394 



ILLINOIS. 



The State Central Committee of the Dem- 

 ocratic party held a meeting on the 21st of 

 December, and adopted the following resolu- 

 tions : 



Resolved, That the committee do hereby affirm 

 the constitutional right of the Senate and the House 

 of Kepresentatives (after the President of the Sen- 

 ate shall have opened all the certificates received by 

 him) to count the electoral vote for President and 

 Vice-President of the United States, and declare the 

 result of such count. 



Resolved, That we deny the existence of any con- 

 stitutional right or power in the President of the 

 Senate of the United States, independently of 

 authority from the two Houses, to count said votes 

 and declare the result thereof, and would regard 

 such a proceeding as revolutionary. 



Sstofoed, That we have entire confidence in the 

 intelligence and patriotism of Congress and of the 

 people, and that in this great emergency they will 

 rise above party, maintain the right, sustain consti- 

 tutional liberty, and that Congress will fairly and 

 impartially determine the result of the late presi- 

 dential election in such manner as will command the 

 confidence and support of all good citizens. 



Resolved, That a mass-meeting be held in each 

 county in this State, on the 30th day of December 

 next, of all citizens irrespective of party, who are in 

 favor of perpetuating the republican feature in our 

 system of government by giving effect to the popu- 

 lar choice of electors of President and Vice-Presi- 

 dent, made on the 7th of November last, for the 

 selection of delegates to a convention to be held at 

 Springfield on the 8th of January next each county 

 to be entitled to the same number of delegates as 

 were sent to the State Democratic Convention of 

 July last. 



Resolved, That this committee have an abiding 

 confidence that the mass-meetings herein recom- 

 mended will be participated in by all friends of free 

 government, and that their proceedings will be iu 

 harmony with the gravity of the occasion. 



At the convention of January 8, 1877, the 

 following resolutions were adopted : 



Resolved by the citizens of Illinois in convention as- 

 sembled, on the 8tk day of January, 1877, That a count 

 of the votes for President and Vice-President by the 

 President of the Senate, without the concurrence 

 and direction of both Houses of Congress, would be 

 contrary to usage, revolutionary in character, and 

 dangerous to the rights of the people. 



Resolved, That in the absence of any statute, rule. 

 or order, regulating the counting of the electoral 

 vote, the two Houses of 'Congress have the right, 

 under the Constitution, to count the votes of elec- 

 tors, to decide all questions arising thereon, and de- 

 clare the result ; and that no vote should be received 

 and counted for President or Vice-President with- 

 out the concurrence of both Houses of Congress, and 

 in the performance of this duty each House is vested 

 with the authority to inquire into the qualifications 

 of electors and the manner of their appointment. 

 This has been the construction of the provisions of 

 the Constitution respecting the subject, as shown 

 by an unbroken usage from the first election of 

 President to the present time, and by the adop- 

 tion by both Houses of Congress unanimously of 

 the rule known as the " twenty-second joint rule " 

 in February, 1865, under which the electoral votes 

 were counted by Congress in 1865, in 1869, and in 

 1873, which rule was acquiesced in and maintained, 

 so long as both Houses of Congress were controlled 

 by the same political party. 



Resolved, That it is the duty of the Senate and 

 House of Eepresentatives to resort to all parliamen- 

 tary means to secure a fair and honest count of 

 the electoral vote, and that the people will hold 



Senators and Eepresentatives responsible for the 

 consequences which may follow a failure of the 

 two Houses to agree upon a mode for making such 

 count. 



Resolved. That while we have no doubt that Sam- 

 uel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks are fairly 

 entitled to a majority of the electoral votes for Pres- 

 ident and Vice-President, we at the same time be- 

 lieve it to be our duty, and are willing, to submit the 

 question as to who have been fairly and constitu- 

 tionally elected to the decision of the Senate and 

 House of Eepresentatives, to whom it constitution- 

 ally belongs ; and we demand of them, as, we be- 

 lieve, do a vast majority of the people of all parties, 

 that they come to some agreement for an honest 

 and fair count of the electoral vote, pledging our- 

 selves to abide by the result, whatever it may be. 



Resolved, That it is a well-settled principle of law 

 that when an official duty is to be performed upon 

 the happening of a certain contingency, and no mode 

 has been provided for deciding when the event has 

 occurred, those who are required to perform the 

 duty are the sole judges as to when the contingency 

 arises ; and, in accordance with this principle, we 

 declare that it properly devolves upon each House of 

 Congress to decide for itself when the contingency 

 shall arise that requires its separate action under 

 the Constitution, in the election of President by the 

 House of Eepresentatives, and a Vice-President by 

 the Senate. 



Resolved, That in case the two Houses, after ex- 

 hausting all parliamentary means, are unable to 

 agree upon such a count of the votes cast for Presi- 

 dent and Vice-President, as will secure to any per- 

 son a majority of the whole number of the electors 

 appointed, it will then become the duty of the 

 House of Eepresentatives immediately to choose a 

 President, and of the Senate a Vice-President, as 

 provided by the Constitution; and if the House of 

 Eepresentatives shall choose a President, or the 

 Senate a Vice-President, according to the provisions 

 of the Constitution, then such constitutional action 

 must be sustained, and all forcible opposition thereto 

 be proceeded against as treason and revolution. 



Resolved, That the concerted assertion by the lead- 

 ing Eepublican newspapers on the morning after the 

 election, that South Carolina, Florida, and Louisi- 

 ana " had gone for Hayes," before any definite in- 

 formation could possibly have been received from 

 those States, followed by the orders to the army of 

 the United States to see that " Boards of Canvassers 

 are unmolested in the performance of their duties," 

 issued before the Canvassing Boards had assembled, 

 and without any reason to suppose that such boards 

 would be molested in an honest discharge of duty, 

 together with the knowledge that the result of the 

 presidential election, as declared by the people at 

 the polls, could be changed by falsely counting the 

 votes of South Carolina, Florida, and' Louisiana for 

 Hayes, and that the Eeturning Board of Louisi- 

 ana, composed of the same persons as now, had 

 arbitrarily, unfairly, and illegally changed the re- 

 sult of a former election, could only have- been in- 

 tended as an assurance to the canvassing officers in 

 those States in advance that they would be sus- 

 tained in any canvass they might make, however 

 iniquitous, and especially to the canvassing officers 

 of Louisiana, that they would be sustained in re- 

 peating the arbitrary and illegal action by which 

 they had continued themselves and their party in 

 power two years before ; that the subsequent action 

 of the canvassing officers in two of the States men- 

 tioned, in open disregard of the highest judicial tri- 

 bunals in their respective States, and the action of 

 the Louisiana Eeturning Board, by which a major- 

 ity of eight thousand votes for Samuel J. Tilden 

 was fraudulently and illegally changed into a major- 

 ity of nearly four thousand for Eutherford B. Hayes,' 

 in connection with Judge Bond's usurpation in 

 overriding the State courts, the action of the army 



