CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



153 



ator from Massachusetts (Mr. Dawes). Really 

 [ should have liked very much better if the 

 Senator from Massachusetts had come out 

 boldly against the bill, for his amendment is a 

 dagger-thrust at the heart of the bill, and 

 nothing less. He says that this bill is framed 

 because of conflicting views. He is entirely 

 right about that. If there had been no con- 

 flicting views in respect to the interpretation 

 of the Constitution among the members of the 

 Senate and the members of the House of Rep- 

 resentatives, and between the two Houses, 

 there would be no necessity whatever for the 

 bill. If both Houses were agreed that no vote 

 should be counted unless both Houses con- 

 curred in receiving it, there would be no ne- 

 cessity for a bill. If we were all agreed that 

 no vote should be rejected unless both Houses 

 concurred in rejecting it, there would be no 

 necessity for a bill. It is simply because there 

 are these conflicting opinions, and that in the 

 present position and posture of affairs these 

 conflicting opinions are likely to plunge the 

 country into discord, to paralyze business, par- 

 alyze trade, unsettle the habits and opinions 

 of the people, destroy respect for the Govern- 

 ment, and jeopard the best interests of the 

 republic, that a mode of getting out of this 

 difficulty is provided by the bill. Have Sena- 

 tors reflected how numerous are the points 

 upon which there are conflicting opinions on 

 this subject? Let me enumerate a few of 

 them. I will not say a few, either, but not all 

 by any means. 



" When your committee got together, after 

 a free and friendly conversation and discussion 

 of the subject, and the reading of no small 

 amount of history, it was soon discovered that 

 to frame a bill upon the idea of defining by 

 law what the Constitution means, settling that 

 by law would be a simple impossibility, and 

 that no euch bill could pass ; for you could not 

 frame a bill according to the one theory or the 

 other opposite theory without its being sup- 

 posed that it gave advantage to one party or 

 to the other party. In the present circum- 

 stances of our country, and as the majorities 

 of the two Houses are of different politics, it 

 was perfectly clear that any bill that gave the 

 least advantage, ay, the weight of the dust in 

 the balance, to either party, could not become 

 the law of the land. Therefore it was that we 

 did not attempt to do what the Senator from 

 Massachusetts thinks is so easy to do, namely, 

 to interpret the Constitution in a statute. It 

 would have been the most idle work that ever 

 sane men attempted had we tried to do any 

 such thing. All that we could do was to con- 

 stitute a tribunal as honest and impartial and 

 fair as we could make it, as likely to be intelli- 

 gent and learned and honest as we could find, 

 and as likely to command the respect of the 

 country as any we could frame, and submit to 

 that as we submit to our supreme judicial tri- 

 bunal, the Supreme Court of the United States, 

 the constitutional questions that are involved 



in this subject. Is there anything strange or 

 novel in that ? Is there a constitutional ques- 

 tion, or can there be one, that we do not sub- 

 mit to the final arbitrament of the Supreme 

 Court of the United States? In a case like 

 this, where there is no opportunity of any such 

 submission, where such a submission would be 

 of doubtful constitutionality in view of the 

 power conferred by implication at least upon 

 Congress, is there anything strange in getting 

 the aid, the advice, the judgment of a tribunal 

 so carefully framed to make it honest, to moke 

 it able, to make it learned, to make it com- 

 mand the respect of the country, as the tribu- 

 nal provided for in this bill ? Is there any- 

 thing strange in that, and especially is there 

 anything strange in it when the two Houses 

 of Congress, being charged with this great 

 duty, reserve the power to overrule the deci- 

 sion of that tribunal and to decide otherwise, 

 if the two Houses consider its decision to be 

 wrong? I should like to know where there 

 is anything that is justly subject to censure in 

 a proposition like that. 



'' But I said that I would state some of the 

 conflicting opinions upon the interpretation of 

 the Constitution to show with what your com- 

 mittee had to grapple, and to show what would 

 be the field of inquiry upon which we should 

 have to enter if we were to take the sugges- 

 tion of the Senator from Massachusetts and 

 proceed to interpret the Constitution by statu- 

 tory provisions. Let us see what they are. 

 One proposition is, that both Houses must con- 

 cur to count the vote. That is a proposition 

 very strongly and very logically supported by 

 able men. On the other hand, it is said that 

 the true interpretation is that both Houses 

 must concur to reject a vote. Right upon that 

 fundamental question, so important, there is a 

 direct antagonism of opinion. That is number 

 one. 



"Let us go to number two. It is said that 

 the two Houses act as one body, as a joint con- 

 vention, in counting the vote, and the opposite 

 opinion is that they act as separate organized 

 bodies; the first opinion having the sanction 

 of the great name of Mr. Jefferson and nearly 

 all his supporters in 1800 ; the second propo- 

 sition, directly antagonistic to the first, having 

 the support of the more practical men of later 

 times, and, indeed, it had the opinion of the 

 party in the majority in 18CO in the Govern- 

 ment. There is the second case of directly 

 antagonistic opinions. 



" Let us proceed to n third, that the House 

 of Representatives is the sole judge whether 

 there has been an election, and the opposite 

 opinion is that the House is not the sole judge, 

 but that the Senate has an equal right to de- 

 cide. What more important question than that 

 was or could be mooted? What question more 

 fundamental in its character could be consid- 

 ered ? And yet here are the most antagonistic 

 opinions upon it. Writer after writer men 

 who have been Chief-Justices of the Supreme 



