Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1876-12-31
COUNrING THE VOTE.

party In the rightfulness OF its position
or In It's eventual success has dimin-
ished; but all men seem to have pos
ssssed their souls in patience, and they
coutentedly and hopefully abide the
action of the two Houses.
There are two important and, as yet,
undetermined factors, upon which
will in a great measure hinge the de-
termination Of the main question. The
first of these is the state of the returns
in the doubtful " States as It will be
reported by the committees Of the two
Houses. The report Of the House
Committee on South Carolina has be-
You'd question taken that State from
the doubtful list. It's vote Will be cast
for Hayes. The dispatches from
Florida during the last few days
seem to establish q Republican vic
tory in that State also. Should this
DO so, and We see no reason to doubt
it, the only States whose returns can
be questioned and upon which issue
can be joined are Louisiana and Oregon.
The second and most important
factor is the determination by the Sem
ate and House of the rule to be followed
in counting the electoral votes. The
examination and probably the deter.
mination- of this matter has been
relegated to two committees, composed
Of seven Senators and seven Members;
seven Republicans, Senators Edmunds,
Morton, Frelingbuysen and Logan,
and Messrs. McCreery, Hoar and
Willard, and seven Democrats, Sem
ators Thurman, Bayard and Ransom,
and Messrs. Payne. Hunton, Hewitt
and Springer. They have from now
until tho l4th OF February to deliberate
and agree upon q measure, for it is not
until then that the vote is counted, and
it is probable that the two Houses will
accept any " method of examining the
votes " on which the committee may
agree. On the whole, the committee
is we'll selected. 1t contains only two
or three men who are believed to be
unreasonable. The remainder OF both
sides are sound lawyers, capable Of
sitting and naturally respecting prece-
dents, and who are likely to be guided
TO q conclusion by what they shall
find, on a careful investigation OF the
manner in which this question has
been treated and regarded in Congress
from the beginning, to be the proper
way Of counting the votes.
At the last session Of Congress Sen
ator Morton introduced and secured
the passage in the Senate of a bill in
tended to establish the rule in this
all.important matter. In the remarks
that he then made he said:
I do not accept the suggestions that
the Vice President of the United States
has anything moro to do in the bust
ness OF counting the votes for Presi-
dent and Vice President than that spe-
cific duty which Is prescribed for and
enjoined upon him by the Constitution.
That duty is, in the presence of the
Senate and House of Representatives,
I'D ODGu tu0 CoItIiiCdtcSs 1nClo Ocluk
no other duty assigned to him I infer,
naturally, that he Is to do nothing
more.
And again, in explaining the opera
ton Of the bill in the case Of a contest,
he said:
The effect of this section Is to deter.
mine which set of electoral returns is
to be counted, and il the two houses
do not agree neither set Is to be
counted; and again, the vote goes out.
The State has no vote because, unless
there is some tribunal to settle which
vote shall be counted, you cannot
count both, and, therefore, you cannoi
count either. You must have some
tribunal to settle that difficulty; and
what tribunal is safer than the two
houses of Congress-?
Concerning the opinions already en-
tertained by the other members of the
Senate Committee, we are not SO well
advised. We only know that Thur
man, Frslinghuysen and Logan voted
for Morton's bill, and Bayard, Ed
munds and Ransom voted against it.
We have not heard that any member
of the House Committee has W ex.
pressed an opinion upon the subject.
The Tumor comes from Washington
that the two committees will act con-
jointly. They will in any event confer
and endeavor to agree upon a rule Of
procedure. The matter is substan-
TALLY in the hands of these fourteen
mon. As we have said, nearly all Of
them are honest and capable, men and
both parties should be content to abide
their decision. FoT u part, while we
would heartily rejoice at the success Of
our candidate. we pledge our friends
on the other side that IL the day should
go against us we will most c~ontentediy
eat our crow.
"A WASHINGTON paper pDnts the fol.
lowing queer advertisement, and 1t is
asserted to be genuine: "Wanted: