of private grant, if it did not touch the rights of a great people, there would be but one construction given to this language, that the expression of one grant excluded the other.  It was a single command to the President of the Senate that, as the custodian, he should honestly open those certificates and lay them before the two houses of Congress who were to act, and then his duty was done, and that was the belief of the men who sat in that convention, many of whom joined in framing the law of 1792 which directed Congress to be in session on a certain day and that the votes should be counted and the persons who should fill the office of President and Vice-president ascertained and declared agreeably to the Constitution.

The certificates are to be opened by their custodian, the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Let it be noted this is not in the presence of the Senators and Representatives, but it is in the presence of two organized bodies who cannot be present except as a Senate and as a House of Representatives, each with its own organization, its own presiding officer and all adjuncts, each organized for the performance of a great duty.

When the first drafts of the Constitution were made, instead of saying “in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives,” they called it “the Legislature.”  What is a Legislature?  A law-making body organized, not a mob, but an organized body to make laws; and so the law-making power of this Union, consisting of these two houses, is brought together.  But it seems to me a most unreasonable proposition to withhold from the law-making power of this government the authority to regulate this subject and yet be willing to intrust it to a single hand.  There is not a theory of this government that will support such a construction.  It is contrary to the whole genius of the government; it is contrary to everything in the history of the formation of the government; it is contrary to the usage of the government since its foundation.

The President of the Senate is commanded by the Constitution to open the votes in the presence of the two houses.  He does not summon them to witness his act, but they summon him by appointing a day and hour when he is to produce and open in their presence all the certificates he may have received, and only then and in their presence can he undertake to open them at all.  If he was merely to summon them as witnesses of his act it would have been so stated.  But when did the President of the Senate ever undertake to call the two houses together to witness the opening and counting of the votes?  No, sir; he is called at their will and pleasure to bring with him the certificates which he has received, and open them before them and under their inspection, and not his own.  When the certificates have been opened, when the votes have been counted, can the President of the Senate declare the result?  No, sir, he has never declared a result except as the mouthpiece and the organ of the two houses authorizing and directing him what to declare, and what he did declare was what they had ascertained and in which ascertainment he had never interfered by word or act.