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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



so as to control the last elections. That might 

 take place ; but the Constitution requires that 

 the electors shall vote in all the States on the 

 same day. And how are they to vote ? Vote 

 by ballot, so that one elector may not know 

 how the others vote, and so that the people 

 shall never know how they vote; but they 

 were to deliberate, to be deliberative bodies. 

 They were to consider and discuss, and were 

 thus made independent of all knowledge by the 

 people, that they might act entirely indepen- 

 dent of all improper considerations or influ- 

 ences. That was the theory. 



" How has it turned out in practice ? It has 

 turned out in practice that the electors are 

 pledged in advance to vote for a particular 

 candidate; that they have been elected, as 

 mere agents, to cast their votes for the candi- 

 dates of their party, a pledge that has never 

 been violated, and the violation of which would 

 bring upon the offending party all the indigna- 

 tion that society could invent. It never has 

 been violated and it probably never will. 

 Therefore the theory is a total failure. Instead 

 of being deliberative bodies, they are pledged 

 in advance to vote for particular men. There- 

 fore the reasons for the electoral college have 

 gone. Why not let the people vote themselves 

 for the presidential candidates, instead of vot- 

 ing for electors who are pledged to do the 

 same thing ? 



" Now let me consider some of the dangers 

 and difficulties attending this system. In the 

 first place, by law when electors have died 

 since their election, or fail to attend, then the 

 others may fill their vacancies. In the case 

 of Texas at the last election, when the electors 

 met to vote, four were absent, just one-half the 

 whole number. The other four supplied the 

 vacancies by election. Suppose there should 

 be five in favor of one candidate and five in 

 favor of another and one elector dies. Then 

 one five will have the majority over the 

 other, and they can fill the vacancy, and they 

 can thus secure a majority in the electoral 

 college. 



" But let us look at the unfairness of it in 

 another particular as now adopted. They 

 vote by general ticket in all the States. That 

 set of electors that get a majority of one vote 

 cast the vote of the whole State. A majority 

 of one will cast the entire vote of New York ; 

 so that nearly two millions and a half of peo- 

 ple are utterly silenced in their vote for Presi- 

 dent. It becomes an election of States. That 

 was not intended by the framers of the Con- 

 stitution. They did not intend to make it an 

 election by States in one particular, because 

 they expected the electoral colleges to be de- 

 liberative bodies, and as deliberative bodies to 

 divide up, some to vote for one candidate and 

 some for another ; but it has turned out in 

 practice that the electors are all pledged in 

 advance to vote for a particular candidate, and 

 that one set or the other set will be elected as 

 an entirety, and they come together and cast 



the vote of the State. It is therefore a vote by 

 States; and under the present system ten 

 States can elect a President of the United 

 States. It is just the same thing as if every 

 man in those ten States had cast their votes for 

 those candidates a thing never likely to hap- 

 pen ; but that is the effect of it. It is an elec- 

 tion now by States. It is not a national elec- 

 tion. It is removed further from a national 

 election than was contemplated by our fathers, 

 because they supposed these electors would di- 

 vide first deliberate, first discuss and consider 

 with each other, and then divide the votes; 

 but it turns out they do not do so. They are 

 pledged in advance. They vote as a unit ; and 

 therefore the vote of New York, of Indiana, 

 of Pennsylvania, of Illinois, is given as an en- 

 tirety. It is therefore an election by States. 

 It enables a small minority of the people of the 

 United States to elect a President. Let us 

 suppose, for example, that one man receives 

 enough electoral votes to elect him ; that he 

 has carried enough States by small majorities 

 to give him 186 electoral votes. If you please, 

 he has carried New York by 5,000, Pennsyl- 

 vania by 3,000, and so on, so that his aggre- 

 gate majority in those States is less than 60,000. 

 His opponent carries the other States by large 

 majorities, so that it may turn out that his op- 

 ponent will have half a million majority of the 

 popular vote of the United States." 



Mr. Bayard: "That was the case with Mr. 

 Lincoln, I believe. He had a very small mi- 

 nority of the entire popular vote of the United 

 States." 



Mr. Morton : " But the remaining vote was 

 divided between two other candidates." 



Mr. Bayard : " I say he had a small minority 

 of the entire popular vote of the United States." 



Mr. Morton : " Yes, he had. It turns out 

 that four Presidents have had less than a ma- 

 jority of the popular vote, and it is the possi- 

 bility at all times under this system that a 

 small minority of the votes of the people may 

 elect a President of the United States. That 

 is anti-republican ; it is anti-democratic ; and 

 that possibility of itself calls for a change in 

 the method of electing a President and Vice- 

 President of the United States. 



" For my part, I would much rather elect 

 the President by the people of the United 

 States as one entire community, but I know 

 we cannot change the Constitution to that 

 effect. I know the small States will never 

 vote for that ; but I would prefer it. But the 

 next and the nearest approach that we can 

 make to an election by the people is to elect 

 by districts. Now, I wish to read from the 

 report, which is more accurate than I can state 

 it. I wish to show by past history how far the 

 electoral college has come from representing 

 the popular vote, and how much nearer the 

 district system will approach to it, and I will 

 ask the attention of the Senate to this extract 

 from the report, which has been carefully pre- 

 pared. 



