CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



187 



to agree upon this amendment, but perhaps 

 you can agree upon something by which we 

 can take away all or a part of the dangers by 

 which we are surrounded ; and I submit that 

 the Senate ought never to give up the consid- 

 eration of this question until something has 

 been decided that we may send to the House 

 of Representatives for their concurrence. 



" It is more important than any other meas- 

 ure that can possibly come before us. It is 

 not new. For more than seventy years at- 

 tempts have been made, at different times, to 

 change the Constitution so as to avoid some of 

 these dangers. Amendments have passed the 

 Senate and the House four times by a two- 

 thirds majority to avoid some of these evils, 

 and yet iinally failed. The question is not 

 new. The remedy proposed is not new, it is 

 almost .as old as the Constitution. Seventy 

 years ago some of the ablest men in the Senate 

 of the United States foresaw these dangers, 

 but they have been allowed to sleep along. 

 But shall we allow them to sleep along until 

 the danger comes, until the actual collision 

 takes place ? " 



Mr. Thurman, of Ohio, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, the dangers to which we are subjected 

 have not been exaggerated by the Senator 

 from Indiana ; the difficulties under which we 

 labor have not been exaggerated at all ; but it 

 does seem to me that the remedy proposed by 

 the committee in the resolution now under 

 consideration really fails to meet the very dan- 

 ger which is most menacing. That there may 

 be frauds in the election we all know. That 

 there may be fraudulent returns in the States 

 and a fraudulent count of returns, with the 

 experience of Louisiana before us, needs no 

 proof. But the greatest difficulty, the most 

 menacing of all, is the count of the electoral 

 votes here in Washington. If the result of the 

 presidential election had depended on the votes 

 of Arkansas and Texas at the last count that 

 was made, we might have seen this country 

 plunged in civil war. And before that we 

 once witnessed the most extraordinary spec- 

 tacle when the votes were counted in Febru- 

 ary, 1869, when the President of the Senate, 

 or the acting Vice-President as he was called, 

 announced that under a resolution passed by 

 the two Houses of Congress the vote of the 

 State of Georgia should be counted if it did not 

 change the result ; but that if it should change 

 the result it was to be rejected. 



"With these dangers menacing us, liable at 

 any moment by this mode of counting the vote 

 to see this country convulsed from one end to 

 the other, not in a sectional way, but in a way 

 that may reach every hamlet in the land, I must 

 confess I was a little surprised when I looked at 

 this report to find that it provides no sufficient 

 or safe mode of counting the electoral vote." 



Mr. Morton : " Will the Senator allow me a 

 word just there? " 



Mr. Thurman: "Certainly." 



Mr. Morton : " I intended to speak of that 



part of the amendment providing a tribunal 

 for the decision of contested elections. It was 

 a subject of grave consideration in the com- 

 mittee. Some were in favor of constituting 

 the Supreme Court of the United States the 

 tribunal to decide questions of contested elec- 

 tions ; others thought the circuit courts or the 

 district courts of the United States should be 

 provided ; others again thought there ought to 

 be a special tribunal created by Congress. It 

 was then thought better to place the whole 

 matter in the decision of Congress to provide 

 this tribunal. If we should put any special 

 tribunal into the Constitution, it might not 

 work well, and it might be difficult to change 

 it. It was thought better, therefore, to leave 

 the whole subject to Congress, believing that 

 Congress would come to a safe and wise con- 

 clusion, because the subject was necessarily not 

 of a party character, but one upon which men 

 would differ or act together simply as they 

 were patriots and lovers of their country, and 

 we therefore inserted this provision : 



The Congress shall have power to provide for 

 holding and conducting the elections of President 

 and Vice-President, and to establish tribunals for 

 the decision of such elections as may be contested. 



"We could therefore establish, if Congress 

 thought proper, the Supreme Court as the 

 tribunal, or the circuit courts in the different 

 parts of the United States, or we could estab- 

 lish an independent tribunal for this very pur- 

 pose. The whole power is left to Congress, 

 where it did not rest before." 



Mr. Conkling, of New York, said : " Was it 

 the opinion of the Committee on Privileges 

 and Elections that, under the Constitution as it 

 stands now, Congress has not the power to dis- 

 pense not only with the twenty-second joint 

 rule, but to put in its place a mode safer for 

 ascertaining and counting the electoral votes? " 



'Mr. Morton: "I cannot speak for all the 

 members of the committee. I think there can 

 be no dpubt that Congress can dispense with 

 the twenty-second joint rule, and that if noth- 

 ing else be done that ought to be done. But 

 it was my opinion, and I think the opinion of 

 other members of the committee, though I will 

 not undertake to speak for them, that Congress 

 has no jurisdiction over the question; that the 

 question of appointing electors and determin- 

 ing who are appointed is a question that be- 

 longs to the Legislatures of the several States, 

 and that the other provisions of the Constitu- 

 tion show that it was intended to take the 

 whole subject out of the hands of Congress 

 except in regard to two things which are spe- 

 cially mentioned: first, the time of choosing 

 the electors by the Legislatures ; and, second, 

 the time when the votes shall be cast by the 

 electors, which shall be on the same day in all 

 the States. My own conviction is that Con- 

 gress has no power over the subject whatever, 

 and that the power of the Vice-President re- 

 sults ex necessitate rei from the absence of any 

 power to control him. 



