ELECTORAL COMMISSION. A commis sion created by an act of congress of Janu ary. 29, 1877, to decide certain questions aris ing out of the presidential election of No vember, 1876, in which Hayes and Wheeler had been candidates of the republican party and Tilden and Hendricks of the democratic party. The election was very close, and de pended on the electoral votes of South Caro lina, Florida, and Louisiana. It was feared that there would be much trouble at the final counting of the votes by the president of the senate according to the plan laid down in the Constitution. The republicans had a majority in the senate and 'the democrats had a majority in the house of representa tives. A resolution was adopted by congress for the appointment of a committee of seven members by the speaker to act in conjunc tion with a similar committee that might be appointed by the senate^to prepare a report and plan for the creation of a tribunal to count the electoral votes whose authority no one would question and whose decision all would accept as final. The joint committee thus appointed reported a bill providing for a commission of fifteen members, to be com posed of five members from each house pointed viva voce, with four associate jus tices of the supreme court, which latter would select another of the justices of the supreme court, the entire commission to be presided over by the associate justice longest in commission. This body has since been known as the Electoral. Commission.
Justices Clifford, Miller, Field, and Strong were named in the act as members, and they chose as the fifth justice Justice Bradley. The other members were Senators Bayard, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Morton, and Thur man, and Representatives Abbott, Garfield, Hoar, Hunton, and Payne.
The commission began its sessions Febru ary 1, and completed its work March 2, 1877.
Various questions came before it in regard to the electoral vote of South Carolina, Florida, and LouiSiana, as to which of two state returns was valid, and as to the eligi bility of certain of the presidential electors. The most important deeision of the commis sion and the one which has caused most comment and criticism was to the effect that the regular returns from a state must be ac cepted, and that the commission had no pow er to go behind these returns ; or, as the com mission itself expressed it, "that it is not competent under the Constitution and the law as it existed at the date of the passage of said act, to go into evidence atiunde the Papers opened by the president of the senate in the presence of the two houses, to prove that other persons than those regularly cer tified to by the governor of the state of Florida in and according to the determina tion and declaration of their appointment by the Board of State Canvassers of said state prior to the time required for the perform ance 'of their duties, had been appointed electors, or by counter-proof to show that they had not, and that all 'proceedings of the courts or acts of the or of the executive of Florida subsequent to the cast ing of the votes of the electors on the 'pre scribed day are inadmissible for any such purpose." 2 Curtis, Const. Hist. of U. S., 419.
The result of the controversy over the election of 1876 was the 'passage, after long and earnest consideration, of the Act of Feb. 3, 1887, to regulate the counting of the electoral votes for president and vice-presi dent. U. S. R. S. 1 Supp. 525. See PRESI DENTIAL ELECTORS ; PRESIDENT OF THE UNIT ED STATES; 38 Am. L. Rev. 1.