Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/471

Rh be removed from his seat in the Senate, the legislature of Kansas is certain to put a successor into his place who will be of exactly the same party complexion, and there can, therefore, be no political loss or gain involved in a change as to party strength on this floor. If there ever was a case which might be treated upon its own merits, it is this.

We have to meet here, first, a question of law; secondly, a question of fact; and then, also, what I might call a question of policy as to the rigorous or lenient application of the law to the facts and the person.

In discussing the question of law, I invite the Senate to assume a state of facts as fully established. Suppose a person has taken his seat here, elected by a State legislature, presenting when he appeared among us regular credentials in the correctest form, and proving by the unusual evidence that in his election every prescription of law had been fully complied with. Suppose, then, it is subsequently shown that the election of that person was effected and carried by gross bribery; suppose a clear case discloses itself of a purchase with money of a seat in the Senate of the United States. Then the question arises: Has the Senate any power to protect itself by the exclusion of such a person?

An argument has been submitted by the Senator from Kansas, and as that argument goes further in its assumptions than any other, I will discuss it first.

He says the Senate cannot unseat that person by declaring the election invalid, because the Senate has not the Constitutional power to go behind the regular certificate of election, signed by the governor and bearing the great seal of the State; and, secondly, he says that the Senate cannot expel such a person by a two-thirds vote, because the act of bribery was committed before that person was a Senator, and the jurisdiction of the Senate cannot date