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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES, 



that is delegated to the two Houses of Con- 

 gress or to any other officer of the Government 

 in respect to the counting of the electoral vote ; 

 and the present bill provides simply the legis- 

 lative machinery to accomplish this result. 

 There has been argument heretofore before 

 Congress, which I have concurred in, to the 

 effect that the two Houses are mere witnesses 

 to the counting of these votes. The only officer 

 named is the Presiding Officer of the Senate, 

 into whose custody the certificates shall have 

 been delivered in accordance with the man- 

 date of the Constitution by the electors or their 

 agents, their messengers, and those certificates 

 being in his hands are to be opened by him 

 and the votes are then to be counted; by 

 whom, is simply a matter of inference, perhaps 

 of necessary inference ; but they are to be 

 counted." 



Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, said: "The proviso 

 of section 3, in my judgment, may possibly 

 enable either House to defeat the object of the 

 bill, the object of the bill as declared on the 

 second page, in section 1, being to prevent 

 either House from defeating the counting of 

 the vote of any State, and to repeal the prac- 

 tice that had grown up under the twenty-sec- 

 ond joint rule, by which either House might 

 by its affirmative vote exclude any State for 

 any cause whatever from having its electoral 

 vote counted for President. That rule is suffi- 

 ciently met by the language of the twenty- 

 ninth, thirtieth, and thirty -first lines of the first 

 section, as follows : 



And no electoral vote or votes from any State, to 

 the counting of which objections have been made, 

 shall be rejected except by the affirmative vote of the 

 two Houses. 



" But, under the proviso to section 3, I fear 

 very much that either House might by indirec- 

 tion defeat the counting of a vote, because it 

 provides for the separation of the two Houses 

 and the consideration by each House of the 

 question, and then provides : 



That after such debate has lasted two hours it 

 shall be in the power of a majority of each House to 

 direct that the main question shall be put without 

 further debate. 



" This provision is not compulsory, and either 

 House might prolong debate indefinitely, and 

 thus prevent the question from being taken on 

 the counting of the vote. It is true it is rather 

 a violent supposition to suppose that either 

 House of Congress would, by an abuse of its 

 power, endanger the existence of the Govern- 

 ment; but the object of this bill is to guard 

 against all possibility of the abuse of power in 

 that respect, and it is not an improbable sup- 

 position that in high party times, under great 

 excitement, one House might thus neglect or 

 refuse to direct the main question to be put. 

 We know very well the influence of party ex- 

 citement and party feeling, especially under 

 strong provocation. Therefore it seems to me 

 that this provision ought to be more peremp- 

 tory in its character ; it ought to require, after 



two hours' debate, a peremptory putting of the 

 main question. I suggest to the Senator from 

 Indiana whether it would not be safer and 

 more in harmony with the object of the bill to 

 require after a reasonable time, say two hours, 

 that the question should be put in each House 

 and the convention again assembled. I there- 

 fore move an amendment to make the provision 

 read : ' That after such debate has lasted two 

 hours it shall be the duty of each House to put 

 the main question without further debate.' " 



Mr. Cooper, of Tennessee, said : " We do 

 know that the difficulty which the second sec- 

 tion seeks to provide against has arisen and 

 may arise in the future ; and the great ques- 

 tion to be determined, it seems to me, is, where 

 shall we lodge the power of deciding in such 

 an emergency what has been the expressed 

 will of the people of a State who may by some 

 abnormal condition in their political affairs 

 send two returns to be counted purporting to 

 be the vote of the electoral college of that 

 State ? 



" The bill as reported by the committee pro- 

 poses to vest this power in the two Houses of 

 Congress, acting separately. It provides that 

 they must concur before the President of the 

 Senate or the proper officer shall be permitted 

 to count either of the returns thus made. It 

 seems to me that, if we would avoid a conflict 

 where such a difficulty arises, it would be bet- 

 ter to vest the choice of which is the proper 

 return in somebody who will determine it and 

 not leave it between the two Houses, which 

 may be composed, as at present, of opposite 

 politics, and which would be apt in that case 

 to disagree, and thus exclude the vote of any 

 State that might thus send two or more re- 

 turns. 



" The suggestion was first intimated by the 

 Senator from Pennsylvania, and afterward by 

 the Senator from Maryland, that, as the Con- 

 stitution has vested the House of Representa- 

 tives, who are directly from the people, with 

 the power to choose a President in default of 

 an election by the people, it gives us the proper 

 idea of what would be the safest body with 

 which to intrust this power of choice in the 

 event of a difference of opinion, or of two re- 

 turns coming from any one State. It strike? 

 me to be more consistent with the theory of 

 the Constitution of the United States that this 

 power should be vested in that body, thus 

 pointed out by the Constitution to choose a 

 President where the people themselves shall 

 fail to make a choice, than that it should be 

 placed elsewhere. I therefore have prepared 

 an amendment to the second section, which I 

 offer for the consideration of the Senate, car- 

 rying out this view to vest in the House of 

 Representatives, the representatives of the peo- 

 ple, the choice of the proper returns to be 

 counted in the event that two or more returns 

 are sent up. I move to strike out in the second 

 section all after the word " which," in line 

 seven, to the end of the section as follows : 



