Government the lists of all persons voted for as President and of all persons voted for as Vice-President;1 and section one hundred and thirty-six of the Revised Statutes 2 is hereby repealed; and if there shall have been any final determination in a State of a controversy or contest as provided for in section two of this act, it shall be the duty of the executive of such State, as soon as practicable after such determination, to communicate, under the seal of the State, to the Secretary of State of the United States, a certificate of such determination, in form and manner as the same shall have been made; and the Secretary of State of the United States, as soon as practicable after the receipt at the State Department of each of the certificates hereinbefore directed to be transmitted to the Secretary of State, shall publish, in such public newspaper as he shall designate, such certificates in full; and at the first meeting of Congress thereafter he shall transmit to the two Houses of Congress copies in full of each and every such certificate so received theretofore at the State Department.

SEC. 4. That Congress shall be in session on the second Wednesday in February succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of one o'clock in the afternoon on that day, 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

1 By an act of October 19, 1888, certificates and lists of votes for President and Vice-President were required to be forwarded" to the President of the Senate forthwith after the second Monday in January on which the electors shall give their votes."

2" It shall be the duty of the executive of each State to cause three lists of the names of the electors of such State to be made and certified, and to be delivered to the electors on or before the day on which they are required... to meet" (act of March 1, 1792, sec. 3).

upon in the alphabetical 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 in the manner and according to the rules 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, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, 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, 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 which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section three of this act from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. 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, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section two of this act to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors

or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section two of this act, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its laws; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the Executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. 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. 5. That while the two Houses shall be in the meeting as provided in this act the President of the Senate shall have power to preserve order; and no debate shall be allowed and no question shall be put by the presiding officer except to either House on a motion to withdraw.

SEC. 6. That when the two Houses separate to decide upon an objection that may have been made to the counting of any electoral vote or votes from any State, or other question arising in the matter, each Senator and Representative may speak to

such objection or question five minutes, and not more than once; but after such debate shall have lasted two hours it shall be the duty of the presiding officer of each House to put the main question without further debate.

SEC. 7. That at such joint meeting of the two Houses seats shall be provided as follows: For the President of the Senate, the Speaker's chair; for the Speaker, immediately upon his left; the Senators, in the body of the Hall upon the right of the presiding officer; for the Representatives, in the body of the Hall not provided for the Senators; for the tellers, Secretary of the Senate, and Clerk of the House of Representatives, at the Clerk's desk; for the other officers of the two Houses, in front of the Clerk's desk and upon each side of the Speaker's platform. Such joint meeting shall not be dissolved until the count of electoral votes shall be completed and the result declared; and no recess shall be taken unless a question shall have arisen in regard to counting any such votes, or otherwise under this act, in which case it shall be competent for either House, acting separately, in the manner herein before provided, to direct a recess of such House not beyond the next calendar day, Sunday excepted, at the hour of ten o'clock in the forenoon. But if the counting of the electoral votes and the declaration of the result shall not have been completed before the fifth calendar day next after such first meeting of the two Houses, no further or other recess shall be taken by either House.

APPROVED, February 3, 1887.

No. 114.

Interstate Commerce Act

February 4, 1887

A BILL to regulate interstate commerce was reported in the Senate, January 18, 1886, by Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois, from the select committee appointed "to investigate and report on the subject of regulating the trans

portation of freights and passengers between the several States by railroads and water routes." Accompanying the bill was a voluminous report. The bill was recommitted, and a substitute reported February 16. The bill was taken up April 14, and formed one of the principal subjects of debate until May 12, when, with numerous amendments, the bill passed, the final vote being 47 to 4, 25 not voting. A substitute was reported in the House May 22. The bill was taken up July 21, and on the 30th the amended substitute passed the House by a vote of 192 to 41, 89 not voting. The session closed without further action beyond the appointment of a conference committee. The report of the committee was submitted December 15, and was accepted by the Senate, January 14, 1887, by a vote of 43 to 15, and by the House, January 21, by a vote of 219 to 41, 58 not voting. Extensive amendments to the act were made by an act of March 2, 1889. The scope of the commission, and its authority to compel testimony, were further defined by an act of February 10, 1891. An act of February 11, 1893, provided that no person should be excused from testifying before the commission, or from producing papers, etc., on the ground that such evidence would tend to incriminate him; but such witnesses were exempted from prosecution or penalty on account of acts concerning which they were required to give evidence.

REFERENCES. Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XXIV, 379–387. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 49th Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., and the Cong. Record. The text of the House bill is in the Record, July 30. Cullom's report of January 18, 1886, is Senate Report 46, 49th Cong., Ist Sess. The annual reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the debates in Congress on the amendatory acts, are the principal authorities for the workings of the statute. For decisions under the act to 1897 see Gould and Tucker, Notes on the Revised Statutes, II, 618-621. On ticket brokerage see Senate Doc. 128 and House Report 232, 55th Cong., 2d Sess. An act of June 1, 1898, provided for the arbitration of disputes between railroads and their employees; on this see Senate Report 591 and House Report 454, 55th Cong., 2d Sess.

An act to regulate commerce.

Be it enacted. . ., That the provisions of this act shall apply to any common carrier or carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad, or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are used, under a common control, management, or arrangement, for a continuous carriage or shipment, from one State or Territory of the United States, or the District of Columbia, to any other State or Territory of the United