The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-02-01

GerSOn, Sargent, sherman. WeSt-17.
House.-The House took up the Electoral Tribunal
BILL and Mr.: McCrary, of Iowa, a member of the
joint committee, opened the debate. He said the
country was in the presence of very great and
very dang erons emergency. The present was a
crisis in national affairs which the fathers of the
republic had foreseen in 1900, and which at various
periods in the nations history great statesmen had
foreseen and had dreaded. The country was con-
frohted, not only with great and widespread diff
question, but it was confronted with what
was thousand-fold more perilous, with
the fact that the American people, American states
men, American lawyers and jurists were almost
equally divided, not only as to the merits of the
question but as to authorities to be cited He sub
m1tted that that statesman was false to his duty :
that that man did not come up the exigencies of
the occasion who would stop short in the most
earnest endeavors TO provide some lawful mode for
the decision of this question by a tribunal whose
authority nobody could question, and in whose de-
clsion all men would acquesce. Mr.. Hunton of Vir-
ginia, also member Of the committee advocated the
measure. He held that just the tellers provided
for in the twenty-second joint rule were but the
organs of the two houses, so the commission pro-
vided for in the bill but their organ to do for
them what they themselves might do. He also
held that the two houses had the right to count
the votes, so they had the right of concurrent
action to agree to any mode of counting
that. might seem best to them. Mr.. Hoar spoke
in favor of the bill. Nothing he said,
could be more injurious to the whole republic tnan
that a man should be in the Presidential Office
whom at least one-haIf of the American people
would regard as usurper He could not conceive
that the trainers of the constitution ever thought
of yielding to the President of the Senate the
power Of counting the electoral vote. That power
was in the two houses of Congress just as
the English Parliament had for centuries
regulated all questions affecting fine sue
cess1on to the crown. IN conclusion
Mr.. Hoar said "The act which we are about to
do will in my judgment be one of the very bravest
in human history. Our annals have been crowded
with great achievements in war, in peace in arts,
in literature in commerce; but other countries
have equaled us IN those particulars, but in this
great act we staud without rival and without
an example. For thousand years our children,
with tears Of joy and pride, will read that while
in fierce strife for executive power the Of other
republics after short but brilliant day
has gone down in darkness and in
blood, in their own country, too the same great
strife has arisen that their sky has been darkeDed
by the cloud: that their SHIP with its costly
freight Of love and nope, encountered the same
storm and was driven the same rocks, but that
in the midst of the storm and darkness and conflict
the august and awful figure of law rose over the
face of the waters, uttering it's divine, con-
trolling mandate, Peace, be STILL Mr..
Hale, OF Maine, spoke in opposition to
the bill. He said the measure startled
him by the bold assumption of the power of Con-
dent, which power, in his Judgment had never
been lodged IN the two houses by the trainers OF
the constitution. Whatever the popular impulse
might be now, this bill would not be sustained by
the American people when they should have time
to measure and contemplate its consequences. 1t
struck blow at the Electoral College, which
stood as high in the constitution as