d, because I saw it then, am I so blind, am I so
without principle in my action, that I should ask for myself a
dangerous power that I refused to those who differ from me in
opinion? God forbid.

This concurrence of the two houses to reject the electoral votes of
a State was the great feature that John Marshall sought for in
1800. The Senate then proposed that either house should have power
to reject a vote. The House of Representatives, under the lead of
John Marshall, declared that they should concur to reject the vote,
and upon that difference of opinion the measure fell and was never
revived. In 1824 the bill prepared by Mr. Van Buren contained the
same wholesome principle and provided that the two houses must
concur in the rejection of a vote. Mr. Van Buren reported this bill
in 1824. It was amended and passed, and, as far as I can find from
the record, without a division of the Senate. It was referred in the
House of Representatives to the Committee on the Judiciary, and it
was reported back by Mr. Daniel Webster, without amendment, to the
Committee of the Whole House, showing their approval of the bill;
and that principle is thoroughly incorporated in the present measure
and gives to me one of the strong reasons for my approval.

Mr. President, this bill is not the product of any one man's mind,
but it is the result of careful study and frequent amendment.
Mutual concessions, modifications of individual preferences, were
constantly and necessarily made in the course of framing such a
measure as it now stands. My individual opinions might lead me to
object to the employment of the judicial branch at all, of
ingrafting even to any extent political power upon the judicial
branch or its members, or confiding to them any question even
quasi-political in its character. To this I have expressed and
still have disinclination, but my sense of the general value of this
measure and the necessity for the adoption of a plan outweighed my
disposition to insist upon my own preferences as to this feature.
At first I was disposed to question the constitutional power to call
in the five justices of the Supreme Court, but the duty of
ascertaining what are the votes, the true votes, under the
Constitution, having been imposed upon the commission, the methods
were necessarily discretionary with the two houses. Any and every
aid that intelligence and skill combined can furnish may be justly
used when it is appropriate to th