The Constitutional Question of the Electoral Count
Senator Edmunds's addition to the vote announcement revives an old dispute
A careful constitutional explainer on whether the President of the Senate has any authority to formally declare a presidential election's result, tracing the dispute back to the disputed Hayes-Tilden count of 1877.
NewsPipe summary
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Page 4
1 min readThe unusual addition made by Mr. Edmunds, as President of the Senate, to the announcement of the electoral vote, excited no little stir in Congress, and revives the question of the authority of the President of the Senate, which was so prominent and important eight years ago.
The only provision in the constitution bearing on the question is the following: "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed." The constitution does not say who shall declare the vote, or that there shall be any declaration of the vote.
In 1877 Mr. Ferry formally declared Hayes and Wheeler elected. This was declared an usurpation of authority by the Democrats. Since then Mr. Edmunds has been trying in vain to secure legislation to prevent disputed elections, and time has confirmed him in his opinion that the presiding officer of the joint session can simply state the result of the count, and has no authority to declare anybody elected.
He accordingly, after having stated that Cleveland and Hendricks appeared from the count to have been elected, added: "And the President of the Senate makes this declaration only as a statement in the presence of the two Houses of Congress of the contents of the papers opened and read on this occasion, and not as possessing any authority in law to declare any legal conclusion whatever."
Was this worth reading?
This is how the site learns what to look for. Ratings move the weights behind the front page; notes go into the editorial brief that guides what gets pulled from the archives next.
Elsewhere in the archive
Basil's Temptation (concluded)
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885
A serialized Victorian melodrama reaches its climax as the narrator, Basil, agonizes over whether to conceal evidence that could save an innocent man from execution, at the cost of exposing his wife Philippa's secret — a vivid example of the sensational fiction serials that filled 19th-century newspaper columns.
They Didn't Know It Was Loaded
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Montpelier, Vermont
A slapstick office accident at a rival Montpelier newspaper — a falling bookcase nearly flattens the entire editorial staff — is reported with wry amusement.
Waterbury's Maple Sugar Oracle
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Waterbury, Vermont
A wonderfully small-scale piece of forgotten Vermont folklore: a local man's yearly forecasts of the maple sugar harvest, taken seriously enough to print.
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting, at Middlebury
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Middlebury, Vermont
Minutes of the Vermont Merino Sheep-Shearing Association's fourth annual meeting reveal debts, delinquent dues, and a heated debate over admitting privately-sheared sheep into official records.