Mr. DAWES. Mr. Speaker, 2 positions which have been taken as well by the sitting member as by the minority of the committee deserve, if no other position taken by them de serves, special notice. The 1st is that the committee who made this report knew, and its chairman dare not state to the contrary, that the sitting member had a majority of the legal votes cast in this district, and that therefore the re arts which they have brought in here are fa se. If the sittin member and the gentlemen of the minority hag contented themselves with arguing that such was the fact, or asserting their own conviction that according to their construction of the evidence it was the fact, or affirming that according to the weight which in their opinion fair minded men ought to give to the testimony such was the fact, nothing would be left for me at this time but to argue the question fairly with them and the House, submit ting it to the judgment of the House and taking its verdict upon it. The question would simply be whether the weight. of the proof in the case was what the majority of the committee believe, or whether it was what the sitting member and the minority of the committee maintain it to be. That would be a fair question to be met; a fair difference of opinion, open to fairnnd unprejudiced remark, and which it would become me to argue fairly, candidly, and truthfully. But the form in which they have chosen to put this matter is quite another thing. I observe they both use precisely the same language. So I understand it to be the result of conference; and it means nothing more nor less than this. The ComElections. chared with the highest duties that can be impose upon a committee of this House, whatever little interest this House may take in questions continu ally brought before it by this committee, have never felt otherwise, sir, than that every question touching the right of a member to a seat upon this floor—a high prerogative guarantied to the House itself, excluding all other branches of the Government from participation or influence therein, to pass upon the qualification and election return of its own members; the highest that exists in this body, the most solemn and sacred of them all—it was becoming that every member exercising his functions thereto should approach it as well as the lot of human nature would permit him, with candor and without prejudice. But, sir, I am to answer the assertion I cannot state to this House that I have not come in here with areport that I know was false. Sir, in behalf of the other members of this committee who have joined with me in this report, as well as my own, I say ifI had come here with a report of the character charged by my colleague on the committee and the sitting member, neither of us would be worthy longer of a seat in this House, much less of further respect in the committee in reference to the qualification of members. It is because we do believe, after a patient and candid hearing of both parties on all the testimony the cared to sub mit to us, and aftera faithful an carefulexamination and reexamination of that whole testimouy, it is because all of us are of the conviction, it was our duty to say that the contestant, and not the sitting member had a majority of the legal votes cast in this district for him. Sir, along with it comes a matter which the sitting member, thinking of more importance than any other connected with the case, put in the fore front of his speech and set out in the beginning as the chief element of his argument, namely, a charge on the committee which he knew the chairman could not refute or admit unless he had the consent of the House and saw fit to refute it; a charge which I have some reason to think, Mr. Speaker, has been calculated on for some time, for I noticed from his friends it was to be precisely as it was. I have some reason also to now that the gentleman knew exactly what trgnspired in committee touching this case, and which no member of the committee had the slightest reason or objectibn then, any more than they have now, to withheld from this House or the country. Nothing transpired in the committee when I was present, and I have the assurance of every member of the committee that nothing transpired in my absence different from what transpired in the committee touching every case examined there, and what has transpired in committee over and over again 20 times when the distinguished sitting member in this case served on this committee, whether he was cognizant of it or not. I here submit to the House, in justification of my colleagues on this committee, I am prepared to show every thing which transpired in that committee touching our decision, when we arrived at it, and how we arrived at it. It was understood by the the sitting member when he made the charge against the committee, that it was easy for him to call attention to afact which he knew could not be answered.