Mr. DAWES. Mr. Speaker, nothing so cmharrasses a member speaking in this House as to have other gentlemen paying such close attention to what 0 says that they anticipate his utterances, and question him to know whether he means to say this or that. I was just about to say, Mr. Speaker, that this case presents a peculiar feature, one which, according to my recollection, never appeared in any of the 60 different cases, in the examination and decision of which ithas been my misfortune to participate; and that peculiar feature is this: a man comes here and contests the election of a sitting member who holds a certificate of the Governor of his State that he is entitled to the scat; yet the contestant does not offer one particle of testimony in support of his case. Not withstandin these 3 large volumes, the testimony o a single witness has not been taken by the contestant in this case. I do not speak of ruling out testimony on technical grounds. There has been no attempt to examine a sin le witness on the stand anywhere touching t 9 right of this man or proving that the majority should not declare the sitting member was entitled to the scat. He has attempted, on the other hand, to support this claim by papers, papers of every sort and description, scraps of paper, abstracts of papers, papers without be inning or end, statements made to the Legisature of Pennsylvania in another election case in that body, certain papers from the prothonotary’s office, certified apers from the SecyState; but, sir, from the beginning to the end he has not attached those papers to his case or shown what application or.influence they should have. I desire to go back and present this case from. the stand point of the repl made by the sittin member. The lucid and able report resente by the Gentfrom Wisconsin c oses with the contestant’s side of the case; and when it is cleared away from the mistakes into which. gentlemen naturally have fallen who depend upon their examination of the case here, it Wlll. be clear as sunlight that by the contestant’s side of the case it stands as reportedby the Gentfrom Wisconsin. But I propose to go to the other side and show to the House what is the reply to that case made by the sitting member, and to show what eTTect that has on llie merits of the case before I reach the counting of the votes. I give the House warning that I am obliged to wade through a system of practice, introduced for the 1st time in my recollection in this case, so utterly in defiance of statute regulation as I think the House will, when they come to understand it, agree to what the Gentfrom Wisconsin said yesterday, that it was the opinion of the committee that they had gone too far in this case to oblige the contestant without going into what he calls the merits of the case. Sir, the modes of trial indicated by statute system, the pleading adopted in courts, the rules of allegation and answer ndopted in this House to govern the action of tribunals before which facts are to be elicited have foundation in fact, and in the long run conduce toward the truth and cannot be abandoned without destroying the assurance we may have of arriv ing at the truth. And no court does justice to itself that countenances defiant efforts by parties before it contrary to the rules sanctioned by courts of law. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to listen to what this Congress has said shall be the mode and method of trying election cases. I ask whether you propose to abandon and throw up the case and say there shall be no such thing hereafter as compelling a contestant to give a sitting member notice of the particular ground upon which the contestant proposes to make the contest. Now, the statute says: “ Whenever any person shall intend to contestthe election of any member of the HoRep of the U.S. he shall Within 30 I want you to mark that. “That he shall within 30 daysafter the result of such election shall have been determinedby the officer or board of canvasscrs"I ask the House to remember that"or board of cunvasscrsauthorized by law to determine the same, give notice in writing to the member WllUnt!sent he designsto contest that it is his intention to contest the same: and in such notice shall state particularly the grounds upon which he relics in the contest.” It is hardly worth while to call attention to the reasonableness of this. It is the law, and it is not only the law, but it is founded in reason and justice. See how it was conformed to in this case. On the 4th of November, 1864, the board of canvassers determined the result in this district, and gave to the sitting member his certificate of election. Subsequently to that, in conformity to law, on the 30th of De cember, the Governor of the Commonwealth issued a general reclamation declaring that these judges had dhcided that the sitting member was elected, with others. Within 30 days, says the statute, anyone intending to contest the seat shall serve upon the member notice thereof; and the statute says expressly that the notice shall be served upon him. When this statute was enacted an attempt was made to provide for a notice at his house, or to a.3rd person residing at his house; and expressly did the Congress of the U.S. vote down the proposition to give that authority, and declared that it must be apersonal notice on him. And this House, during this very present session, has adopted that construction in the case of Follett vs. Delano. For a notice to be served upon the sitting member according to law, it must have been served upon him personally before the 4th day of December last: that would make the 30 days. Now, this Congress met on the 4th day Of December; the sitting member was a member of it and it was known to everybody in Pennsylvania that he would probably be in his sent here that day. And yet, on the 0th day of December, 32 days after the notice, and at a time when the contestant must have I known that the sittin member was in his seat. here, what was done' I Will read the return: Fayette(lmnly. as.' On this 7thdayofScpti inber.A. D.1865b.eforeme the subscliber, one of the CommonwealthJustices of the peacein and for the county]of Inyi tic, person ally appearedlteiisou Lynch.iv 0, beingby meduly nflirined accordingto law, says that he served the within notice, b It true copy thereof.contestingthe cCloencgtiroensosf.blloyn. ohnL.Daw.'on.iutho 3hiiith S mith Fuller, Esq" by lcnvrng n. of the same With Biildy Reynolds copy on the even1ngot the tithday of December.A. D. 1864a, t his residence. To which placehe invited her. believing her to behis (Dawson’s) housekeeper, she having the keys of his house, he and his family being absent from home at the time. REASON LYNCH, Constable. Affirmed and subscribed before me the day and data abovementioned. WILLIAM L. WILKINSON, Justice of the peace. That was all the notice that was ever served upon the sitting member, and it was given at his place of residence 32 days after he had received the certificate of election, and when it was known that he ought to have been in his seat here. They hunted up an Irish girl in some other part of the town, who had been, I suppose, although there is no evidence of the fact, a servant of the sitting member, enticed her to hisHouse, and etting her to turn the door key handed over to her this notice; and that is all the notice that was ever served upon the sitting member. Now, I do not mean to impute to Mr. Smith Fuller any design to wait before serving his notice until the sitting member had come on here and taken his seat. I only saythatif he did not know that the sitting member would leave his home before the 4th day of December, which was the end of the 30 days, then I am sorry for him. The law says that the service of notice shall be personal. Now, how did we get over that? Iain almost ashamed to tell the House; but in our anxiety to ascertain whether Smith Ful ler really had any right to contest this seat on the merits, the committe. but their heads to, gether to get over this diculty. And I will tell the House frankly, whatever opinion they may have of us as lawyers, how we got over it. We said, that for the purposes of this case, we would hold that the board of canvassers who canvassed the result and gave the certificate to the sitting member should not be can sidered as having determined the result, but that in order that justice might not fail, we would hold that the proclamation of the governor stating who was elected should be the initial point from which the 30 days should run; and that he should have the right to serve his notice 30 days from that date. Well, we got into another trouble when we did that, because fiproclamntion was not issued until the 80th y of December, and the notice was served on the 6th; so that it was served 24 days too soon. I am on the “ confessional” now, and I will tell you the whole story. He served his notice 24 days before the statute began to run; he fired off his gun too soon. [Laughter.] How did we get over that? We turned to the sitting member’s answer, and we found this statement: “ThisrespondontisaRepresentativein thoTliirty 8th Congressof the U.S. The 2nd session of that body commencedon the 5th day of December.1864, and this respondent, to be in readi nessfor the dischargeof his official duties. arrived in Washington city on the morning of the 4th. n the 12th of said month he received by mail, from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, a.Super beariiiiz date nt Uniontown. Pennsylvania, cccmber 3, 1864, With the name of Smith Fuller appended.purporting to be a notice to this respondent that the said Smith Fuller would contesthis election as Representative of the 21st district of Pennsylvnnia in the 39th Congressof the U.S. I This ressomlent know nothing of said papers until the sin 12thday of December. Whether the same was written or signed by the said Smith Fuller or by some other person.he does not know and has no meansof knowing." That is to say, that in his answer he acknowl edged that on the 12th day of December he got the notice. So we took him at his word. But that did not get us entirely out of the difficulty, because even that was 18 days before the time began to run. We were therefore constrained to put our heads together again to get over that difficulty, and we did it in this way: we ruled, in order that justice might not fail, that if the sitting member got the notice on the 12th of December, he probably kept it till the 30th, and that we would presume that on the 80th it was in his possession; or that if a man gets a notice too soon and answers it, and does not. take advantage of that defect, we decide that he might reasonably be held to have waived that objection. Well, then, we had another trouble, because in this answer the sitting member says: “This respondent therefore excepts to said pra te"ndednotice. for the following reasons.namely:. That said pretendednotice wasneverserved. “2. That said pretended notice was neverserved on this respondent pesronally. “3. That said. pretended notice was not served wi“thin the time requiredby law. This respondentfurther exceptstosaidpretended notice that the same is insensible.unintelligible and so vagueand general in its allegations as to furnish this respondentwith no means whatever of making evena conjectureas to the particular rounds upon which said Fuller designsto contut the validity of his election." And last of all we were driven to rule, in order that the case might not fall right through that excepting to the notice on the ground that it was not served within the time was not excepting to it on the ground thatitwas served. before the time; and under that ruling we held the respondent to answer to this notice. I submit, therefore, that the ComElections might well querry whether they had not gone too far for the ease and comfort of such men as may serve it on that committee in time to come. Now, ask the House to listen for one moment to the allegations of the contestant, to see what it is that this respondent is required to meet. He undertook to sustain his case by 11 allegations, all of which but 3 he abandoned on the hearing before the committee. And he reall under took to sustain but one of them. before I proceed further, however, I wish once more to read to the House from the statute what should be the character of this notice: " And in such notice shall specify particularly the groundsupon which he relies in the contest.”