exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; and it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great fundamental principles into law: Therefore,

Be it enacted . . ., That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.

SEC. 2. That any person who shall violate the foregoing section by denying to any citizen, except for reasons by law applicable to citizens of every race and color, and regardless of any previous condition of servitude, the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges in said section enumerated, or by aiding or inciting such denial, shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered in an action of debt, with full costs; and shall also, for every such offense, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars, or shall be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than one year.

SEC. 3. That the district and circuit courts of the United States shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several States, cognizance of all crimes and offenses against, and violations of, the provisions of this act . . .

SEC. 4. That no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors who shall exclude or fail to summon any citizen for the cause aforesaid shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined not more than five thousand dollars.

*

No. 177.

Electoral Count Act

January 29, 1877

THE result of the presidential election of 1876 turned on the counting of the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, from each of which States there were double returns. December 7, 1876, George W. McCrary of Iowa offered in the House a resolution for the appointment of a committee of five, to act with a similar committee of the Senate, with instructions to report a bill for the counting of the electoral vote. The Committee on the Judiciary, to which the resolution was referred, reported on the 14th a substitute increasing the number of members to seven, which resolution was agreed to. A similar committee of seven was appointed by the Senate on the 18th. A committee was also appointed in the Senate to investigate the recent election, and in the House to inquire into the powers of the House in regard to counting the electoral vote. January 18 the joint committee reported a bill to regulate the electoral count. The bill passed the Senate without amendment on the 24th by a vote of 47 to 17, and the House on the 26th by a vote of 191 to 86, 14 not voting. The approval of President Grant was communicated in a special message. The count began February 1, and the result was announced in the early morning of March 2. The result of the count showed 185 votes for Hayes and Wheeler, the Republican candidates, and 184 votes for Tilden and Hendricks, the Democratic candidates. REFERENCES. Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XIX., 227–229. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 44th Cong., 2d Sess., and the Cong. Record. The report of the commission is in the Record, ibid., Vol. 5, Part IV.; it was also published separately. A large amount of documentary evidence was introduced in the debates. The other documentary literature is extensive.

An act to provide for and regulate the counting of votes for President and Vice-President, and the decision of questions arising thereon, for the term commencing . . [March 4, 1877].

Be it enacted That the Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives, at the hour of one o'clock post meridian, on the first Thursday in February, . . . [1877]; and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate, and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates, and papers purporting to be certificates, of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alpha

betical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tellers having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted as in this act provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, and the names of the persons, if any, elected, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected President and Vice-President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the journals of the two houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper when there shall be only one return from a State, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State from which but one return has been received shall be rejected except by the affirmative vote of the two Houses. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the question submitted.

SEC. 2. That if more than one return, or paper purporting to be a return from a State, shall have been received by the President of the Senate, purporting to be the certificates of electoral votes given at the last preceding election for President and VicePresident in such State, (unless they shall be duplicates of the same return,) all such returns and papers shall be opened by him in the presence of the two Houses when met as aforesaid, and read by the tellers, and all such returns and papers shall thereupon be submitted to the judgment and decision as to which is the true and lawful electoral vote of such State, of a commission constituted as follows, namely: During the session of each House on

the Tuesday next preceding the first Thursday in February [1877] . . ., each House shall, by viva voce vote, appoint five of its members, who with the five associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, to be ascertained as hereinafter provided, shall constitute a commission for the decision of all questions upon or in respect of such double returns named in this section. On the Tuesday next preceding the first Thursday in February

..

. . [1877] . . ., or as soon thereafter as may be, the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States now assigned to the first, third, eighth, and ninth circuits shall select, in such manner as a majority of them shall deem fit, another of the associate justices of said court, which five persons shall be members of said commission; and the person longest in commission of said five justices shall be the president of said commission. . All the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes of each State shall be opened, in the alphabetical order of the States, as provided in section one of this act; and when there shall be more than one such certificate or paper, as the certificates and papers from such State shall so be opened, (excepting duplicates of the same return,) they shall be read by the tellers, and thereupon the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all such objections so made to any certificate, vote, or paper from a State shall have been received and read, all such certificates, votes, and papers so objected to, and all papers accompanying the same, together with such objections, shall be forthwith submitted to said commission, which shall proceed to consider the same, with the same powers, if any, now possessed for that purpose by the two Houses acting separately or together, and, by a majority of votes, decide whether any and what votes from such State are the votes provided for by the Constitution of the United States, and how many and what persons were duly appointed electors in such State, and may therein take into view such petitions, depositions, and other papers, if any, as shall, by the Constitution and now existing law, be competent and pertinent in such consideration; which decision shall be

made in writing, stating briefly the ground thereof, and signed by the members of said commission agreeing therein; whereupon the two houses shall again meet, and such decision shall be read and entered in the journal of each House, and the counting of the votes shall proceed in conformity therewith, unless, upon objection made thereto in writing by at least five Senators and five members of the House of Representatives, the two Houses shall separately concur in ordering otherwise, in which case such concurrent order shall govern. No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.

SEC. 6. That nothing in this act shall be held to impair or affect any right now existing under the Constitution and laws to question, by proceeding in the judicial courts of the United States, the right or title of the person who shall be declared elected, or who shall claim to be President or Vice-President of the United States, if any such right exists.

THE coinage act of February 12, 1873 [No. 174], omitted the silver dollar from the list of pieces thereafter to be coined, but retained the trade dollar. A bill to provide for the free and unlimited coinage of silver dollars was introduced in the House December 13, 1876, by Richard P. Bland of Missouri, as a substitute for a bill "to utilize the products of gold and silver mines," introduced June 3. The bill passed the House the same day by a vote of 167 to 53, 69 not voting. In the Senate the bill was referred to the Committee on Finance, which reported it January 16, 1877, without recommendation, pending the report of the silver commission. November 5, by a vote of 164 to 34, 92 not voting, the rules were suspended to allow Bland to introduce and the House to pass a free coinage bill. The bill was taken up

1 "The previous question being ordered and the rules suspended, a single vote would introduce the bill without a reference to a committee, and would pass it