battle). McPherson does make a cameo appearance in Lincoln as well, played by Christopher Evan Welch. In 1865 McPherson was serving as the clerk of the House Representatives.

The sixteenth district Coffroth served was composed of Adams, Bedford, Franklin, Fulton, and Somerset counties. In the election of 1864, Coffroth ran against Republican William H. Koontz. The result - as the film tells us - came under dispute, and received a great deal of coverage in Gettysburg newspapers, both Republican and Democratic. In reading about this dispute, those of you who closely follow modern politics will recognize that not much has changed in regard to election controversies in our country.

The central question of the controversy revolved around the certification of the soldiers' vote. In this election - the Republican Party counted on strongly favorable margins from soldiers at the front, and went to great lengths to ensure those votes counted. On the other hand, Democrats sought to disqualify the soldiers' vote on technical grounds where they could.

On November 1, 1864, The Republican Adams Sentinel reported on the controversy:

 Bold Attempt to deprive Gen. Koontz of his Election
The Return Judges met on Friday to receive and count the Returns of Soldiers' votes. These returns gave Koontz 292--Coffroth 115. Majority for Koontz, 177. During the day, it was whispered that the Democratic Judges had held a caucus at the Globe Hotel, with three of our young Democratic lawyers, and determined to exclude a portion of the Soldier vote. But nobody seemed disposed to credit the rumor. On Friday evening the town was much excited by the announcement that the Democratic Judges had actually rejected eight Returns, which had given Koontz 108 majority. As the telegraph from Harrisburg had announced Koontz's majority in the district to be only 72, this exclusion of the soldier vote, if recognized by the Governor, would of course give the Commission to Coffroth--a defeated candidate. We learn that the Union Judges protested against the outrage--and drew up a calm, dignified Protest, which was forwarded to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and a copy of which will be found in to day's Sentinel.

We have been curious to know the reason of this singular and bold attempt to disenfranchise over 200 of our gallant heroes, and have been surprised to learn that the objections were all of a most frivolous character--all matters of informality.

On November 7, 1864, Gettysburg's Democratic organ, The Compiler, responded. It began by outlining all of the guidelines required by law for the counting of the soldiers' vote. Then, one by one, it took up the rejected returns:

 The Prothonotary did deliver to the Return Judges copies of 31 returns, of these twenty-four were received and counted. Seven were not received, they appearing, as the Prothonotary cetified, to be in violation of the Act of Assembly, and his copies of them showing for the information of the Board and the public also, wherein they were defective and illegal. These he need not have certified at all, but he did so doubtless to let all have an opportunity of seeing and judging their illegality.

The first not received was the return attempted to be made of election held by Co. K, 184th Regt., which included a voter of Franklin county. This of necessity vitiated the whole return. It could not be told how that Franklin county elector voted. The officers of that election had made an illegal return. They had disregarded the law and no man can show how the Board could have counted the votes of such a return. The Return Judges are sworn and they must act in accordance with law.

The next was of Co. C, 202d Regt. In this case but one Judge was elected, and but that same one Judge acted and made the return. This was not an election held and a return by the three Judges, as directed positively by the law. It was a return unknown to the law and could not be received.

Returns for Mower U.S. Gen'l Hospital, Cuyler U.S.A. Hospital and McClellan U.S.A. Gen'l Hospital, the two former giving each one vote, the last three votes, were not received, because they did not contain the oathes and certificates of oaths of the Judges and Clerks. There was nothing to show that the officers holding these elections were qualified according to law.

A return of election held at one poll, before one set of election officers, by Companies B and G, of 138th Regt., was sent to the Prothonotary. This was in glaring opposition to the law, which, as has been seen, directs emphatically that "a poll shall be opened in each company." No excuse could be given for the admission of such a return and it could not be received.

Duplicate returns for Co. I, 210th Regt., containing names of voters of Adams, Franklin, Fulton, Bradford, Columbia and Perry counties. There was no certificate of the oath of two of the Judges and the Clerks. If the Board of Return Judges is a machine to count votes, not to examine what is before them, but to "go it blind," as some of the opposition wanted them to do, then of course these double returns of this Co. must be counted. They were not according to law and the Board did not receive them.

The Return for Co. B, 21st Regt. Cavalry was so defective and illegal that the Prothonotary could not and did not certify a copy of it. It contained names of voters of Franklin, Adams and York counties, and a return of votes for the different officers voted for in the three counties. An election was attempted to be held by Judges and Clerks who were qualified by a person not an election officer, in violation of the law. The effect was the same as if they had not been qualified at all. Therefore those Judges and Clerks had no right to hold an election or make a return of it. It also appears that there were in this return more votes cast for Coffroth and Koontz than there were Adams County voters. The Judges could not, for the reason given, count those votes. There was no legal paper before them to enable them to do it.

Not a solitary argument worthy of the name was or could be presented in support of the illegal returns. The election officers were amply provided with blanks, by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, for conducting the elections according to law. $15,000 was appropriated by the Legislatures for the purpose and to carry the law into effect, but in many cases its provisions have been disregarded.

Mr. Sweeney, the Return Judge of Gettysburg, offered a motion to throw out the returns of Franklin and Cumberland townships, for some alleged "inconsistencies between the certificates and tally lists, but his motion was properly declared by the Board out of time and out of order. The day for the district returns had passed, and those returns are governed by the general law. Mr. Sweeney's motion was sustained by the seven Republican Judges, and the right the Board had to examine the returns and not receive such as were not returns under the law, was by the course of the seven Judges on this motion, not only conceded but unanimously ratified.

Notwithstanding, these seven, "a rebellious minority," only one-third of the whole number, refused to sign the certificates, refused even to sign a certificate showing the action of the Board in not receiving the eight returns, but left the Court House in the wake of a few Abolition leaders to do their bidding.

It was objected by one of the seven that the Act provided that no mere informality shall invalidate the elections under it. Certainly not, and not a single return was not counted on the ground of "mere informality." Informality is want of form. Illegality is another thing.... The Judges are to count legal returns and such only, intolerant McPherson and his vile slanders upon good men and the wrath of a few other intolerant bigots, to the contrary notwithstanding.

The action of the Board is right in the opinion of eminent legal counsel of different parts of the State, and of law abiding people. Illegal returns were not even laid before the Return Judges of Bedford co. The Prothonotary could not certify any but such as were in accordance with law. There is no "military necessity" compelling the Return Judges to suspend the operation of a law so recent as the 25th of August, 1864. Although it is to be sincerely regretted that any of the returns of the soldiers' vote, or their elections, were not legal, adherence to the law was the only right and safe course for the Judges.

As these sources tell us, The Return Judges divided over the decision to reject soldiers' votes. As a result, conflicting certifications were sent to Governor Curtin. I'll continue this story in a later post.