Mr. Graham replied to that, as follows: HILLBBOBOUGH, Noni n CAsouxA, January 29, l I DiiAs Sis: I am much obliged by yours of the 24th instant. I had supposed the province of your committeeto embrace that of a ComElections and privileges, before which I take the rule to be without exceptionthat persons claiming to bemembers are crmitted to car what may be adduced against their claims and to bring forward counter vailing evidence. If this supposition benotcorrect. by reasonof the fact stated y ou, that the creden tials of gentlemenclaiming to e Senatorshave not {rbiegehnt oreffearred. the question Will recur. whetherthe State to representation is not entitled to an equal privilege of defenseby thosewhomshehas chosenfor that office. know not what. if anything], may be alleged against the right in question on the part of the Stat e otNCarolina. am satisfied that nothing can be alleged that ought to prevail: but until the objections and proofs are known. it is not possible to canvass them or to offer contradictory evidence. My sole purpose is to aid the committee, so far as this State is concerned, in the ascertainment of truth and to guard against exparte testimony from unknown or irresponsible sources. If, therefore. the committee will at any time furnish notice of points on which evidence the is desired or of prejudicial testimonywhich it is necessaryto meet, my colleagues and myself will gladly avail ourselvesof its permissiontootler such relevant proof asmay be m ouIr power. a 11 am, very respec u y, yours, W. A.V GRAHAM. Hon. WrLLrAir P. Fessinvnizn, Senate U.S. Now, sir, my own conception wad that this investigation involved the 2 matterh, the one personal to Mr. Graham and the other gentlemen who claim seats in the 2 Hon.es, and the other relatin to the States of which they were the selecte representatives. Mr. Graham was certainly involved in this inquiry personally. His State was involved in it, nas much as that State had a right to be represented on the floor of the Senate. The commit s were sitting judicially, as it strikes me, in relation to both those issues; and it seems to mefit was the obvious duty of the committee to have in formed at the threshold each and ev ry gentle man who was claiming a seat in t Senate of the fact of their appointmenban to investigate his case and the and to have invited Or at least fie v. Mr. Graham. that the committee at all of its. sessions would be ready and willing to allow him to be present before the committee. to hear the evidence that might be taken, to crossexamine the witnesses, and to suggest, to a reasonable extent, any countervailing proof that he might see fit to produce before the committee. How else can a committee proceed judicially? Does a court or a quasicourt proceed to hear charges and proof against any individual, leaving that individual in utter ignorance both of the charges and proof, at a distant point from the scene of investigation, and never up prise him at all that the investigation was proceeding, much less authorize him to be present, and to take such. rt in it as every person who is a party to a judicial investigation or a quasi judicial investiation by universal usage and by common rightis entitled to take in it? I make this as a mere suggestion, without any reflection upon the honorable Senfrom Maine. I suppose that he read this rely of Mr. Graham to the committee. If he did, it seems to me the committee ought to have at once entered upon the journal of its proceedings an order that Mr. Graham be informed that the committee will always be ready to permit him to be present when it is proceeding in the case of NCarolina, to hear and to cross examine all witnesses involving the State of NCarolina and his own personal privilege and rights as a Senfrom that State, and also to cause to be brought before it any witnesses that he, to a reasonable extent, might desire to bring before it. But Mr. Graham, as I understand, received no reply from any source whatever to this letter rejoinin to the answer of the Senfrom Maine. All that he knows in relation to the matter he learns from the public prints and from the publication of testimony taken by that committee and which the Senate ordered to be published.