Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/478

458 what was called here an encroachment upon the rights of the State? Let us see. In what would such encroachment consist? Not in this, that the Senate in declaring such an election invalid arrogates a power to itself which belongs to the State, for no such power ever belonged to the State, and certainly you cannot encroach upon a power which does not exist. You might just as well say that I arrogate to myself your right to draw upon my deposit in a bank, or that I encroach upon your right to educate my children. Nor can that pretended encroachment consist in this, that the State is thereby deprived of its elected representative, for, in the case I have assumed, first, that representative is not legally elected; secondly, it must be presumed, in common-sense and decency, that the State would rather desire to be relieved of a representative who has defrauded it, (and I include in the term representative Senators also), and that it would itself annul its own act if it had the power to do so, which it has not; and, thirdly, the State is not deprived of its representation nor of its choice, for upon the unseating of a member for such a cause a new election will be ordered in the State at once; the whole matter is turned over to the State legislature for its action, and it may elect the same person turned out by the Senate if it so sees fit.

The whole pretense, therefore, of an encroachment on the sovereign and rightful powers of the State vanishes into utter nothingness. The State retains unimpaired the full scope of its Constitutional powers and rights. The Senate by annulling an election carried by fraud or bribery only does by virtue of its Constitutional powers what the State would be glad to do, but cannot; and when that is done the whole matter is turned over to the State once more for a new election, and the State after all is the final arbiter. The exercise of this power by the Senate does, therefore,