If either house may reject, or by dissenting cause a rejection, then it is in the power of either house to overthrow the electoral colleges or the popular vote, and throw the election upon the House of Representatives.  This, it is clear to me, cannot be lawfully done unless no candidate has received a majority of the votes of all the electors appointed.  The sworn duty is to ascertain what persons have been chosen by the electors, and not to elect by Congress.

It may be said that the Senate would not be apt to throw the election into the House.  Not so, Mr. President; look at the relative majorities of the two houses of Congress as they will be after the fourth of March next.  It is true there will be a numerical majority of the members of the Democratic party in the House of Representatives, but the States represented will have a majority as States of the Republican party.  If the choice were to be made after March 4th, then a Republican Senate, by rejecting or refusing to count votes, could of its own motion throw the election into the House; which, voting by States, would be in political accord with the Senate.  The House of Representatives, like the present House in its political complexion, composed of a numerical majority, and having also a majority of the States of the same party, would have the power then to draw the election into its own hands.  Mr. President, either of these powers would be utterly dangerous and in defeat of the object and intent of the constitutional provisions on this subject.

Sir, this was my chief objection to the twenty-second joint rule.  Under that rule either house of Congress, without debate, without law, without reason, without justice, could, by the sheer exercise of its will or its caprice, disfranchise any State in the electoral college.  Under that rule we lived and held three presidential elections.

In January 1873, under a resolution introduced by the honorable Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman] and adopted by the Senate, the Committee on Privileges and Elections, presided over by the honorable Senator from Indiana [Mr Morton], proceeded to investigate the elections held in the States of Louisiana and Arkansas, and inquired whether these elections had been held in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the laws of said States, and sent for persons and papers and made thorough investigation, which resulted in excluding the electoral votes of Louisiana from the count, (See Report No. 417, third session Forty-Second Congress.)

The popular vote was then cast, and it was cast at the mercy of a majority in either branch of Congress, who claimed the right to annul it by casting out States until they should throw the election into a Republican House of Representatives.  I saw that dangerous power then, and, because I saw it then, am I so blind, am I so without principle in my action, that I should ask for myself a dangerous power that I refused to those who differ from me in opinion?  God forbid.