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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



EVOLUTION IN POLITICS. 



IN an address on The Impending Po- 

 litical Epoch, delivered last fall be- 

 fore the Ohio Society of New York, the 

 Hon. John M. Ashley pointed out some 

 features in the structure and workings 

 of the Government of the United States 

 which recent developments have shown 

 to be full of peril to the integrity and 

 security of our institutions. They may 

 be described in a group by the phrase, 

 " Unequal distribution of political pow- 

 er." The habit of regarding the Consti- 

 tution of the United States as a perfect 

 instrument, testifying to extraordinary 

 wisdom and foresight on the part of its 

 framers, ceased many years ago. The 

 trials of the war and reconstruction dis- 

 closed many weak and some mischievous 

 features in it, the existence of which 

 was confessed, while they were hardly 

 remedied, in the amendments. The 

 course of events has disclosed other 

 features which may also, in a more or 

 less distant future, prove equally mis- 

 chievous with those which we have 

 tried to remedy. The most obvious of 

 these is the roundabout system of elect- 

 ing a President by Electoral Colleges 

 chosen by the voters of the several 

 States. The framers of the Constitution 

 are supposed to have intended to pro- 

 vide for the election as President of the 

 man whom the body of electors, care- 

 fully chosen for their wisdom and ex- 

 perience as well as for their integrity, 

 should decide to be most fit for tbe office. 

 The plan has had no such effect, but has 

 simply stood as an obstacle to the free 

 exercise of their choice by the people. 

 There is more positive mischief con- 

 cealed in it, for, while the electors now 

 respect the choice of the people, so far 

 as it is shown in the nominating con- 

 ventions, the case might arise in which 

 they should combine to substitute for 



the ostensible candidate some man who 

 had never been thought of, and who 

 would be rejected by the people at once 

 if he were proposed to them. Another 

 danger is seen by Mr. Ashley in the 

 provision that leaves the determination 

 of the manner of choosing the electors 

 to the Legislatures of the States, and 

 thereby to the caprice of the party 

 which may happen to be temporarily in 

 the majority in the Legislature. A mi- 

 nority securing control for a single year 

 may thus disfranchise or greatly weaken 

 the influence of the majority of the 

 voters of the State at the ensuing Presi- 

 dential election — as the Eepublicans 

 charge that the Democrats have at- 

 tempted to do in Michigan, and a3 has 

 been recently demonstrated by the ac- 

 tion of the Republicans in Connecti- 

 cut. The events that gave rise to the 

 Electoral Commission in 1876 tell us of 

 a danger growing out of the electoral 

 college plan that we have already had 

 to meet. 



Possibilities of great mischief work- 

 ing in the electoral colleges and in the 

 Senate are concealed in the powers pos- 

 sessed under the Constitution by States 

 whose population is small and not likely 

 to grow. Each State is entitled to two 

 senators, and, according to the Constitu- 

 tion, it can not be deprived without its 

 consent of its equal representation in 

 the Senate. Under this provision, Ne- 

 vada, whose population is not one third 

 that of a normal congressional district, 

 and is declining, is the peer in senatorial 

 power of New York or any of the larger 

 States; and there are now seventeen 

 States in the Union whose combined 

 population is that of the State of New 

 York ; but they have thirty-four senators 

 to New York's two. Six new States, 

 whose combined population is not more 

 than enough to make one common- 



