Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-12-21
WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

| OtTliIlCdltS puTpOTlIns5 ~ ut tltCloid 'OtCs
showing 1876 votes for Hayes and Wheeler
and 206 votes for Tilden and Hendricks, viii
be forwarded by messengers and delivered II
the President of the Senate. Of these, II
| votes from Alabama for Hayes, and 19 IRON
| Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana fo
Tilden, will be forwarded by persons wht
! have not certificates of elect on from the prop
er State officers. From Oregon, for Hayes
will he forwarded by persons two OF whom
were declared elected, and for Tilden will be
forwarded by persons only one of whom was
declared elected. Any lawyer will decide thai
the one person was not legally elected, and
that one claimant cannot outvote the two un-
questioned members in deciding upon his
right to sit in the college.
A President of the Senate will be selected
probably Senator Sherman of Ohio. He, be-
ing duly informed of the names of messen-
gers appointed by legally authorized electoral
bodies, will probably refuse to receive as cleo
toral votes the certificates forwarded by other
bodies. If thirty-fve citizens had met, at
Albany or elsewhere, without warrant of law,
and had forwarded a pretended certificate
giving the electoral votes of New York to
Peter Cooper, it would be the business of the
President of the Senate to refuse to receive as
electoral votes the certificate from such per-
SONS.
The Senate will investigate the disputed
cases. Within month probably the evidence
will be placed before the country. Thereupon
the Committee on Privileges and Elections
will probably report certain resolutions, ad-
vising the President of that body that in the
judgment of the Senate, it is his duty to open
the certificates from certain persons as the
true electors of each disputed State. These
resolutions will be debated in the light of all
evidence collected by returning boards, part-
san committees, and committees of the two
Houses. If sufficient number of Republi
cans and independents to constitute, with the
Democrats, a majority of the Senate, believe
that certificates from Republican electors in
either State should not be opened, it is proba-
BILE that the President will3c upon that coli
clusion, and that the Republican candidates
will lose the votes of that State II will be
natural and proper for the President of the
Senate to give weight to its judgment, both
because he is its officer, and because, the
Senate sharing the Executive power, no per-
son can be President without its recognition.
If the House discusses the same questions, j
and arrives at different results, it can either
attend at the counting of the votes, or stay
away, or attend at the beginning and secede.
What the House does will make no legal dif-
ference whatever in the validity of the formal
opening and counting required by the Consti-
tuition.
When that counting takes place the Presi |
dent of the Senate will, in the language of the |
'open all the certificates" but |
he will not open any unnecessary and worth
less pieces of waste paper. If he has any |
doubt which is the certificate from State, |
ne will probably act upon the opinion of the |
Senate. Debate, during this proceeding, is |
not in order. If the House, or some mem |
)ers of it, or some members of both Houses, |
choose to go out, they can do so. Counting |
s a purely clerical function in this case. Any
,age can perform it as well as any Senator.
Il consists in adding up two columns of fig
ires which the President of the Senate HIS
The responsible duty is ended
ghen the President, having determined which
re ''the certificates" from the several States,
las opened them. No formal announcement
# the result is required by the Constitution.
That supreme law simply says that the person
aying received majority of the votes ''shall
e President" All the power of the United
states Government will be employed, if ne
essary, to inaugurate that person and main
ain him in the exercise of Executive func-
ions. Al attempt to set up any other person
s President will not be made, because it
7ould be rebellion.
In brief, then, the deliberate opinion of tie
Majority of the Senate, after investigation and
will prevail, for such are the pro
isions of the Constitution that nothing else
an prevail. If there has been wrong done in
S6HtbeE2 State, we hope and believe that
majority of the Senators will see it and de-
lare it wrong. If the certificates are held by
majority oS the Senate to be in accordance
nth law, and expressions of the popular will,
here will not be pleasant time for any revO-
ltionary madcap, in the House or elsewhere,
Tho attempts to resist the decsion.-[N. Y.
'ribune.
l.,