In
England and Canada it has been found necessary to commit to
the courts the consideration of election cases. It is seldom
that either House of Congress has resisted partisan temptation
in election cases, when one seat only was the prize of the
contest. Is it likely that public virtue would withstand
the temptation of the Presidency?
The simple doctrine on which the Commission proceeded was
that the right to determine absolutely and finally who are
the duly chosen presidential electors is committed by the
Constitution to the States. The judgment of the tribunal
established by the State for that purpose is conclusive on
all the world. Congress is only to count the votes of the
officials found by the State to have the right to cast them.
It is said that in the Oregon case the Commission departed
from this principle, which they had acted upon in the case
of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. But there is not
the slightest truth in that suggestion. In all of those
three cases the laws of the State had established a tribunal
with absolute right to determine all questions arising out of
the election.
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