Now, one thing has been accepted as a legal maxim from time immemorial, and that is, that fraud vitiates a contract, vitiates a bond, a judgment. Who will deny that fraud would vitiate also that which we might call a conditional relation between a constituency and a Representative, and the Legislative branch of the Government? But if each house is Constitutionally the judge, not only of the qualifications and of the returns, but also of the essence of an election, must it not have power to judge whether an election is vitiated by fraud or not? The House of Representatives has always acted on that principle by virtue of the Constitutional provision conferring upon the Senate and the House the same power in the same language. Then I will ask, why not the Senate?
But it is objected that the position of a Senator is widely different from the position of a Representative; that a Senator represents a State; that the election of a Senator by a State legislature according to law is the conclusive act of a State sovereign in its sphere, and that, if duly certified, it cannot be questioned. It is claimed that there is a certain mysterious power attaching to the great seal of a State affixed to a certificate of election which is foreign to the certificate of election of a Representative. I need not say to the Senate that I am as firm an advocate and defender of Constitutional State-rights and of local self-government as any member of this body; but I affirm that the Constitution does not give a State sovereign control over its Senators, but it does just the reverse. True, the Constitution provides “that the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof for six years, and each Senator shall have one vote.” In so far Senators may be regarded as the representatives of their respective States, and undoubtedly they are. But the Constitution does not regard the election of a
