184 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals 

 of the two Houses, if, upon the reading of any 

 Buch certificate by the tellers, any question shall 

 arise in regard to counting the votes therein certi- 

 fied the same having been stated by the Presiding 

 Officer, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and 

 said question shall be submitted to that body for its 

 decision ; and the Speaker of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives shall, in like manner, submit said ques- 

 tion to the House of Kepresentatives^for its deci- 

 sion ; and no question shall be decided affirma- 

 tively, and no vote objected to shall be counted, ex- 

 cept by the concurrent votes of the two Houses ; 

 which being obtained, the two Houses shall im- 

 mediately reassemble, and the Presiding Officer 

 shall then announce the decision of the question 

 submitted, and upon any such question there shall 

 be no debate in either House ; and any other ques- 

 tion pertinent to the object for which the two 

 Houses are assembled may be submitted and deter- 

 mined in like manner. At such joint meeting of the 

 two Houses seats shall be provided as follows : For 

 the President of the Senate, the " Speaker's chair: " 

 for the Speaker, a chair immediately upon his left ; 

 the Senators in the body of the hall, upon the right 

 of the Presiding Officer ; for the Representatives, in 

 the body of the hall not occupied by the Senators ; 

 for the tellers, Secretary of the Senate, and Clerk of 

 the House of Representatives, at the Clerk's desk : 

 for the other officers of the two Houses, in front or 

 the Clerk's desk, and upon either side of the Speak- 

 er's platform. Such joint meeting shall not be dis- 

 solved until the electoral votes are all counted and 

 the result declared; and no recess shall be taken 

 unless a question shall have arisen in regard to 

 counting any of such votes, in which case it shall be 

 competent for either House, acting separately, in the 

 manner hereinbefore provided, to direct a recess, not 

 beyond the next day at the hour of one o'clock p. M. 



Mr. Morton: "The first point to which I 

 call the attention of the Senate is that this 

 twenty-second joint rule is grossly unconstitu- 

 tional. No provision can be found in the Con- 

 stitution that gives a shadow of power for its 

 adoption. Not only is it without authority, 

 but it is in violation of the very theory of the 

 Constitution. The intention was to place the 

 election of President independent of Congress, 

 to make the Executive independent of the Leg- 

 islature, but this makes the election of Presi- 

 dent to depend on either House, not by a law, 

 but by a joint rule. It enables the Senate by 

 a vote to throw out the vote of North Caro- 

 lina or New York; it enables the House of 

 Representatives to do the same thing. What 

 is the provision ? When you come to look at 

 it, it is monstrous. It is astonishing how that 

 rule could ever have been adopted. The two 

 Houses are assembled to count the votes, and 

 a formal objection is made, if you please, to 

 counting the vote of New York, entirely for- 

 mal ; there may be no sense in it, no founda- 

 tion for it, but if anybody objects, then the 

 two Houses must separate and they must vote 

 upon this objection, and unless it is overruled 

 by both Houses the vote is rejected. If the 

 Senate sustains the objection, the vote of New 

 York is thrown out. If the House sustains it, 

 the vote of New York is thrown out. It ena- 

 bles either House, without debate they must 

 not debate without adjournment they must 

 not adjourn to consider, but they must decide 



summarily it enables either House to throw 

 out the vote of any or of all the States. 



" We had an illustration of that the last time 

 the votes were counted. A formal objection 

 was made to receiving the vote of Arkansas. 

 The Houses separated and voted. What was 

 the result? What was the objection to re- 

 ceiving the vote of Arkansas? When you 

 came to look at the seal upon the certificate it 

 did not appear to be the seal of the State. 

 Upon close examination it was found to be 

 the seal of the Secretary of State, and not the 

 great seal of the State. Upon that technical- 

 ity the vote of Arkansas was lost, the people 

 of Arkansas were disfranchised in the presi- 

 dential election. It turned out, I believe, that 

 the State had no other seal, and that the seal 

 was put to that certificate that is put to all 

 papers required to be certified by the execu- 

 tive department of Arkansas; and yet upon 

 that objection the vote of Arkansas was lost. 

 The House overruled the objection, but the 

 Senate sustained it. Suppose it had been New 

 York, the vote of New York the vote of five 

 millions of people would have been thrown 

 out upon the mere technical objection by one 

 House. There would be more sense in it if it 

 required the concurrence of both Houses to 

 throw out the vote of a State, but, by this rule, 

 one House may reject the vote of a State. And 

 so it may reject the votes of all the States, and 

 you may in every case throw the election of 

 President into the House of Representatives. 



"To show you some of the objections offered 

 upon that occasion, I want to refer to the pro- 

 ceedings that took place at the time. For ex- 

 ample, a motion was made to reject a part of 

 the vote of Georgia cast for Horace Greeley, 

 upon the ground that he was dead. It would 

 have been very important in determining the 

 question of the majority if the election had 

 been close. The Senate overruled that mo- 

 tion, and decided that the votes cast for Horace 

 Greeley must be counted, so that they would 

 count in making up the majority of all the 

 electoral votes. The House sustained the ob- 

 jection, and the vote of Georgia in part was 

 lost simply because the House of Representa- 

 tives sustained the objection. There the two 

 Houses disagreed. They disagreed in the case 

 of Arkansas. Now we come to the case of 

 Texas. Objection was made to receiving the 

 vote of Texas. I will read what the objection 

 was, to show the character of it. Mr. Trum- 

 bull, a very able lawyer, as you all know, ob- 

 jected on this ground : 



Because there is no certificate by the executive 

 authority of that State that the persons who voted 

 for President and Vice-President were appointed as 

 electors of that State, as required by the act of Con- 

 gress. 



" The certificate was informal, had not been 

 made out correctly. That was Mr. Trumbull's 

 objection. It was afterward reenforced by Mr. 

 Dickey, of the House : 



Mr. Dickey objected to the counting of the elec- 



