Having secured the abolition of direct Federal military interference with state administrations in the South, the Democrats turned to the abrogation of the Federal election laws that had been passed in 1870-1871, as a part of the regular reconstruction policy for protecting the negroes in the exercise of the suffrage. These election laws prescribed penalties for intimidation at the polls, provided for the appointment, by Federal circuit courts, of supervisors charged with the duty of scrutinizing the entire election process, and authorized the employment of United States marshals, deputies, and soldiers to support and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties and to keep the peace at the polls. These laws, the Republican authors urged, were designed to safeguard the purity of the ballot, not only in the South but also in the North, and particularly in New York, where it was claimed that fraud was regularly employed by the Democratic leaders. John Sherman declared that the Democrats in Congress would be a "pitiful minority, if those elected by fraud and bloodshed were debarred," adding that, "in the South one million Republicans are disfranchised." Democrats, on the other hand, replied that these laws were nothing more than a part of a gigantic scheme originated by the Republicans to fasten their rule upon the country forever by systematic interference with elections. Democratic suspicions were strengthened by reports of many scandals--for instance, that the supervisors in Louisiana under the Republican regime had registered "eight thousand more colored voters than there were in the state when the census was taken four years later." Undoubtedly, there were plenty of frauds on both sides, and it is an open question whether Federal interference reduced or increased the amount. At all events, the Democrats, finding themselves in a majority in the House of Representatives in 1877, determined to secure the repeal of the "force laws," and in their desperation they resorted to the practice of attaching their repeal measures to appropriation bills in the hope of compelling President Hayes to sign them or tying up the wheels of government by a stoppage in finances. Hayes was equal to the occasion, and by a vigorous use of the veto power he defeated the direct assaults of the Democrats on the election laws. At length, however, in June, 1878, he was compelled to accept a "rider" in the form of a proviso to the annual appropriation bill for the army making it impossible for United States marshals to employ federal troops in the execution of the election laws. While this did not satisfy the Democrats by any means, because it still left Federal supervision under the marshals, their deputies and the election supervisors, it took away the main prop of the Republicans in the South--the use of troops at elections.