Not to go abroad, however, for illustrations, let us suppose that the General Court convened in the State-House at Boston were to depute the State of New York or the State of Virginia to appoint electors for the State of Massachusetts, no man would be wild enough to pronounce such a deputation valid. It should seem to be certain, for a reason hardly less satisfactory, that the Legislature of Massachusetts could not authorize the Mayor of Boston or the town council of Worcester to appoint her electors; and, if that be so, and the rule is to prevail that, in law, what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly, it should follow that the State could not delegate to any other agency the power of appointment. If a body called a returning board be so constituted as that, in certain contingencies, it may depart from the inquiry what votes have been cast, and cast the votes itself, or by _any sort of contrivance_ do the same thing under a different name, or by a roundabout process, it is, to that extent, an unlawful body under the Federal Constitution. Assuming, then, that a returning board has among its functions that of rejecting the votes in particular districts, for the reason either that they were affected by undue influence, or that other voters were led by like influence to refrain from voting, can such a function be valid under the Constitution of the United States? There is no question were of throwing out particular votes for vices inherent in themselves, such as that they were illegible, or were cast by disqualified persons, and the like; but the question is of rejecting the votes of a certain number--say a thousand voters--either because they were unduly influenced, or because another thousand, who might have voted, were, by undue influences, prevented from voting at all.