Then if no candidate for the
vice-presidency has a majority, the Senate makes its choice from the two
names highest on the list; a quorum for the purpose consists of two
thirds of the whole number of senators, and a majority of the whole
number is necessary to a choice. Since this amendment was made there has
been one instance of an election of the president by the House of
Representatives,--that of John Quincy Adams in 1825; and there has been
one instance of an election of the vice-president by the Senate,--that
of Richard Mentor Johnson in 1837.
[Sidenote: The electoral commission (1877).]
One serious difficulty was not yet foreseen and provided for--that of
deciding between two conflicting returns sent in by two hostile sets of
electors in the same state, each list being certified by one of two
rival governors claiming authority in the same state. Such a case
occurred in 1877, when Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were the
scene of struggles between rival governments. Ballots for Tilden and
ballots for Hayes were sent in at the same time from these states, and
in the absence of any recognized means of determining which ballots to
count, the two parties in Congress submitted the result to arbitration.
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