1Y4 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



The Constitution of the United States says that 

 the President of the Senate shall open in con- 

 vention all of the votes of all of the States, and 

 they shall be therein counted, and it is as im- 

 possible for this House or the Senate, either 

 jointly or separately, in concurrence or other- 

 wise, to stop the operation of that constitu- 

 tional enactment as it is to turn back the sun 

 in its course ; for, as you will see, sir, we stand 

 in this position : if the House and the Senate, 

 by joint action before had, can determine what 

 votes shall be counted and what votes shall 

 not be counted, then the House and the Senate 

 can determine who is and who is not to be the 

 President of the United States, and who is and 

 who is not to be the Vice-President of the 

 United States." 



Subsequently Mr. Butler offered the follow- 

 ing resolutions : 



Resolved, That the House protest that the counting 

 of the vote of Georgia by the order of the Vice- 

 President pro tempore was a gross act of oppression, 

 and an invasion of the rights and privileges of the 

 House. 



Resolved, That the twenty-second joint rule of the 

 House and Senate be, and hereby is, rescinded on the 

 part of the House. 



Resolved further, That the resolutions now pending 

 be, and are hereby, referred to a select committee of 

 five, with leave to report at any time. 



On these resolutions an extensive debate 

 ensued, during which Mr. "Woodward, of Penn- 

 sylvania, said : " I beg to inquire why the vote 

 of Georgia should not have been counted ; why 

 it should have been counted with a quali- 

 fication? That qualification was admirably 

 stated by the president of the convention when 

 he said that the effect of the concurrent reso- 

 lution was to count the vote of Georgia if it 

 meant nothing, and not to count the vote if it 

 meant any thing. When he said that, he stated 

 the legal effect and consequence of that reso- 

 lution precisely. Now, I ask, why should a 

 sovereign State of this Union be treated in that 

 manner ? Listen to it ! The nation will listen 

 to the words of Mr. Wade, uttered from that 

 seat yesterday, that the two Houses had de- 

 cided that if the vote of Georgia would effect 

 nothing it should be counted, and if it would ef- 

 fect any thing it should not be counted. If you 

 treat Georgia in that manner this year, what 

 State may you not treat in the same manner 

 next year-or on some future occasion ? What is 

 that but a dissolution of the Union? Will you 

 say that Georgia is not in the Union ? Here 

 are her members sitting on this floor. What 

 right have they to be here if Georgia is not in 

 the Union? Georgia has been in the Union 

 from the beginning ; she has never been out of 

 the Union unless you allege what I deny, that 

 her attempted secession took her out of the 

 Union. But you say that her act of secession 

 was null and void, and she herself has so de- 

 clared and repealed the act, and you have re- 

 constructed her. She is not only the original 

 Georgia, but a Georgia reconstructed by this 

 Republican Congress. Then, I ask, why should 



not her electoral vote be counted like the vote 

 of any other State ? 



" Gentlemen will not find in the Constitution 

 or laws of the United States, or in the Com- 

 mentaries of Chancellor Kent, or in the writ- 

 ings of Justice Story, or in any other authority 

 of that kind, the true reason for the course 

 that has been pursued in regard to Georgia. I 

 will give them the reason. The Senate had 

 refused to admit the Senators from Georgia. 

 It was the Senate that originated this concur- 

 rent resolution, and in an evil hour we con- 

 curred in it. And the President of the Senate 

 came here and held us to our action, and he 

 did well. But it was the Senate that invented 

 this mode of excluding Georgia. Not because 

 Georgia did not vote on the right day. That 

 was not the reason ; but the reason is contained 

 in the preamble to the concurrent resolution, 

 which sets forth that it is doubtful whether 

 Georgia is within the Union, and that that ques- 

 tion is now pending before Congress. That 

 is the reason assigned by the Senate for ex- 

 cluding Georgia. The Senate is deliberating 

 about admitting Senators from Georgia, and 

 therefore does not want the vote of that State 

 counted. I say, therefore, that this whole dif- 

 ficulty arises out of your reconstruction laws. 

 If you would treat Georgia as Georgia ought 

 to be treated, as a State in this Union, and ad- 

 mit her Senators into the Senate of the United 

 States, as her members have been admitted on 

 this floor, there is no more reason why the vote 

 of Georgia should be counted with a slur, or 

 not counted at all, than there is why the vote 

 of Pennsylvania should be treated in like man- 

 ner. That is the origin of this difficulty, and 

 it is not to be removed by the adoption of the 

 resolution submitted by the gentleman from 

 Massachusetts (Mr. Butler). We are not to re- 

 pair the wrong into which we have fallen by 

 committing another wrong in censuring the 

 president of the joint convention for holding 

 the convention to the law which they had 

 made for themselves. I am, therefore, opposed 

 to the resolution of the gentleman from Massa- 

 chusetts. If his proposition had been to re- 

 peal the concurrent resolution which was the 

 cause of all this difficulty, no man on this floor 

 would have voted for it more cordially and 

 heartily than I would have done." 



Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, said: "I believe 

 that the concurrent resolution and the twenty- 

 second joint rule of the two Houses are both 

 of them in contravention of the Constitution, 

 the first utterly, and the latter in part, at least, 

 void a nullity for that reason. I raised that 

 question yesterday as a point of order -before 

 the convention ; but no attention, no consider- 

 ation was given to it by the presiding officer. 

 He virtually decided that the resolution was 

 higher authority than the Constitution. ^ I be- 

 lieve, if my point had been sustained, if it had 

 been properly considered and decided, we 

 would have avoided all the difficulties in 

 which this House as well as the joint conven- 



