Mr. President, it is all a fallacy. By parliamentary law, the joint meeting of the Legislature of the State of NewJersey have a right to take the sense of their own body, and the Senate of the U.S. has no right to deny it to them and no power to interfere with them. It is by parliamentary law that every body properly constituted has a right, a natural right, to take according to their own rules the sease of their body, the same right that you have to make your plurality rule which you did make in this Senate, for you say in your rules that committees shall be appointed in the senate by a major vote. If so, why may not a plurality elect a U.S. Senator when r the majority of the electing body so declare? If gentlemen will read Cashing, if they will study up a little on parliamentary law, we shall not have such mistakes as these made. the question is simply, Mr. President, whether that body had a right to determine how they would take the sense of the body; and when they took their sense it was notapliirality who voted for me, and it was not a majority; but it was the whole body. If a majority of this Senate vote to turn me out from my seat, is it the majority that do it? No, it is the Senate of the U.S. that does it. The Senate of the U.S. is a unit by parliamentary law, and the Legislature of NewJersey is a iiuit. How they express their voice they determine for themselves. They express their voice according to the rules of parliamentary law where they adoptmone of their own; and by parliamentary law and by the constitution they have a right to adopt such rules as they lease. The rules must not beabsurd. There is no such allegation in this case, for under the same clause of5the Constitution of the U.S. members of congress are chosen by the people by a gliirality ru e in almost every tata in the U.S. The plurality rule is the law of election in the State of NewJerse y and in almost all the other States. In some of the NewEngland States, perhaps in NewHampshire, and I think in Maine the majority rule prevailed in the election of members of Congress at one time, but it was changed by the constitution of Maine; the constitution was altered for the purpose. You will find a very interesting examination in several of our legal werks and books on parliamentary law, into the history of how the different portions of this country adopted different rules in their general elections; but by the law of NewJersey, from the earliest times, all our local elections have been governed by the plurality rule. Mr. President, much has been said about no Senator ever having been elected in this we. before, in NewJersey or anywhere else, and it has been alleged that this was contrary to the custom in NewJersey. I have before me a copy of the minutes and proceedings of the joint meeting of the Legislature of NewJersey from October 31, 1788. Under the Articles of Confederation, before the adoptionof the constitution of the U.S., clegates to congress were elected by joint meeting in NewJersey, and the joint meeting made its own rules. This custom of having electionsin joint meeting and of the joint meeting laying its own rules existed in NewJersey before the formation of the Constitution of the U.S. The joint meeting up ears to have had no rules or at least the journa s do not set out any until the year 1794, when itadopted for the 1st time rules forits own government. Before that time, when there were no rules of the joint meeting, let me refer to an election which took place No"vember 23, 1790: The meeting proceedto the election of a Senator to representthis State in the Congressof the U.S. for supplying the vacanc of Governor Pater son: the personsin nomination eingPhilemon Dick v inson, Abraham Clark, and Jonathan Dayton, Lsqs.” The vote being taken, it appeared that