Mr. CLARK. I maintain that it was by the common law of the land, applicable to corporations aggregate and inunici wal corcrntinns; but the question was settle in 3 Illarrington, in the case of the city of Wilmington. The city of Wilmington having the power, if they had chosen to use it, to make a law that a flu rality should elect, and having failed to do that, the Chief Justice said it required a majority, because they had not provided for a plurality, as they might have done. The Chief Justice said the common law must govern in such a case. Here, then, you have these men goin into joint convention under the constitution of NewJersey for the purpose of electing a senator, and electing that Senator how? According to the law of the land, it required a majority, and when they got into that convention, because they could not elect by a majority, they undertook to alter the law of the land, and to provide that a plurality should elect. We deny that that rule can have any such force. They undertake to plead custom in regard to making rules. If they could plead custom as to rules, they could plead custom only as to the rule which they had made. They could not plead a customas to this rule, because never before in the existence of the State had they attempted to make such a rule. This is the 1st time in the history of NewJersey that they attempted to establish such a rule; and I cannot imagine how we are expected to support it because they had mndeanother rule that was not obnoxious. But it is said by the Senfrom Indiana that we are concluded in this matter; that we, the Senate of the U.S., I suppose he means, are concluded; that we cannot go back of what is done in that joint convention, and that they by their action have concluded the Senate of the U.S. Let us see. They had passed this rule in their joint convention that a plurality should elect. Mr. Stoukton gets 40 votes, In rethan anybody else, a la rality, and then the speaker or the President of the Assembly declares him to be elected; and because all those 41 gentlemen who sat around and had votedn that very convention that that plurality should not elect, did not get up and cry out, “It shall not be so, Mr. Speaker, ” the are concluded and they cannot come here an make an objection! lher is one thin certain, I think; if they were concluded, the Senate of the U.S. were not concluded. They are the judges in this case, and the Senate of the U.S. were not there to assent or dissent. But they were not concluded. Suppose one man had got up and objected, “I do not assent, ” would that have been an election? Certainly, because there would have been 80 left. But suppose another rose, and so every one, one after another must have got up and said, “Mr. Chairman, I dissent, " or else Mr. Stockton, forsooth, would have been elected and the whole thing concluded. Was anything more senseless ever put forward so seriously? I do not know of an thing unless it would be the Senfrom In i ana quoting the authority of some justice of the peace out in that State on a question of law, and saying that a man was concluded in that suit because he did not do so and so. Are we to be told that the Senate of the U.S., in judging of the qualificationsofaperson who comes here to claim a seat, is to be entirely barred, and this provision of the Constitution that we may look into and judge of the election and qualification of a man when he gets here is to be entircl nugatory and set aside, because the men in that convention did not get.up and say, “I object. Mr. Speaker, I object?” That cannot be so. These men may not have agreed to it in their own minds, but they might well have said, “When this man goes to the Senate of the U.S. there is a tribunal before which we will appear and appeal to them whether a rule of this kind setting aside a law of the Stateis to override us and qualify this man to hold his seat.” That is the point, and it only shows the lameness and the weakness of a case which undertakes by an estoppel of that kind to prevent a majority of the Legislature of Newdersey from appearing here and contesting this mans seat. Mr. President, this debate runs in so narrow and well defined a channel that it is difficultto say more. The main question is, did that resolution passed in the joint meeting have the effect of overruling the law of the State? I admit that a deliberative body may make laws for the government of their proceedings; but, as I said yesterday, this is a law declaring what shall be the result of the proceeding, not de claring how they shall proceed; and never, as appears from the records of that State, have they attempted anything of the kind before. They say t lot as early as 1852 arule was passed that a person to be elected should have a majority of all those elected to the Legislature. u pose that was done, and suppose a person ha had a majority of those present, but not a majority of all those elected to the Legislature, he might have come to this Senate for all that and have contended that he was elected, and I d“oubt whether the Senate would not have said You are elected.” But no action happened under it because they never had an election under it; it was not necessary to contest it. If that was a bad custom, you cannot plead it in justification and in support of this bad custom or this bad rule. Because they made rules from time to time that were never questioned, entirely different from this, it cannot be argued that this rule is authorized. It depends upon the rule itself, and what is the effect of the rule, and how far it goes, and whether it overturns the law of the State and undertakes to put into this Senate a man elected by a pluraity and not by a majority, when there was no law of the State of NewJersey authorizing that to be done.