sed 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 Constitution.
It is in the clearest violation of the whole scheme of this popular
government of ours, that one man should assume 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 entitled 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 Presi