With a wiser wisdom than was given to them, our forefathers in making
the Constitution would not have provided that each House of Congress
"shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of
its own members." They would have foreseen that a ruling majority of
Congress could not safely be trusted to exercise this power justly in
the public interest, but would abuse it in the interest of party. A
man's right to sit in a legislative body should be determined, not by
that body, which has neither the impartiality, the knowledge of evidence
nor the time to determine it rightly, but by the courts of law. That is
how it is done in England, where Parliament voluntarily surrendered the
right to say by whom the constituencies shall be represented, and there
is no disposition to resume it. As the vices hunt in packs, so, too,
virtues are gregarious; if our Congress had the righteousness to decide
contested elections justly it would have also the self-denial not to
wish to decide them at all.