CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



197 



of the House of Representatives in February, 

 1877, without any rule whatsoever or any stat- 

 ute whatsoever to prescribe what should be 

 done after we got into that assembly. That 

 would never do, Mr. President. 



" But now the Senator proposes to change 

 the rule and to provide that no vote shall be 

 rejected unless by the concurrent judgment of 

 both Houses, thus quite reversing the rule. 

 The rule now being that no vote shall be count- 

 ed unless both Houses vote to count it where 

 there is an objection made, he proposes to re- 

 verse that and say that no vote shall be reject- 

 ed unless both Houses concur in its rejection. 

 I have on a former occasion, I have more than 

 once, I believe, declared my opinion that that 

 ought to be the rule, that every return ought to 

 be considered as prima facie correct, and ought 

 to be counted unless both Houses concur in re- 

 jecting it. I am aware that there is a difficul- 

 ty in a case that may arise, and it is a difficulty 

 that might arise under the present rule too, 

 although the result would be different. For 

 instance, take such a case as occurred at the 

 last count the case of Louisiana where two 

 sets of returns came up, each of them purport- 

 ing to be the returns of the votes cast by the 

 electors for President and Vice-President in 

 that State. There manifestly the question was, 

 who were the electors. They could not all' 

 have been electors. Both bodies could not 

 have been electors. One body were electors 

 and the other body were not electors. The 

 question therefore really to be decided was, 

 which one of those bodies was the electoral 

 college for President and Vice-President in that 

 State. Tinder our rule, when one of those re- 

 turns was presented and objection made r unless 

 both Houses concurred, the vote would be re- 

 jected. When the other return was presented, 

 unless both Houses concurred, it was to be 

 rejected. Suppose the rule had been changed 

 and the substitute now suggested had been 

 adopted ; a return is presented, an objection is 

 made to it, and thereupon the Houses vote upon 

 it separately and one House votes to reject it 

 and the other House votes not to reject ; then, 

 according to the rule as now submitted by the 

 Senator from Indiana, in a case of that kind 

 that return would have to be counted. Then 

 suppose the next moment the other return is 

 presented, the return of the election of the 

 other body of electors, as was the case with 

 Louisiana at the last count, and then one of the 

 Houses votes that that shall be rejected and 

 the other votes that it shall be received ; then 

 you would have to count both returns under 

 that rule as the substitute now stands. You 

 see, therefore, that the substitute will not do 

 just as it is, but must go further and provide 

 for such a case as that, or at least leave it to be 

 decided when the case shall arise. 



"This is not an impossible case at all. It 

 was the case in regard to Louisiana at the last 

 count, as I have said. There were returns from 

 Louisiana which purported to be the votes of 



the electors who cast the electoral vote of that 

 State for Greeley. There were other returns 

 that purported to be the returns of electors 

 casting the vote of that State for Grant. Un- 

 der this modification suggested by the Senator 

 from Indiana, without any provision for such a 

 case, if you take it literally, if the two Houses 

 had been of different politics, as they will be 

 at the next count, the result would have been 

 that the vote of that State would be counted 

 twice and would be nullified, for one return 

 would be for one candidate and the other re- 

 turn would be for another. That shows that 

 the substitute offered by the Senator from In- 

 diana, although in my judgment right in prin- 

 ciple, that both Houses ought to concur in re- 

 jecting a return before it can be rejected, 

 requires some modification that shall apply to 

 a case where there are two returns from a 

 State. That is certainly necessary, or we get 

 into this difficulty that I suggest. 



" It has further been asked here by the Sen- 

 ator from Rhode Island, What are you to do 

 when there come up two returns from a State ? 

 He seemed to think, by the question he put to 

 the Senator from Delaware, that in a case of 

 that sort it was the duty of the President of the 

 Senate to determine which return he would 

 lay before the two Houses. That certainly is 

 an impossibility. He cannot have looked at 

 the law, or he would never have asked such a 

 question as that. What does the law require ? 

 Section 2 of the act of 1792, on the subject of 

 the election of President and Vice-President, 

 provides 



That the electors shall meet and give their votes on 

 the said first Wednesday in December, at such place 

 in each State as shall be directed by the Legislature 

 thereof; and the electors in each State shall make 

 and sign three certificates of all the votes by them 

 given, and shall seal up the same, certifying on each 

 that a list of the votes of such State for President 

 and Vice-President is contained therein, and shall by 

 writing under fheir hands, or under the hands of a 

 majority of them, appoint a person to take charge of 

 and deliver to the President of the Senate, etc. 



" Then the third section provides 

 That the executive authority of each State shall 

 cause three lists of the names of the electors of such 

 State to be made and certified, and to be delivered to 

 the electors on or before the said first Wednesday in 

 December, and the said electors shall annex one of 

 the said lists to each of the lists of their votes. 



"You see, then, that the evidence that the 

 persons voting are electors of President and 

 Vice-President is to be annexed to their votes 

 and of course sealed up with them, and the 

 President of the Senate, when the returns 

 come to him, has no knowledge in the world, 

 can have no knowledge whether return A or 

 return B is the correct return from that State, 

 the return of the votes of the legal electors of 

 that State. He cannot know anything about 

 it. He gets two packages. Upon the back of 

 each one of them is this certificate: 'This is 

 the vote of the electors of President and Vice- 

 President of the State of Rhode Island.' There 

 is nothing to show that it is except that bare 



