BROAD SEAL WAR, 1838-39, a disputed election case in New Jersey and in Congress; turning in New Jersey on the power of a county official, in collusion with the State execu tive, to nullify the result of a State vote; in Congress on the right of the clerk to base offi cial action on information not before Congress. New Jersey then elected her six congressmen on general ticket, and in 1838 that of the Demo crats carried the State by an average of about 100; but the Whig county clerk of Middlesex County threw out the vote of South Amboy, with 252 Democratic majority, for lack of the election clerk's signature, and for other irregu larities, giving the Whigs five of the six seats. The Democrats claimed that such technicalities had been repeatedly waived, and were counter vailed by like ones in Whig towns; and, even so, that by law the governor and council, as a canvassing board, must send at once for any missing return and pass on its validity. Those officials were Whigs, however, and they decided that they could not go behind the clerk's certifi cate, and issued credentials to the Whig candi dates under the "broad sea.la of the State. This would have made only the usual party broil, but that the national House stood 119 Demo crats to 118 Whigs without the New Jersey members, so that the decision carried with it control of the organization of Congress. The Democratic clerk of the House, H. A. Garland, of Virginia, on its meeting 2 Dec. 1839, omitted the New Jersey members in his roll-call, on the ostensible ground that their seats were to be contested and he must leave the decision to Congress ; really because excluding them gave his party the speaker and the committees, and inci dentally secured himself the clerkship however the contest was decided. This was utterly ille gal, as there could be no contest till a congress was organized to bring a contest before; but he doubtless felt it as legitimate as the trick by which the Whig members were sent there, and that party could hardly complain of unfair hess. For three days there was helpless rage
and anarchy in the House, the clerk refusing to put the question upon any of the motions to bring order out of the chaos. Finally on the fifth the leaders of both parties called in John Quincy Adams (q.v.), the one member who had no party or affiliations of any sort, and who was respected as at once immutably just, unshrink ingly courageous and of the highest parlia mentary knowledge. He called upon the meet ing to organize itself, offered a resolution ordering the clerk to call the names of the New Jersey members with credentials, and on the clerks refusal announced that he would put the question himself. He was at once elected speaker pro tempore, and for six days more the fight went on to choose a permanent speaker, with both New Jersey delegations voting. On the llth a motion was carried that neither dele gation had a right to vote till the contest was decided; on the 16th a compromise was made by which R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, a Whig who favored the Democratic sub-treasury scheme, was chosen speaker. On 10 March 1840 the Democratic contestants were seated; on 16 July the majority report of the com mittee on the case, declaring them duly elected, was accepted by a vote in which all but 22 Whigs refused to take part, on the ground that the report and testimony were too long to examine. The political prize at stake had caused the parties to exchange principles, as they did earlier on the Louisiana Purchase and later on the Electoral Commission; the Demo crats, though strict constructionists, disre garded State certificates and insisted on going behind the returns; the Whigs, though uphold ing equity against forms, clung to the sanctity of a State certificate however obtained.