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Show THE FODETEENTH OF FEBRUARY. The republican programme for counting the votes for president and vice president and dccUring the result is foreshadowed in a dispatch lithe li-the New York Tribune. The presiding pre-siding officer of the senate is to permit per-mit no debate and listen to no objections objec-tions when tho two houses arc assembled on the second Wednesday of February. lie will nim ply court! 1&j voles for Hayes and declare him elected, no mailer whether the housti shall amcnt to his action or not. Thin is mere braggadocio, not worth tho paper it is written on. If the two houses cannot reach an agrceinen before tho dny for tho count And declaration of the votes as to tho method of proceeding, tho house will insist upon such objections as it may determine upon in reference to stairs, the electoral votes of which shall be cl'-arly AverlniiiMl lo have been fraudulently returned. In accord anee with tho constitution, wild repealed precedents, and with the character of the Ivyfy these objectioiiR must he heard and entertained, Thry may not and probably will not hn no C'dil to by the senate; but tho houao must inevitably stand by 1(4 right of objection, after it hae onco been determined de-termined upon. The man who occupies occu-pies the chair of the senate hag no greater power than any member of the joint body savo to open the certificates. certifi-cates. As president of the joint body he ceases to bo the presiding officer of the senate, and is (subject to tho will of tho majority of the members of the convention. If any vote ia to be taken by the houses separately, the one or the olher mudt withdraw from the co-ivontion to its own ball. Henco it ib questionable whether the convention conven-tion is not as a legally constructed con-sti'utional con-sti'utional body subject to the ordinary parliamentary rules governing deliberative bodies, and whether a majority ma-jority of the convention Bhould not decide all questions which may arise in refereuco to the counting and declaration of tho vote. However this may bo it will be found an exceedingly ex-ceedingly awkward thing in practice for the presiding officer of tho senate to attempt to iguore the rights of the house in the performance of this duty. . Neither will he attempt it. We do not believe that Mr. Hayes, if declared elected under the pro-1 pro-1 test of the house of representatives, j in joint convention, Kill tnkc his i seat, no matter what military lorco Grant may have gathered at the capital to inaugurate him. We do not believe that a majority of the senate will assume this power for their presiding officer. But if Buch 6hculd be tho case-, the house, in the exercise of its constitutional prerogative preroga-tive will have no other alternative but to decide that there has been no election of president of the United States and immediately proceed by ballot to elect a president. The question ques-tion of the inauguration is a distinct one with which the present congress will not have to deal. Ita responsibility responsi-bility in the premises will end on the 4th of March, up to which time it must fulfill its constitutional functions. |