The claim of a presiding Chief Justice becomes still more questionable when it is considered how positively the Constitution declares that “the Senate shall have the _sole_ power to try all impeachments,” and, still further, that conviction can be only by “the concurrence of two thirds of _the members present_.” These two provisions accord powers to _the Senate solely_. If a presiding Chief Justice can rule or vote, the Senate has not “the sole power to try”; for ruling and voting, even on interlocutory questions, may determine the trial. A vote to postpone, to withdraw, even to adjourn, might, under peculiar circumstances, exercise a decisive influence. A vote for a protracted adjournment might defeat the trial. Notoriously such votes are among the devices of parliamentary opposition. In doing anything like this, a presiding Chief Justice makes himself _a trier_, and, if he votes on the final judgment, he makes himself _a member of the Senate_. But he cannot be either. It is only a casting vote that thus far the presiding Chief Justice has assumed to give. But he has the same power to vote always as to vote when the Senate is equally divided. No such power in either case is found in the National Constitution or in Parliamentary Law. By the National Constitution he presides, and nothing more, while by Parliamentary Law there is no casting vote where the presiding officer is not a member of the body. Nor does there seem to be any difference between a casting vote on an interlocutory question and a casting vote on the final question. The former is determined by a majority, and the latter by two thirds; but it has been decided in our country, that, “if the assembly, on a division, stands exactly one third to two thirds, there is then occasion for the giving of a casting vote, because the presiding officer can then, by giving his vote, decide the question either way.”[150] This statement reveals still further how inconsistent is the claim of the presiding Chief Justice with the positive requirement of the National Constitution.