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 assembling 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 Constitution, 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
constitutional 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