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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



of Congress, be opened by him, and the votes 

 shall then be counted. As a matter of fact the 

 only knowledge that the Vice-President of the 

 United States can have of the contents of those 

 envelopes must be derived from the count on 

 the day when he is instructed and compelled 

 to open them in the presence of both Houses. 

 I do not believe that there is any discretion 

 given to him to open one package and not an- 

 other package ; but if they come to his hands 

 purporting to be the certificates, signed and 

 sealed by the electors in the various States, he 

 is to open, in the presence of the two Houses, 

 all such papers which come to him with the 

 import of verity usual to such papers." 



Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, said : " I 

 desire to ask the Senator from Delaware 

 whether he has in his investigation of this sub- 

 ject examined to see what the practice was be- 

 fore the adoption of the rule in 1865 ; whether 

 prior to that time, on a question arising as to 

 the count of votes, it required the concurrence 

 of both Houses to admit the vote, or whether 

 the presumption was in favor of the votes, and 

 it required both Houses to reject them? " 



Mr. Bayard: "There nevqr was a question 

 of contest before, as I am informed. 



"I think the experience of 1872 was the first 

 in the history of this country, and no case ever 

 arose in the presidential election where there 

 was what may be termed conflicting votes or 

 the attempt to have two sets of votes from the 

 same State for the same office. 



" Mr. President, it was not my object to dis- 

 cuss this very grave question, for I have not 

 had the opportunity, with the various measures 

 which have been pressing on the attention of 

 this body, properly to prepare myself to discuss 

 it. I am fully aware, however, that the cause 

 of difficulties in regard to the election of the 

 President of the United States, as the election 

 of any other officer under the Government of 

 the United States, is the deplorably low tone 

 into which public and political morals have 

 fallen. Unless there is to be a higher plane 

 of political morality and action in this country 

 you may make your rules as often as you 

 please, you may change and repeal them as 

 often as you please, but you will find that fraud 

 will defeat constantly your efforts to repress it. 

 I heard the Senator from Indiana the other 

 day speak of the manner in which the votes 

 have hitherto been counted in the presence of 

 the various Vice-Presidents of this country. 

 The last that he named I think was Mr. Breck- 

 enridge, and he bestowed praise upon those 

 high officials because the vote had been honestly 

 counted. "When the time shall come that a 

 Vice-President of this country, or the Senate 

 or the House of Representatives of this country, 

 shall, from any passion moving them, act other- 

 wise than honestly, of what use are your laws or 

 your safeguards of statutes and Constitution ? 

 They will be of no value, and the Government 

 will have failed, and another will take its place, 

 because in all human experience there is one 



thing that will be necessary no matter what 

 form of government may exist, and that is, 

 that honesty and truth shall be its foundation- 

 stone and enter into the administration of its 

 affairs. 



" I would prefer that this matter should be 

 further considered and that time should be 

 given for its- better examination before we 

 adopt this proposition of the Senator from In- 

 diana." 



Mr. Thurman : " I am glad that the Senator 

 has offered the substitute, for the original res- 

 olution seems to me to be palpably wrong. 

 Should the original resolution be adopted, we 

 would have no rule whatsoever upon the sub- 

 ject ; we would have nothing but the provi- 

 sions in the Constitution, and those provisions, 

 as we know from opinions expressed on this 

 floor, receive in the minds of different Senators 

 very different interpretations. 



"In the carefully-prepared speech of the 

 Senator from Indiana delivered at this session 

 on his proposed constitutional amendment, he 

 asserted his* opinion to be, if I understood him 

 correctly, that the decision of the question who 

 has received the votes of a State for President 

 and Vice-President rests with the President of 

 the Senate; that the members of the two 

 Houses who are present are but witnesses of a 

 count to be made by the President of the Sen- 

 ate ; thus vesting in that officer, and he per- 

 haps a candidate himself, the power to deter- 

 mine who is elected the Chief Magistrate of 

 this republic. I expressed on that occasion 

 my dissent from that interpretation of the Con- 

 stitution. I fancy that a large majority of the 

 Senate do not concur in that view of the Con- 

 stitution. I have no idea that a majority of 

 the Senate agree with the Senator from Indiana 

 in interpreting the Constitution so as to require 

 that the Vice-President shall count and the 

 Vice-President shall be the judge of all objec- 

 tions that may be taken to the validity of any 

 return. That has not been the interpretation 

 placed on the Constitution in the history of the 

 country, otherwise the twenty-second joint 

 rule never would have had an existence. The 

 interpretation placed upon the Constitution 

 has been that, as it is a duty devolved upon the 

 Government to count the votes for President 

 and Vice-President, and there being no express 

 provision in the Constitution who shall count 

 them, but an implied provision that they are 

 to be counted by the two Houses, the matter is 

 remitted to the legislative department of the 

 Government to provide by law for that count, 

 consistent always with the express provision 

 in the Constitution that the count shall be made 

 in the presence of the two Houses and the re- 

 sult declared. Therefore it would be an insu- 

 perable objection to the resolution first intro- 

 duced by the Senator from Indiana that it 

 would remove all legislation upon the subject 

 from the books; that there would be nothing 

 at all to determine how the votes should be 

 counted ; that we would proceed to the hall 



