The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-08
SHALL CONGRESS MAKE TIE PRESIDENT

delirious drunkard retains OF his sober exis-
tence, adverted to the fact that after presi-
Dental election, Congress has, constitution
ally, something TO do with opening the sealed
certificates of electors and ascertaining the re-
suit This was enough, according to the logic
and the ethics of radicalism, to warrant
claim that Congress should exercise supreme
revisory power over the electoral returns from
the various States. The pretension was sug-
gested in dark and mystical phrases at first
But they were well understood by those Tor
whose ears they were intended. For, as the
thieves of London and the thieves of Paris
have their respective dialects, as professional
criminals in all countries employ a cryptologic
speech which is caviare to the vulgar, the re-
volution airy and lawless class of men in the
United States, commonly known as radicals,
continue to speak to one another in lam
guage that is not, Upon its face, intel
hgible unless by a radical gloss. By
careful induction, however, it is possible
to obtain this key to their mysterious
communications; and, hence, the sugges-
ton that Congress, in pretended conformity
with the Constitutional provision in regard to
counting the electoral votes, should exercise
discretionary authority in deciding what votes
to count and what result to declare, did not
escape altogether Democratic vigilance. That
it was well understood by the radical majority
in Congress, the sequel shows. In order to
mike due preparation for carrying it out,
joint resolution was, few days ago, reported
from the Senate committee on the judiciary.
This resolution declares that, 60 No electoral
votes shall be received or counted from any of
such States the ten States subject to the
reconstruction acts" unless at the time pre-
scribed by law for the choice of electors, the
people of such States, pursuant to the acts of
Congress in that behalf, shall have since the
fourth OF March, 1867, adopted Constitution
of State government under which a State
government shall have been organized, and
shall be in operation, and unless such cleo
ton of electors shall have been held under
the authority of such Constitution and govern
ment, and such State shall have also become
entitled to representation in Congress pur-
suant to act of Congress in that behalf"
This is nothing less than proposition to
make the president of the Senate first, and
Congress in joint session next, the judge,
without appeal of the electoral rights
of ten States. 1t is so destitute
of warrant in the terms of the Constitu-
ton, that to expose its unconstitutionality is
disgustiDgly tedious and looks positively alb
surd. The Constitution, article second, Sec
ton first, simply directs that the electors
, hol Ba let of oil fal Cor
and of the number of votes for each which
list they shall sign and certify and transmit
sealed to the seat of government of the
United States, directed to the president of
the Senate. The president of the Senate
shall, in the presence of the Senate and
House of Representatives, open all the GER
tificates, and the votes shall then be counted
The person having the greatest number of
votes shall be President" etc. Here there is
not hairs breadth of discretion allowed to
the president of the Senate, or to the two
houses of Congress, in relation to receiving
electoral returns, opening the certificates,
counting the votes and announcing the re-
suit. Yet the resolution in question proposes
that the president of the Senate may, if he
see fit refuse to receive electoral returns from
any one or all of the ten States referred to,
and that, if received, it shall be optionary
with the two houses in joint session to count
them or not count them.
The Constitution enjoins that the 'presi-
dent of the Senate shall open all the certif-
cates"-all that had been directed to him by
the electors; that ''the votes"-the votes con-
tanned in these certifcates-"ShaH then be
counted;" and that the 'person having the
greatest number of votes, in the aggregate of
votes transmitted to the president of the Senate
| by electors; "shall be President" Comment
for the purpose of exhibiting the unconstitu-
tional and revolutionary intent of the resolu-
ton, is utterly superfuous. OF course this
is precisely the quality which commends it
to the acceptance of the radical majority in
| Congress. The object Of it is to ''make as
surance doubly sure, and take a bond of
fate" with regard to the result of the Presi-
dental election; and there is not the least
| question that it will be adopted by the two
houses unless the desperate and unscrupu-
lous faction on whose behalf it is designed
shall conclude that they can safely dispense
with it. Mr.. Trumbull, a Republican senator
not in the innermost radical ring, and the New
York Post, a Republican paper also outside
Of that ring, oppose the resolution. The sem
ator says that Congress would have as much
right to apply such legislation to Illinois or
Massachusetts as to Arkansas or Louisiana,
and the paper declares, that, upon the passage
of the resolution, the Republican party would
have to ''go into the canvass with reeonstruc-
ton incomplete" and with the confession
that the congressional policy was a failure
The grave utterance of these transparent
truisms about radical policy, as though they
were new discoveries, is really too Imaginable
for any place but low comedy stage or a
comic newspaper.
Mr.. Trumbull surely knows that Congress
! IL - 70