The World's Best Orations Part 18

In less than four years, in March 1792, after the first Congress had a.s.sembled there was legislation upon this subject, carrying into execution the power vested by this second article of the Const.i.tution in a manner which will leave no doubt of what the men of that day believed was competent and proper. Here let me advert to that authority which must ever attach to the contemporaneous exposition of historical events. The men who sat in the Congress of 1792 had many of them been members of the convention that framed the Federal Const.i.tution. All were its contemporaries and closely were they considering with master-minds the consequences of that work.

Not only may we gather from the manner in which they treated this subject when they legislated upon it in 1792 what were their views of the powers of Congress on the subject of where the power was lodged and what was the proper measure of its exercise, but we can gather equally well from the inchoate and imperfect legislation of 1800 what those men also thought of their power over this subject, because, although differing as to details, there were certain conceded facts as to jurisdiction quite as emphatically expressed as if their propositions had been enacted into law. Likewise in 1824 the same instruction is afforded. If we find the Senate of the United States without division pa.s.s bills which, although not pa.s.sed by the co-ordinate branch of Congress, are received by them and reported back from the proper committees after examination and without amendment to the committee of the whole House, we may learn with equal authority what was conceded by those houses as to the question of power over the subject. In a compilation made at the present session by order of the House Committee, co-ordinate with the Senate Committee, will be found at page 129 a debate containing expressions by the leading men of both parties in 1857 of the lawfulness of the exercise of the legislative power of Congress over this subject. I venture to read here from the remarks of Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, one of the most respected and conservative minds of his day in the Congress of the United States:--

The Const.i.tution evidently contemplated a provision to be made by law to regulate the details and the mode of counting the votes for President and Vice-President of the United States. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. By whom, and how to be counted, the Const.i.tution does not say. But Congress has power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Const.i.tution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. Congress, therefore, has the power to regulate by law the details of the mode in which the votes are to be counted. As yet, no such law has been found necessary. The cases, happily, have been rare in which difficulties have occurred in the count of the electoral votes. All difficulties of this sort have been managed heretofore by the consent of the two houses--a consent either implied at the time or declared by joint resolutions adopted by the houses on the recommendation of the joint committee which is usually raised to prescribe the mode in which the count is to be made. In the absence of law, the will of the two houses thus declared has prescribed the rule under which the President of the Senate and the tellers have acted. It was by this authority, as I understand it, that the President of the Senate acted yesterday. The joint resolution of the two bouses prescribed the mode in which the tellers were to make the count and also required him to declare the result, which he did. It was under the authority, therefore, and by the direction of the two houses that he acted. The resolutions by which the authority was given were according to unbroken usage and established precedent.

Mr. President, the debate from which I have read took place in 1857 and was long and able, the question there arising upon the proposed rejection of the vote of the State of Wisconsin, because of the delay of a single day in the meeting of the electors. A violent snowstorm having prevented the election on the third of December, it was held on the fourth, which was clearly in violation of the law of Congress pa.s.sed in pursuance of the Const.i.tution requiring that the votes for the electors should be cast on the same day throughout the Union. That debate will disclose the fact that the danger then became more and more realized of leaving this question unsettled as to who should determine whether the electoral votes of a State should be received or rejected when the two houses of Congress should differ upon that subject. There was no arbiter between them. This new-fangled idea of the present hour, that the presiding officer of the Senate should decide that question between the two disagreeing houses, had not yet been discovered in the fertility of political invention, or born perhaps of party necessity. The question has challenged all along through our country's history the ablest minds of the country; but at last we have reached a point when under increased difficulties we are bound to settle it. It arose in 1817 in the case of the State of Indiana, the question being whether Indiana was a State in the Union at the time of the casting of her vote. The two houses disagreed upon that subject; but by a joint resolution, which clearly a.s.sumed the power of controlling the subject, as the vote of Indiana did not if cast either way control the election, the difficulty was tided over by an arrangement for that time and that occasion only. In 1820 the case of the State of Missouri arose and contained the same question. There again came the difficulty when the genius and patriotism of Henry Clay were brought into requisition and a joint resolution introduced by him and adopted by both houses was productive of a satisfactory solution for the time being. The remedy was merely palliative; the permanent character of the difficulty was confessed and the fact that it was only a postponement to men of a future generation of a question still unsettled.

It is not necessary, and would be fatiguing to the Senate and to myself, to give anything like a sketch of the debate which followed, of the able and eminent men on both sides who considered the question, arriving, however, at one admitted conclusion, that the remedy was needed and that it did lie in the law-making power of the government to furnish it.

Thus, Mr. President, the unbroken line of precedent, the history of the usage of this government from 1789 at the first election of President and Vice-President until 1873, when the last count of electoral votes was made for the same offices, exhibits this fact, that the control of the count of the electoral votes, the ascertainment and declaration of the persons who were elected President and Vice-President, has been under the co-ordinate power of the two houses of Congress, and under no other power at any time or in any instance. The claim is now gravely made for the first time, in 1877, that in the event of disagreement of the two houses the power to count the electoral votes and decide upon their validity under the Const.i.tution and law is vested in a single individual, an appointee of one of the houses of Congress, the presiding officer of the Senate. In the event of a disagreement between the two houses, we are now told, he is to a.s.sume the power, in his sole discretion, to count the vote, to ascertain and declare what persons have been elected; and this, too, in the face of an act of Congress, pa.s.sed in 1792, unrepealed, always recognized, followed in every election from the time it was pa.s.sed until the present day.

Section 5 of the act of 1792 declares:--

That Congress shall be in session on the second Wednesday in February 1793, and on the second Wednesday in February succeeding every meeting of the electors; and the said certificates, or so many of them as shall have been received, shall then be opened, the votes counted, and the persons who shall fill the offices of President and Vice-President ascertained and declared agreeably to the Const.i.tution.

Let it be noted that the words "President of the Senate" nowhere occur in the section.

But we are now told that though "Congress shall be in session," that though these two great bodies duly organized, each with its presiding officer, accompanied by all its other officers, shall meet to perform the duty of ascertaining and declaring the true result of the action of the electoral colleges and what persons are ent.i.tled to these high executive offices, in case they shall not agree in their decisions there shall be interposed the power of the presiding officer of one of the houses to control the judgment of either and become the arbiter between them. Why, Mr. President, how such a claim can be supposed to rest upon authority is more than I can imagine. It is against all history. It is against the meaning of laws. It is not consistent with the language of the Const.i.tution.

It is in the clearest violation of the whole scheme of this popular government of ours, that one man should a.s.sume a power in regard to which the convention hung for months undecided, and carefully and grudgingly bestowing that power even when they finally disposed of it. Why, sir, a short review of history will clearly show how it was that the presiding officer of the Senate became even the custodian of the certificates of the electors.

On the fourth of September, 1787, when approaching the close of their labors, the convention discovered that they must remove this obstacle, and they must come to an agreement in regard to the deposit of this grave power. When they were scrupulously considering that no undue grant of power should be made to either branch of Congress, and when no one dreamed of putting it in the power of a single hand, the proposition was made by Hon. Mr. Brearly, from a committee of eleven, of alterations in the former schemes of the convention, which embraced this subject. It provided:--

5. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as its legislature may direct a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives to which the State may be ent.i.tled in the legislature.

6. The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for two persons, one of whom at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; and they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each, which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the general government, directed to the President of the Senate.

7. The President of the Senate shall, in that house, open all the certificates; and the votes shall be then and there counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number shall be a majority of the whole number of the electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority and have an equal number of votes, then the Senate shall choose by ballot one of them for President; but if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the Senate shall choose by ballot the President. And in every case after the choice of the President the person having the greatest number of votes shall be Vice-President. But if there should remain two or more who shall equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them the Vice-President. (See 'Madison Papers.' page 506. etc.)

Here we discover the reason why the President of the Senate was made the custodian of these certificates. It was because in that plan of the Const.i.tution the Senate was to count the votes alone; the House was not to be present; and in case there was a tie or failure to find a majority the Senate was to elect the President and Vice-President. The presiding officer of the body that was to count the votes alone, of the body that alone was to elect the President in default of a majority--the presiding officer of that body was naturally the proper person to hold the certificates until the Senate should do its duty. It might as well be said that because certificates and papers of various kinds are directed to the President of this Senate to be laid before the Senate that he should have the control to enact those propositions into law, as to say that because the certificates of these votes were handed to him he should have the right to count them and ascertain and declare what persons had been chosen President and Vice-President of the United States.

But the scheme reported by Mr. Brearly met with no favor. In the first place, it was moved and seconded to insert the words "in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives" after the word "counted." That was pa.s.sed in the affirmative. Next it was moved to strike out the words "the Senate shall immediately choose by ballot"

and insert the words "and House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President, and the members of each State shall have one vote," and this was adopted by ten States in the affirmative to one State in the negative.

Then came another motion to agree to the following paragraph, giving to the Senate the right to choose the Vice-President in case of the failure to find a majority, which was agreed to by the convention; so that the amendment as agreed to read as follows:--

The President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed: and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President, the representation from each State having one vote; but if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the House of Representatives shall in like manner choose by ballot the President.

And then follows that if there should remain two candidates voted for as Vice-President having an equal vote the Senate shall choose from them the Vice-President. Mr. President, is it not clear that the Const.i.tution directed that the certificates should be deposited with the presiding officer of that body which was alone to count the votes and elect both the President and Vice-President in case there was a failure to find a majority of the whole number of electors appointed? There is a maxim of the law, that where the reason ceases the law itself ceases. It is not only a maxim of common law, but equally of common sense. The history of the manner in which and the reason for which the certificates were forwarded to the President of the Senate completely explains why he was chosen as the depositary and just what connection he had with and power over those certificates. After the power had been vested in the House of Representatives to ballot for the President, voting by States, after the presence of the House of Representatives was made equally necessary before the count could begin or proceed at all, the President of the Senate was still left as the officer designated to receive the votes. Why? Because the Senate is a continuing body, because the Senate always has a quorum. Divided into three cla.s.ses, there never is a day or a time when a quorum of the Senate of the United States is not elected and cannot be summoned to perform its functions under the Const.i.tution. Therefore you had the officer of a continuing body, and as the body over which he presided and by whom he is chosen was one of the two co-ordinate bodies to perform the great function of counting the votes and of ascertaining and declaring the result of the electoral vote, he was left in charge of the certificates.

You also find in the sixth section of the act of 1792 that Congress exercised its regulating power and declared "that in case there shall be no President of the Senate at the seat of government on the arrival of the persons intrusted with the lists of votes of the electors, then such persons shall deliver the lists of votes in their custody into the office of the Secretary of State to be safely kept and delivered over as soon as may be to the President of the Senate."

What does this signify? That it was a simple question of custody, of safe and convenient custody, and there is just as much reason to say that the Secretary of State being the recipient of those votes had a right to count them as to say that the other officer designated as the recipient of the votes, the President of the Senate, had a right to count them.

Now, here is another fact a denial of which cannot be safely challenged. Take the history of these debates upon the formation of the Federal Const.i.tution from beginning to end, search them, and no line or word can be discovered that even suggests any power whatever in any one man over the subject, much less in the President of the Senate, in the control of the election of the President or the Vice-President. Why, sir, there is the invariable rule of construction in regard to which there can be no dispute, that the express grant of one thing excludes any other. Here you have the direction to the President of the Senate that be shall receive these certificates, or if absent that another custodian shall receive them, hold them during his absence and pa.s.s them over to him as soon as may be, and that then he shall in the presence of the two houses of Congress "open all the certificates." There is his full measure of duty; it is clearly expressed; and then after that follows the totally distinct duty, not confided to him, that "the votes shall then be counted."

I doubt very much whether any instrument not written by an inspired hand was more clear, terse, frugal of all words except those necessary to express its precise meaning, than the Const.i.tution of the United States. It would require the greatest ingenuity to discover where fewer words could be used to accomplish a plain end.

How shall it be that in this closely considered charter, where every word, every punctuation was carefully weighed and canva.s.sed, they should employ seven words out of place when two words in place would have fulfilled their end? If it had been intended to give this officer the power to count, how easy to read, "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open and count the votes." Why resort to this other, strained, awkward, ungrammatical, unreasonable transposition of additional words to grant one power distinctly and leave the other to be grafted upon it by an unjust implication? No, Mr. President, if it were a deed of bargain and sale, or any question of private grant, if it did not touch the rights of a great people, there would be but one construction given to this language, that the expression of one grant excluded the other. It was a single command to the President of the Senate that, as the custodian, he should honestly open those certificates and lay them before the two houses of Congress who were to act, and then his duty was done, and that was the belief of the men who sat in that convention, many of whom joined in framing the law of 1792 which directed Congress to be in session on a certain day and that the votes should be counted and the persons who should fill the office of President and Vice-president ascertained and declared agreeably to the Const.i.tution.

The certificates are to be opened by their custodian, the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Let it be noted this is not in the presence of the Senators and Representatives, but it is in the presence of two organized bodies who cannot be present except as a Senate and as a House of Representatives, each with its own organization, its own presiding officer and all adjuncts, each organized for the performance of a great duty.

When the first drafts of the Const.i.tution were made, instead of saying "in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives,"

they called it "the Legislature." What is a Legislature? A law-making body organized, not a mob, but an organized body to make laws; and so the law-making power of this Union, consisting of these two houses, is brought together. But it seems to me a most unreasonable proposition to withhold from the law-making power of this government the authority to regulate this subject and yet be willing to intrust it to a single hand. There is not a theory of this government that will support such a construction. It is contrary to the whole genius of the government; it is contrary to everything in the history of the formation of the government; it is contrary to the usage of the government since its foundation.

The President of the Senate is commanded by the Const.i.tution to open the votes in the presence of the two houses. He does not summon them to witness his act, but they summon him by appointing a day and hour when he is to produce and open in their presence all the certificates he may have received, and only then and in their presence can he undertake to open them at all. If he was merely to summon them as witnesses of his act it would have been so stated.

But when did the President of the Senate ever undertake to call the two houses together to witness the opening and counting of the votes? No, sir; he is called at their will and pleasure to bring with him the certificates which he has received, and open them before them and under their inspection, and not his own. When the certificates have been opened, when the votes have been counted, can the President of the Senate declare the result? No, sir, he has never declared a result except as the mouthpiece and the organ of the two houses authorizing and directing him what to declare, and what he did declare was what they had ascertained and in which ascertainment he had never interfered by word or act.

Suppose there shall be an interruption in the count, as has occurred in our history, can the President of the Senate do it? Did he ever do it? Is such an instance to be found? Every interruption in the count comes from some Member of the House or of the Senate, and upon that the pleasure of the two houses is considered, the question put to them to withdraw if they desire, and the count is arrested until they shall order it to recommence. The proceeding in the count, the commencement of the count is not in any degree under his control.

It is and ever was in the two houses, and in them alone. They are not powerless spectators; they do not sit "state statues only," but they are met as a legislature in organized bodies to insure a correct result of the popular election, to see to it that "the votes shall then be counted" agreeably to the Const.i.tution.

In 1792 when some of the men who sat in the convention that framed the Const.i.tution enacted into law the powers given in relation to the count of the electoral votes, they said, as I have read, that the certificates then received shall be opened and the votes counted, "and the persons to fill the offices of President and Vice-President ascertained agreeably to the Const.i.tution," and that direction is contained in the same section of the law that commands Congress to be in session on that day. It is the law-making power of the nation, the legislature, that is to perform this solemn and important duty, and not a single person who is selected by one branch of Congress and who is removable at their will, according to a late decision of the Senate.

Yes, Mr. President, the power contended for by some Senators, that the President of the Senate can, in the contingency of a disagreement between the two houses, from the necessity of the case, open and count the vote, leads to this: that upon every disputed vote and upon every decision a new President of the Senate could be elected; that one man could be selected in the present case to count the vote of Florida; another, of South Carolina; another, of Oregon; another, of Louisiana; and the Senate could fill those four offices with four different men, each chosen for that purpose, and when that purpose was over to be displaced by the same breath that set them up for the time being.

Now, sir, if, as has been claimed, the power of counting the votes is deposited equally in both houses, does not this admission exclude the idea of any power to count the votes being deposited in the presiding officer of one of those houses, who is, as I say, eligible and removable by a bare majority of the Senate, and at will? If the presiding officer of the Senate can thus count the vote, the Senate can control him. Then the Senate can control the count and, the Senate appointing their President, become the sole controllers of the vote in case of disagreement. What then becomes of the equal measure of power in the two houses over this subject? If the power may be said to exist only in case of disagreement, and then _ex_ _necessitate_ _rei_, all that remains for the Senate is to disagree, and they themselves have created the very contingency that gives them the power, through their President to have the vote counted or not counted, as they may desire. Why, sir, such a statement destroys all idea of equality of power between the two houses in regard to this subject.

When the President of the Senate has opened the certificates and handed them over to the tellers of the two houses, in the presence of the two houses, his functions and powers have ended. He cannot repossess himself of those certificates or papers. He can no longer control their custody. They are then and thereafter in the possession and under the control of the two houses who shall alone dispose of them.

Why, sir, what a spectacle would it be, some ambitious and unscrupulous man the presiding officer of the Senate, as was once Aaron Burr, a.s.suming the power to order the tellers to count the vote of this State and reject the vote of that, and so boldly and shamelessly reverse the action of the people expressed at the polls, and step into the presidency by force of his own decision. Sir, this is a reduction of the thing to an absurdity never dreamed of until now, and impossible while this shall remain a free government of law.

Now, Mr. President, as to the measure before us a few words. It will be observed that this bill is enacted for the present year, and no longer.

This is no answer to an alleged want of const.i.tutional power to pa.s.s it, but it is an answer in great degree where the mere policy and temporary convenience of the act are to be considered.

In the first place, the bill gives to each house of Congress equal power over the question of counting, at every stage.

It preserves intact the prerogatives, under the Const.i.tution, of each house.

It excludes any possibility of judicial determination by the presiding officer of the Senate upon the reception and exclusion of a vote.

The certificates of the electoral colleges will be placed in the possession and subject to the disposition of both houses of Congress in joint session.

The two houses are co-ordinate and separate and distinct. Neither can dominate the other. They are to ascertain whether the electors have been validly appointed, and whether they have validly performed their duties as electors. The two houses must, under the act of 1792, "ascertain and declare" whether there has been a valid election, according to the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States. The votes of the electors and the declaration of the result by the two houses give a valid t.i.tle, and nothing else can, unless no majority has been disclosed by the count; in which case the duty of the House is to be performed by electing a President, and of the Senate by electing a Vice-President.

If it be the duty of the two houses "to ascertain" whether the action of the electors has been in accordance with the Const.i.tution, they must inquire. They exercise supervisory power over every branch of public administration and over the electors. The methods they choose to employ in coming to a decision are such as the two houses, acting separately or together, may lawfully employ. Sir, the grant of power to the commission is in just that measure, no more and no less. The decision they render can be overruled by the concurrent votes of the two houses. Is it not competent for the two houses of Congress to agree that a concurrent majority of the two houses is necessary to reject the electoral vote of a State? If so, may they not adopt means which they believe will tend to produce a concurrence? Finally, sir, this bill secures the great object for which the two houses were brought together: the counting of the votes of the electoral college; not to elect a President by the two houses, but to determine who has been elected agreeably to the Const.i.tution and the laws. It provides against the failure to count the electoral vote of a State in event of disagreement between the two houses, in case of single returns, and, in cases of contest and double returns, furnishes a tribunal whose composition secures a decision of the question in disagreement, and whose perfect justice and impartiality cannot be gainsaid or doubted.

The tribunal is carved out of the body of the Senate and out of the body of the House by their vote _viva_ _voce_. No man can sit upon it from either branch without the choice, openly made, by a majority of the body of which he is a member, that he shall go there. The five judges who are chosen are from the court of last resort in this country, men eminent for learning, selected for their places because of the virtues and the capacities that fit them for this high station. ... Mr. President, objection has been made to the employment of the commission at all, to the creation of this committee of five senators, five representatives, and five judges of the Supreme Court, and the reasons for the objection have not been distinctly stated. The reasons for the appointment I will dwell upon briefly.

Sir, how has the count of the vote of every President and Vice-President, from the time of George Washington and John Adams, in 1789, to the present day, been made? Always and without exception by tellers appointed by the two houses. This is without exception, even in the much commented case of Mr. John Langdon, who, before the government was in operation, upon the recommendation of the const.i.tutional convention, was appointed by the Senate its President, for the sole purpose of opening and counting these votes.

He did it, as did every successor to him, under the motion and authority of the two houses of Congress, who appointed their own agents, called tellers to conduct the count, and whose count, being reported to him, was by him declared.

From 1793 to 1865 the count of votes was conducted under concurrent resolutions of the two houses, appointing their respective committees to join "in ascertaining and reporting a mode of examining the votes for President and Vice-President."

The respective committees reported resolutions fixing the time and place for the a.s.sembling of the two houses, and appointing tellers to conduct the examination on the part of each house respectively.

Mr. President, the office of teller, or the word "teller," is unknown to the Const.i.tution, and yet each house has appointed tellers, and has acted upon their report, as I have said, from the very foundation of the government. The present commission is more elaborate, but its objects and its purposes are the same, the information and instruction of the two houses who have a precisely equal share in its creation and organization; they are the instrumentalities of the two houses for performing the high const.i.tutional duty of ascertaining whom the electors in the several States have duly chosen President and Vice-President of the United States. Whatever is the jurisdiction and power of the two houses of Congress over the votes, and the judgment of either reception or rejection, is by this law wholly conferred upon this commission of fifteen. The bill presented does not define what that jurisdiction and power is, but it leaves it all as it is, adding nothing, subtracting nothing. Just what power the Senate by itself, or the House by itself, or the Senate and the House acting together, have over the subject of counting, admitting, or rejecting an electoral vote, in case of double returns from the same State, that power is by this act, no more and no less, vested in the commission of fifteen men; reserving, however, to the two houses the power of overruling the decision of the commission by their concurrent action.

The delegation to masters in chancery of the consideration and adjustments of questions of mingled law and fact is a matter of familiar and daily occurrence in the courts of the States and of the United States.

The circuit court of the United States is composed of the district judge and the circuit judge, and the report to them of a master is affirmed unless both judges concur in overruling it.