The choice being given to the House by the Constitution, it belonged to the House solely to make any investigations which it should find necessary to the proper performance of this trust. When the Constitution gives the choice to the House, it confers by necessary implication whatever authority is requisite to the full exercise of the power, including, of course, exclusive control over the whole subject. It may be remarked, by way of illustration, that the first duty is to determine who are the three persons from whom a choice is to be made: acting with the Senate, a fourth person might be rejected from this number, whom, if he were before it, a majority of the House might choose to elect. The record of the proceedings of the commission will show them to be without warrant or authority in the Constitution, which contains ample provision upon the same subject. The commission usurps a power conferred upon the House when the House itself was established, which is one of its highest functions, and whose exercise it cannot surrender without dishonor. 1. Upon the motion to be made in the House to accept the report of the commission it should not be entertained, because in violation of the constitutional rights of the House, and not in order therefore. 2. If it has been accepted, the whole proceedings should be declared for this reason null and void. 3. The House should proceed to the choice of President according to the Twelfth Amendment, that it may not fail in the performance of one of the highest duties it owes to the Constitution, and in the exercise of its greatest powers; that some person may be duly chosen, so that its candidate may have the legal title before the law and before the people. JOHN A. McCLERNAND TO TILDEN "SPRINGFIELD, ILL., _March 2nd, 1877_. "DEAR SIR,--It is done, and the Presidential office, fairly awarded you by the voice of the people and the electoral colleges, passes to another. I sympathize with you in this your deprivation of right and official dignity. I sympathize also with the country in its consequent humiliation. A stain is cast upon its escutcheon and Republican institutions. "The result might have been different but for a mistake, honest, doubtless, though it was. If the chairman of our national committee had not wavered and hesitated at a decisive moment, and thereby awakened doubts as to your purpose, the spirit and courage of the Democracy, then showing a bold front, would have precluded the possibility of the electoral commission and its decision, and have settled everything satisfactorily without a blow. I say this in the belief that the capital and business of the country would not have seconded the Republican leaders in an appeal to arms to uphold fraud and usurpation. Right armed with confidence is seldom vanquished.