Mr. HOWARD. Mr. President, I shall vote for this amendment to the resolution of the ComJudiciary. I was not present last week when this subject was before the Senate or I should have endeavored to express my ideas to the Senate on the subject more fully and at Ialege than I now propose to do, bat I cannot suffer this subject to be acted upon finally without saying a I few words. have read with a good deal of interest the r port made by that learned committee upon this subject, and have endeavored to comprehend the facts in the case as clearly as I was able, and also the law which is applicable to the case, and on the most mature reflection that I have been able to give it, I have come to the conclusion that the committee, learned as they are confesse dly, are wrong in the result to which they have arrived. The committee at. the conclusion of their report, lay down this broad proposition: “Your committeeprefer placing the authority of the joint meetingto prescribe the plurality rule on the broaderground, that in the absenceof any law. either of Congress or the State, on the subject.ajoint meetin" of the 2 Housesof a Legislature, duly as semble and vested with the nuthority to elect a U.S. Senator, has a right to rescribethat a plurality may elect on the principle! at ti O adoptionof such a rule by a majority vote in the rat in stancemakes the act, subsequently done in pursuancoof such majority vote, its own.“ Sir, I deny the soundness of the law thus announced. Mr. Stockton was elected at a joint meeting of the 2 Houses of the Legislaturd of NewJcrsey acting together. The sole object and the sole power pertaining to that body, so far as the c cction of a U.S. Senator was concerned, was to elect a U.S. Senator for the State of NewJcrse y. That was tbe object for which they were assembled. That was the extent of the trust and of the power conferred upon that body. That was the whole subject matter about which they could hold discussions and upon which they could vote. Now, sir, I deny the principle laid down by the committee of this House, that it is competent for such a body of men to part with that power which by the common law and common sense pertains to the majority, and to turn over the power and the functions which they are to exercise to a minority, or a plurality even. If the principle were applicable in that joint meeting, it is upon the same ground aplicable in the Senate of the U.S., an it may with just as much propricty be said that it is competent for the Senate of the U.S., by a resolution, to declare that a pluralit of its members may pass bills as it was or that joint meeting to declare thut a mere plurality might elect. a U.S. Senator. Sir, it strikes me as bein an abdication of the powbr conferred upon tiem by the Legislature. an abandonment of a public trustplaced in their hands forimportant sacred public purposes; n trust and a duty of which ihpy could not divest themselves without the commission of a great fault, not to say a public crime. If the principle thus announced by the committee be correct it would have been competent in that case or the convention known as the 2 Houses to have elected a U.S. Senator by simply the votes of 2 of its members. I be meeting consisted of 81 persons. Suppose there had been 80 candiates for the U.S. Senate, and 79 of those candidates had received one vote each, and the remaining candidate had received 2 votes only, which would have been a plurality, the result would have been that the individual receiving only 2 votes in that body would, upon the principle laid down by the committee, have been elected to the U.S. Senate for 6 years. It strikes me that this view of the subject is too plain not to challenge the attention of every member of this body, and of the country at large. Without spending further time on the subject, I conclude by saying that I look upon the election of Mr. Stockton by the body by which he purports to have been clect d, as having been in utter violation of the fundamental principles of universal law as well as of the principles embodied in the constitution of NewJersey itself, which prohibits any act to be passed or any resolution to be passed having the force of law, unless it receives the sanction of a.majority of each of the 2 Houses of their Legis gature. That is a provision contained in the constitution of NewJersey. It is, in the language of the Constitution of the U.S., the duty of the Le vislature of each State to elect U.S. Senators. The very phrase ology of the instrument shows that it is to he an act of that body known in the State as the Legislature, and possessing the legislative power of the State. his convention possessed no I. legislative power; it was in no sense the legislature of the State of NewJersey, but was a mere convention established by law for the purpose of doing one single act, and that was to clecta U.S. Senator. The convention could act only by a majority. lt assumed to act through a minority of its own body, and the Gentfrom NewJersey, now upon this floor claiming a seat, cannot claim that he had the su iport and suffrages of a majorit of the Legisfature of NewJersey and for tint reti son it is that Ihold the election was totally void in law, and that he has no right whatever to a seat upon this floor.