worn duty is to ascertain what persons have
been chosen by the electors, and not to elect by Congress.

It may be said that the Senate would not be apt to throw the
election into the House. Not so, Mr. President; look at the
relative majorities of the two houses of Congress as they will be
after the fourth of March next. It is true there will be a
numerical majority of the members of the Democratic party in the
House of Representatives, but the States represented will have a
majority as States of the Republican party. If the choice were to
be made after March 4th, then a Republican Senate, by rejecting or
refusing to count votes, could of its own motion throw the election
into the House; which, voting by States, would be in political
accord with the Senate. The House of Representatives, like the
present House in its political complexion, composed of a numerical
majority, and having also a majority of the States of the same
party, would have the power then to draw the election into its own
hands. Mr. President, either of these powers would be utterly
dangerous and in defeat of the object and intent of the
constitutional provisions on this subject.

Sir, this was my chief objection to the twenty-second joint rule.
Under that rule either house of Congress, without debate, without
law, without reason, without justice, could, by the sheer exercise
of its will or its caprice, disfranchise any State in the electoral
college. Under that rule we lived and held three presidential
elections.

In January 1873, under a resolution introduced by the honorable
Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman] and adopted by the Senate, the
Committee on Privileges and Elections, presided over by the
honorable Senator from Indiana [Mr Morton], proceeded to investigate
the elections held in the States of Louisiana and Arkansas, and
inquired whether these elections had been held in accordance with
the Constitution and laws of the United States and the laws of said
States, and sent for persons and papers and made thorough
investigation, which resulted in excluding the electoral votes of
Louisiana from the count, (See Report No. 417, third session
Forty-Second Congress.)

The popular vote was then cast, and it was cast at the mercy of a
majority in either branch of Congress, who claimed the right to
annul it by casting out States until they should throw the election
into a Republican House of Representatives. I saw that dangerous
power then, an