ould not give an incontrovertible certificate of
appointment. The certificate is one thing; the appointment another. The
State appoints and the Legislature directs the manner of appointment,
but neither can make true that which is false.

_Now as to the person appointed._ Brewster was one of the very persons
sought to be excluded by these words of the Constitution: "No Senator or
Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the
United States, shall be appointed an elector." He was, nevertheless,
appointed, and he voted, and his vote made the President. How was this
brought about? The Commission answer, "That it is not competent to prove
that any of said persons so appointed electors as aforesaid held an
office of trust or profit under the United States at the time when they
were appointed." Of course, if it was not competent to prove it, the
fact itself must have been of no importance.

Bentham's "Book of Fallacies" may be enriched, in another edition, with
another fallacy, as remarkable as any he has recorded, to wit, that
prohibition in the American Constitution means prohibition! Talleyrand
was once asked the meaning of non-intervention. "Non-intervention," he
replied, "non-intervention means about the same thing as intervention."
So, in our new constitutional vocabulary, prohibition means about the
same thing as permission.

It was, indeed, mentioned in the course of the argument, though the
Commission does not appear to have thought much of it, that Brewster,
having resigned his Federal office, and come in upon a new appointment,
to fill his own vacant place on the 6th of December, being then both
present and absent, the question of eligibility did not arise. But
enough has been said about this resignation sham. If such a trick had
been played in respect to a note-of-hand of five dollars, there is not a
justice of the peace who would not have denounced the trick, as
conferring no right and affording no protection.

The people of New York were amused, three or four years ago, with the
feats of a juggler, who dressed one side of him as a man, and the other
as a woman, and who turned about so quickly that he showed himself as
two persons of different sexes in the same instant. Brewster's feat was
not less remarkable: he was at once absent and present; absent that he
might be appointed, and present that he might vote; went through the
whole performance in less than an hour, absenting himself