CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



189 



great force in what the Senator from New 

 York has said touching the doubts that may 

 arise respecting the twenty-second joint rule. 

 I think myself that there is constitutional 

 power in the legislative branches of the Gov- 

 ernment to regulate the exercise of the power 

 conferred in the Constitution respecting the 

 election of President and Vice-President, just 

 as, in all other powers granted in the Constitu- 

 tion, Congress has always exercised and must 

 always exercise the authority to regulate the 

 methods and manners through which the ends 

 looked to in the Constitution are to be reached. 

 We have always done that as to the courts, in 

 many respects as to elections, and in fact re- 

 specting the exercise of almost every one of 

 the powers granted in the Constitution. But 

 whether it is competent for the two Houses, 

 not acting in a legislative capacity, but each 

 acting for itself, to provide a rule by which it 

 is in the power of either House to prevent the 

 counting of every vote that may be returned 

 from a State, is open to very grave question 

 indeed. 



" It is plain enough, I think, that Congress 

 cannot by a law declare that the Yice-Presi- 

 dent of the United States, or rather the Presi- 

 dent of the Senate, whoever he may be, should 

 not open and count the returns made from the 

 various States; but the manner of such a 

 count, what should be regarded as in law a vote 

 of a State, the means of ascertaining whether 

 it is the legal vote of the State, it appears to 

 me, must be the subject of legislative provision. 

 And so also I think it safe to say perhaps 

 safer than what I have already said that Con- 

 gress may provide by law a tribunal which, in 

 case of a dispute after the function named in 

 the Constitution has exhausted itself, of this 

 opening and counting of the votes, shall have 

 the power to decide who is legally elected Pres- 

 ident of the United States ; not to review the 

 action which the Constitution declares the Pre- 

 siding Officer of the Senate shall take in the 

 presence of the two Houses, but to ascertain 

 in a method pointed out by law what are the 

 votes that the States have given, and who 

 therefore is the person who has received, in 

 the language of the Constitution, the greatest 

 number of votes." 



Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island, said : " Mr. 

 President, agreeing with the conclusion of the 

 report, although not fully with some of its rea- 

 soning, I shall briefly consider the subject par- 

 ticularly with reference to the smaller States 

 of the Union, one of which I have the honor, 

 in part, to represent. 



" But first, while I fully appreciate the peril 

 of the existing system, in some respects, I 

 apprehend no danger from the election of a 

 President, in the last resort, in the mode in 

 which the Constitution provides, the mode 

 which the people ordained, the mode to which 

 every State has solemnly assented, and which 

 has been twice tried, and the President there- 

 by elected has exercised, undisputed, all the 



authority of his office. The people of the 

 United States are a law-abiding people. They 

 must be a very restless and unreasonable peo- 

 ple who would revolt at a mode of election 

 which themselves had ordained, and had twice 

 consented to, and which they have the power 

 to change. There are reasons sufficient for the 

 change proposed, there is danger sufficient in 

 the present system, without supposing one 

 which could arise only from the insubordina- 

 tion of the people to their own law, change- 

 able, at their pleasure, in the mode which they 

 have provided. That an election illegally or 

 fraudulently forced through the House of Rep- 

 resentatives might endanger the stability of 

 the Government is just as probable as that an 

 election illegally or fraudulently accomplished 

 in any other way might produce that result. 

 In either case, the dissatisfaction would be, 

 not with the provisions of the Constitution, 

 but with the perversion, the violation of those 

 provisions. In the case of James K. Polk, 

 who was thought by the friends of Henry Clay 

 to have been elected by the naturalization 

 frauds in New York and by the Plaquemine 

 frauds in Louisiana, the people submitted, be- 

 cause there was no legal remedy, and because 

 all the forms of law had been complied with. 

 And moreover, although the supporters of 

 Mr. Clay believed that a majority ought to 

 have been returned for him, it was undeniable 

 that the difference in the legal votes of the 

 two candidates was small. It was not as 

 though a President had been forced on the 

 people against the wish of the great majority. 

 . "In the case of John Quincy Adams, although 

 there was a good deal of partisan talk about 

 not submitting to the election by the House 

 of Representatives, there was never any real 

 danger to the public tranquillity ; and the talk 

 was not against the constitutional mode of the 

 election, but against the agencies by which it 

 was alleged to have been accomplished. That 

 these allegations of fraudulent or improper 

 agencies were the suspicions or the inventions 

 of heated partisanship history has well estab- 

 lished. But they had, at the time, a great 

 effect ; indeed, to them was due all the appre- 

 hension, real or imaginary, of danger from the 

 unusual but constitutional mode of the election. 

 There was no proper cause of complaint, cer- 

 tainly none of indignation. There was no out- 

 rage upon popular rights. The people had 

 divided their votes among four candidates, and 

 neither having a majority, the election came 

 into the House of Representatives. Jackson 

 received 99 electoral votes and Adams 84, and 

 there were 78 against both. With so small a 

 plurality, and in so decided a minority, the can- 

 didate who received the highest number of 

 votes had no right to claim from the Repre- 

 sentatives, on whom the election devolved, the 

 subordination of their own judgment to that 

 of a minority of the electors, who had cast 

 their votes for the highest candidate. To claim 

 this would be to claim an election by a simple 



