The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-01-20
Judge Cation on the Situation.
He CourteOusIy Skins an UNIV
DemagOgue.

one Judge West, OF ohio' ~ INV
R Auorrev General TAFT on the power OF the
3 nresident of the L. S, Senate in counting the
!, ,,roc,dcntial vote. Judge West, with pre-
tense of great judicial fairness, writes, OF
5 course as he was paid to do, very UNFAIR
; not to say contemptibly petnfogging, argu
) me Mt IN favor of the preposterous and extra
ordinary powers claimed by the conspirator'
|, for the president of the senate in the prem
ises. At the request of the Hon, Thomas
I How're and other leading democrats OF Chi
caco, the Hon. j. ID. Cation has been prevail
ed upon to review the "opnlon" OF this
Buckeye Judge, and never was so pretentlous
niece of demagoguery more etfectually rid
died.
Judge West o. course starts out by quoting
the constitutional provision from the i2th
amendment, that "the president OF the SEN
ate, shall, in the presence of the senate and
house of representatives, open al the certiti-
Gates, and the vote shall then be counted, -
and then lays down two propositions: l.
That no power not expressly delegated by
the constitution can be exercised by congress;
and g That no express power is vested by
this clause, or any other in the constitution,
in congress to count the electoral vote To
this judge Cation replies pertinenty;
! agree with the judge that that clause
does not IN cypress terms confer the power
upon congress on upon either houses thereof,
and | will further add, what he seems to
have forgotten, that 1t no more, IN express
terms, conters 1t upon the president OF the
| senate y
| Had that been the intention, other and few
er words would have been used-it would
have said he should open all the certificates
and count the votes. II the construction IN
sisted upon be correct, here are three unne.
cessary words used only for the purpose of
obsCuring their meaning Surely no other
instance of mlschievous verboSity can be
found in that instrument, which Is as much
distinguished for its economical use of words,
as 1t Is tor the selection of such as convey
clear and exact meaning whenever that was
possible. Let any one go through that in.
strument for the purpose Of selecting fewer
words, and at the same time expressing the
meaning more clearly and definitely, and he
will find he has undertaken a difficult task.
Frequently words are omitted for the sake of
brevity, which are to be supplied by implica-
ton, in order 10 express the full meaning,
and hence has arisen most of the am Digui.
ties In that instrument, and such is precisely
the case here. "And the vote shall then be
counted" by tie senate and house IF represen-
tdtiUes are the words to be understood, and
these were omitted as well to avoid their in.
harmonious repetition within the space of
two lines as for the sake of brevity. Had
they designed to convey the meaning which
would be expressed by adding the words by
the president IF tie senate after the words last
quoted, have already shown that they
would have conveyed their meaning by in
serting the word count" between land" and
the" and emitting the four terminal words
of the sentence The sentence would have
read The president of the senate shall, in
the presense OF the senate and house OF re.
representatives., open all the certificates and
count the votes There would have been no
ambiguity in thls-no room for cavil, and il
is an unjust reproach laid upon the trainers
OF the constitution that they used so many
illchosen words to express their meaning
and at last entirely failed to do So
Judge West goes on to say that the reason
why this powsr is conferred solely on the
president of the senate, and the two houses
are to sit and look on "as dumb Witnesses
is because his functions In the matter are
purely ministerial. The votes have been cast
by the several states, certificates of the fact
duly made by their executives and sent TO
the president of the senate, who on a gwen
day opens them, sets down the vote as each
certificate is read, foots up the column,
strikes balance, declares who has MAORI.
and thn unrl. &c damn npt
Judge Cation
According to the constitution, whoever
counts the votes must at least determine if
the electors were appointed according to the
laws of the state, and they are certified to by
The governor. The constitution expressly
prohibits certain persons from being appoint.
ed electors; he must determine whether that
provision of the constitution has been volat.
ed, and If 50, whether the vote thus given in
violation of the constitution, shall BIZ count
ed. 1t must be determined whether the per.
son who voted for president is of lawful age
and a native citizen of the United States aud
many other important questions, imposed by
the constitution upon somebody, must be set,
tied then and there.
Are these purely ministerial duties? But
in the further exercise of these extraordinary
ministerial functions, Judge West had sense
enough to see that the president of the senate
would stumble upon the certificate OF the ex
ecutivc of Oregon, and what would he do
then? Now remember Judge West is asked
TO give candid judicial opinion on gener
al question and cannot of course, in decency
refer 10 so peculiar Il feature of the case as il
stands as the OREGON complication involves
for on that nc opinion is asked. But here the
demagogue conspicuously crrps out; fer
while he has been maintaining ihal the Ger.
tiliCate o; the executive" of state is to be
the only guide of the president Of the senate
as TO the validity of a return, he suddenly
stops to make an exception, thus
The certificate of the state executive is gen.
orally accepted as priD,d tdcie evidence of the
due appointment If the electors in the man