CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



145 



struction ought to prevail ; and, inasmuch as 

 ih.- .pi. --lion us now before us is a mere ab- 

 stract <|iu-Mioii, as it is not necessary for us 

 t<> determine it at all, and it cannot become 

 necessary for us to determine it after the pas- 

 f the first and second resolutions unless 

 >ody shall move to proceed to the election 

 of it President pro tempore, and thus to displace 

 tlu- present incumbent; as we have unani- 

 mously voted that he is rightfully President 

 )iro tempore now, and nobody has yet moved 

 to di-iplaeo him by proceeding to another elec- 

 tion, it is very obvious that any decision we 

 mL'lit make upon this third resolution at this 

 time \vould be what lawyers call obiter dictum. 

 I, therefore, in order that the matter may un- 

 dergo further reflection and consideration be- 

 fore we decide upon it, move that the resolu- 

 tion be postponed indefinitely." 



The Presiding Officer: " The Senator from 

 Ohio moves to postpone the resolution now 

 under consideration, indefinitely." 



Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, said : "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, the Senator from Ohio has so much sur- 

 prised me by his expression of a doubt upon 

 this subject, that, in order that I may reflect 

 upon the matter, I move that the Senate ad- 

 journ." 



The motion was agreed to. 



In the Senate, on January 12th, the President 

 pro tempore said : " The question is on the mo- 

 tion of the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Thurman) 

 to postpone indefinitely the third resolution." 



Mr. Edmunds: "Mr. President, I am so 

 much surprised at the doubt my friend from 

 Ohio (Mr. Thurman) expressed about this thing 

 that I think it necessary for me to say a few 



words upon the subject for my own satisfac- 

 tion, if not for that of anybody else. 

 " The power of the Senate to elect a Presi- 

 dent pro tempore is one which is named in the 

 Constitution. It is there provided 



The Vice-President of the United States shall be 

 President of the Senate, but shall have uo vote, un- 

 less they he equally divided. 



The Senate shall choose their other officers, and 

 also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the 

 Vice-President, or when ne shall exercise the office 

 of President of the United States. 



"I think it obvious, from the well-known 

 course of law existing at the time the Consti- 

 tution was formed, that this clause empower- 

 ing the Senate to choose a President pro tem- 

 pore was inserted merely to rebut an implica- 

 tion that would arise from the statement that 

 the Vice-President shall be President of the 

 Senate. If that clause had not been put into 

 the Constitution there would have been no 

 need to insert the other, that the Senate should 

 have power to choose a President pro tem- 

 pore, any more than there would have been to 

 insert in the powers of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives a power on the part of that body to 

 choose a Speaker pro tempore ; and no such 

 clause is introduced into it because, as I say, 

 it was well known, from the constitution of all 



VOL. XVI. 10 A 



I 



parliamentary or other deliberative bodies, that 

 it is one of their inherent powers, in order that 

 they may act at all, in order that they may ex- 

 ist in any active sdnse, that they shall select 

 some person to preside over their delibera- 

 tions. 



"Therefore it appears to me plain, in the 

 first place, that this clause touching the power 

 of the Senate to elect a President pro tempore 

 was merely put in to exclude the presumption 

 which might otherwise have arisen from the 

 preceding clause which states that the Vice- 

 President of the United States shall be the 

 President of the Senate to exclude the pre- 

 sumption that that was an exclusion of the 

 power of the Senate to have a President pro 

 tempore in his absence, and the Senate in that 

 case, of course, would be obliged to wait until 

 he should come, just as for a long time in Eng- 

 land the House of Commons were totally un- 

 able to do any business at all, according to 

 their precedents and usages, when the Speaker 

 was absent or sick or unable to take the chair ; 

 for they had no power, as they then under- 

 stood, growing up as they did, to select any- 

 body to act as Speaker pro tempore. They got 

 over that delusion, however, I will add, a good 

 while ago; but that used to be the first im- 

 pression. 



" Inasmuch as this first clause would be a 

 direct declaration that the Vice-President of 

 the United States, and he alone in a legal 

 sense, should be the President of the Senate, 

 in order to guard against any question that 

 might arise as to the ordinary power of the 

 Senate to exercise what would otherwise be 

 one of its inherent functions, this additional 

 clause was inserted, that in the absence of the 

 Vice-President, or while he exercised the 

 duties of President of the United States, the 

 Senate should choose a President pro tempore. 



"Then the question is, what is a President 

 pro tempore? The Constitution does not say 

 4 they shall choose a President to fill the vacan- 

 cy caused in the presidency of the Senate when 

 the Vice-Presidont exercises the office of Presi- 

 dent of the United States,' which is for a fixed 

 period, when the President dies, during the 

 whole period of his unexpired term. So I con- 

 clude that if the Constitution-makers had in- 

 tended that the President pro tempore of the 

 Senate, in spite of the very meaning of those 

 words, should be an officer who had a title to 

 an office which was continuous, determined 

 either by the efflux of time or by some external 

 contingency, they would have said so and would 

 have declared, when they were regulating the 

 office of the President pro tempore of the Sen- 

 ate, that this officer should hold his office until 

 the Vice-President should again take the ehuir 

 or until the expiration of the term of the Vice- 

 President who had been transferred to the per- 

 formance of the duties of President of the Unit- 

 ed States. That would have most naturally 

 occurred to everybody who had intended that 

 the Presiding Officer of the Senate should be an 



