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officers to the contrary notwithstanding_.

But the words of the Constitution as they stand do not carry with them
the words in italics, or their substance; and if it had been proposed to
add them when the Constitution was presented to the people, I do not
believe that they would have been accepted.

Had it been suggested to the freemen of Massachusetts or Connecticut
that they should give to the Legislature of another State not only the
right of designating how the electors should be chosen, whose voices
might make a President for them, but also the right to designate a
permanent board, with power to say, in the face of the truth, who had or
had not been chosen, the voices of John Hancock and Oliver Ellsworth
would surely have warned the good people of their native Commonwealths
against so dangerous a proposition.

There is no necessary connection between an appointment and the
certificate of it, unless the two acts are performed by the same
persons. If the appointment of electors for Louisiana had been committed
to the Returning Board, then there might be reason for saying that the
certificate was conclusive, because they appointed when they certified.
But the board had not the power of appointment. That power could not
have been given to them, if the Legislature of Louisiana had so
intended, and it did not so intend.

The power to give a conclusive certificate of appointment--that is, a
certificate that precludes further inquiry--is virtually a power to
appoint, since no one is then permitted to go behind the certificate to
show that there was neither valid appointment nor form of appointment.
Unless, therefore, the Legislature of Louisiana could, under the
Constitution, confer upon the Returning Board power to appoint
presidential electors for Louisiana, it could not confer upon it power
to give a conclusive certificate of appointment. The constitution of
this Returning Board is known to us all. It was a permanent body,
holding for an undefined period, or for life, consisting of four
persons of one party, when there should have been five, of different
parties; and the four had persistently refused for years to select a
fifth. To pretend that such a body was, or could lawfully be, empowered
to appoint eight electors for the people of Louisiana, to match the
eight who were appointed by the people of Maryland, would be simple
effrontery; and most certainly, as I have said, if they could not
appoint, they c