CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



dent and Vice-President of the United States. 

 There was a resolution of this sort which 1 

 supposed would be brought uj> yesterday: 



11 [June 15, 1880. Ordered to be printed.) 

 " Mr. Morgan submitted the following resolution : 

 " JiMolftdoy 6U &at< ( tht Uout< of Kepmentafaa 

 concurring), That the l'n->uK-nt <>t tlu ivuato is not 

 invested by the Constitution of the United Suites with 

 the right to count the vote.* of electors for President 

 and Vlw-President of the United States BO aa to de- 

 termine what votes shall be received and counted or 

 what votes shall bu rejected. 



" I had supposed that the resolution would 

 have been called from the table yesterday and 

 acted upon, and, if that resolution had been 

 called up and acted upon affirmatively, I should 

 cheerfully give my vote for the other resolu- 

 tion of the committee, because I should have 

 considered the action of the Senate upon that 

 resolution a determination of their meaning of 

 the resolution which is now before the Senate. 

 But that has not been called up, it has not 

 been acted on. The pending resolution reads 

 in this way : 



" Jtetoletd by the Senate (the House oflteprttentatires 

 amtvrrinpt, That the two Houses of Congress shall 

 assemble in the hall of the House of Representatives 

 on Wednesday, the 9th of February, 1881, at 12 

 o'clock, si., and the President of the Senate shall be 

 the presiding officer ; that two persons be appointed 

 tellers on the part of the Senate and two on the part 

 of the House of Representatives, to make a list ot the 

 votes aa they shall be declared. 



" What does that mean ? The honorable 

 Senator from Alabama says that the word ' de- 

 clared' there is simply the declaration of a 

 clerical fact: another Senator says that the 

 word ' declared ' there means that A B, C D, 

 and E F are elected or appointed as electors 

 for President and Vice-President. I can not 

 vote for a resolution that leaves any doubt 

 upon the subject, and, therefore, at the proper 

 time and if this be the proper time in the 

 opinion of the Chair I shall offer an amend- 

 ment now, in the words of the Constitution 

 of the United States. I move to strike out 

 the words 'as they shall be declared,' and 

 to insert in lieu thereof 'as the certificates 

 shall be opened by the President of the Sen- 

 ate.' Those are the words of the Constitution, 

 about which there can be no mistake, about 

 which there can be no two opinions. That is 

 the duty of the President of the Senate ; and 

 when he has executed that duty then the offi- 

 cers who have been appointed by the Senate 

 and the House will count the votes and hand 

 np their list to the President of the Senate, 

 and he will make the necessary declaration. 



"I can not vote for any resolution that 

 leaves any donbt upon that great and important 

 point. It is of no importance, I agree, so far 

 as this election is concerned. Everybody con- 

 cedes the election of General Garfield and Gen- 

 eral Arthur. Everybody concedes that they 

 will on Wednesday, the 9th day of February, 

 in some way be declared to be the choice of 

 the people. I regret it, but it is so. But I 

 can not vote that the President of the Sen- 



ate shall declare that fact, for it is not his 

 duty." 



The Presiding Officer : " The amendment 

 will ho reported." 



The Chief Clerk : " In the amendment of the 

 committee, it is proposed to strike out the 

 words 4 as they shall be declared ' and to in- 

 sert ' as the certificates shall be opened by the 

 President of the Senate '; so as to read : 



" That two persons be appointed tellers on the part 

 of the Senate, and two on the part of the House of 

 Kelirc.-entutives, to make a list 01 the votes as the ccr- 

 titicutcs shall be opened by the President of the Sen- 

 ate." 



Mr. Thurman : " It has been truly said by 

 Senators on this floor, and we know it is so, 

 that we are tiding over the present case ; that 

 is, we do not decide it. We do not decide 

 really who, under the Constitution, has the ju- 

 dicial power. Are we to blame for that ? Our 

 forefathers, eighty years ago, tried to decide it, 

 and they could not. John Marshall drew a bill, 

 when he was a member of the House of Rep- 

 resentatives, and it passed that House, I think, 

 but the Senate did not agree to it. The great- 

 est minds in this country have tried it, and it 

 is no disgrace to us that we have not been able 

 to agree upon a measure when John M:u>hall 

 and his associates in his day were unable to pass 

 a bill. Mr. Van Btiren tried it, when he was a 

 member of the Senate, and failed. I h< ]K-d 

 that it might happen in my time, not that I 

 might do much about it, but that I might have 

 the satisfaction of voting for it, and that we 

 might agree upon some proper law on the sub- 

 ject. I hope yet it may happen that such a 

 law may be perfected by those who are to come 

 after me, and that, too, before another presi- 

 dential election shall occur. But ' sufficient 

 unto the day is the evil thereof.' Your com- 

 mittee have reported a resolution that every 

 man in this body and every man in the House 

 can fairly vote for, as our forefathers voted for 

 similar resolutions for more than half a cen- 

 tury, and under which we have got along qui- 

 etly in the count of the presidential votes. 



"Although I agree with my friend from 

 Connecticut that, if I were framing this reso- 

 lution for the first time, I would leave these 

 words out, I hope the amendment will not be 

 adopted, but that the resolution as reported by 

 the committee will be agreed to, and that with- 

 out any further modification." 



Mr. Blaine, of Maine: "Mr. President, I do 

 not intend to detain the Senate by any discus- 

 sion of the amendment of the Senator from 

 Connecticut, but I wish to submit an observa- 

 tion on what the Senator from Ohio has said 

 about the impossibility of getting a law on this 

 subject. He says that seventy or eighty years 

 ago John Marshall tried to correct a trouble 

 then existing and failed ; that there is in some 

 way an inherited disability upon the Congress 

 and people of the United States to escape in 

 any way from the danger which we now quad- 

 rennially encounter." 



