The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1876-12-30
THE ONLY ISSUE.

! to give expression III tueii ~ ''
and then TO send delegates to Stale cohVeh-
ton to give mole enlarged, solemn ana en-
nhatc expression of their views in regard to
what ia now conceded to he only the vital
) questionable turning polnt--involved in the
pepd,ug presidential controversy. That qucs
t,on. upon which the whole controversy
hinges. Is this: Has the man who shall he
accidentally president of the United States
Senate on the second Wednesday in Februa
~ next, after he has laid before the two
houses of congress, in joint meeting, and
opened the certificates he has received of the
electoral votes cast by the several states OF
two or more sets of returns have been receiv.
ed from the same state, or where Irregular
ties appear on the face of the returns, TO de-
eide as to these irregularities or as between
conflicting returns, and to then count the
votes; or shall this duty of deciding as to the
regularity and validity of returns and OF
counting the votes be exercised, under the
constitution, by the two houses of congress?
The only constitutional provision on the
subject is as follows:
"The president of the senate shall, IL the
presence of the senate and house of represen-
ta,ives, open all the certificates, and the votes
shall then be counted; the person having the
greatest number OF votes for president shall
be president" sc.
The pretense upon which this whole con-
splracy to inaugurate Hayes against the will
Of the people rests is, that when the president
of the senate, under this clause, comes to open
the certificates, he Is also endowed by this
clause with the extraordinary power Of de.
Gliding, where two or more sets of certificates
are presented from the same state, "all' OF
which he must open, which is valid and
which the invalid certificate, and having
made this decision as to what votes he will
receive, he is next to proceed to count the
votes and declare the result. 1t is needless
to say that the above and no other part of the
constitution says the president of the senate
else shall declare the result The result de-
clares itself on the fact appearing that one Of
the candidates has received the requisite
nuAlber of votes.
The only pretext the cOnsprators have for
insisting that the president of the senate is
clothed with this extraordinary power is,
that in the election Of two or three OF the
ear ier presidents, after the vote had been
al cnnptaI 40 ,rncibopt IF fb,,
ate wrote out formal certificate, for which
there never was the slightest occasion, in
which he state that having opened the GER
tiicates and cOuHted tie UOtes, he found that
While it is not denied that two or three such
certificates are on record, yet the journals Of
the very JOINT meetings Of the two houses TO
which they relate show that the president of
votes were counted by the secretaries of the
two houses and that the wording of the GER
tificaies referred TO is, therefore, IN point of
fact, untrue.
On the other hand the whole history Of the
government on this subject shows, that al
every count Of the presidential vote from
1888 down, the two houses of congress Inva.
rlably directed the count of the vote and as.
serted the power, and repeatedly exercised
il, of passing upon the regularity of the Ger.
tificates presented and opened by the vice
president, deciding as to their regularity and
validity, and rejecting at their pleasure the
votes in part or whole or any state where, for
any sufficient reason appearing TO either
house such vote or votes ought 10 have been
rejected.
That congress possessed this power to its
fullest extent had never before in the history
of the government been even remotely ques
toned, until the Matching Of this internal
conspiracy TO count in Hayes. When con
gress eight years ago adopted the famous
22d Joint rule, in which this power was
asserted for congress to its fullest extent, and
sent the rule to president Lincoln for approx.
al he sent it back, declaring that in this mat.
ter congress was above the president, 1.-THE
two houses of congress, convened under the
Twelfth article of the Constitution, having
complete and unquestionable power to ex.
clude from counting all electoral votes deem
ed by them to be Illegal"
1t is to give a solemn and emphati2 express
sion of this principle that the meeting is call
ed to-day and that the convention will meet
at Springfield on the Sth of January The
appeal is not made to party bigots or mere
7, 10 %,
vative sense of the people. Shall the peace
of The country be endangered, or our system
of government revoluliosized, for the sake
of obtaining a single questionable, evanes,
cent partisan advantage, by such a violent
change in the practice of the government, or
! shall the long established method OF count
! ing the electoral votes, by the two houses
] themselves acting IN the presence of each
other through their own tellers, be preserved