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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ing shipwreck. Can this Government stand 

 the strain of another election by the House of 

 Representatives ? The monstrous injustice of 

 giving forty-two thousand people in the State 

 of Nevada the same voice in electing a Presi- 

 dent that New York with five million has is 

 too great a strain for the Constitution of the 

 United States. In 1801 it came near making 

 shipwreck. They balloted until nearly the 4th 

 of March, and then an election was secured by 

 a change brought about under circumstances 

 that I will not now state, not reflecting great 

 credit upon the parties engaged in that change. 

 In 1825 John Quincy Adams was elected by 

 the House. The election was said to have been 

 brought about by the action of Mr. Clay in se- 

 curing for Mr. Adams the vote of Kentucky. 

 Mr. Clay was afterward appointed Secretary 

 of State. He never recovered from it. It was 

 too great a power. I do not believe that Mr. 

 Clay was guilty of corruption ; I think that is 

 not the general opinion ; but the fact that Mr. 

 Clay caused the vote of Kentucky to be cast 

 for Mr. Adams, and that Mr. Adams afterward 

 appointed him Secretary of State, ruined the 

 prospects of Henry Clay ; he never recovered 

 from it. And now think of the grand oppor- 

 tunities for corruption. Take those States 

 where one Representative casts the vote of the 

 State ; take the State of Nevada, or any other 

 State that has but one member ; that one Rep- 

 resentative has the same power as all the Rep- 

 resentatives of the State of New York. The 

 patronage of the President is ample enough to 

 reach every member of that House. You can- 

 not conceive of grander opportunities for cor- 

 ruption than with a Representative from a State 

 where there is but one Representative, or 

 where a Representative may cast the casting 

 vote in the delegation of a State and determine 

 the vote of it. It is not only anti-republican 

 essentially ; it was the result of a compromise ; 

 but it is full of danger; and in these days, 

 when there is so much said about the danger 

 of corruption, we cannot contemplate without 

 horror the idea that the election may be placed 

 in the House, where a few members of the 

 House, by the sale of their votes or the promise 

 of office to themselves or to their friends, may 

 determine the election and elect a President 

 for forty-two millions of people. 



" Mr. President, to sum up the points which 

 I am making against the present provisions of 

 the Constitution and in favor of the proposed 

 amendment, I will state -that the theory of the 

 electoral college grew out of a distrust and un- 

 willingness to allow the President of the United 

 States to be elected by the people ; that the 

 theory was that the election should be com- 

 mitted to a body of men who should be made 

 entirely independent, who should meet and 

 deliberate and vote secretly, so that they might 

 be independent; that their action should never 

 be known, they should vote by the ballot, but 

 all of that has been reversed by pledging them 

 in advance to vote for particular candidates ; 



that by the general-ticket system the vote is 

 by States, it is an election by States, it is not 

 national in its character; that a few States 

 may control the election, so that now attention 

 is paid only to the votes of the larger States ; 

 the votes of the small States have very little 

 consideration, but under the plan proposed 

 each district must be counted by itself and it 

 is the same thing whether it is in a large State 

 or in a small State; that under the present 

 system a small minority of the people of the 

 United States may elect a President against a 

 very large majority for the defeated candidate ; 

 that under the present system the electoral 

 vote has never approached within 10 per cent, 

 of the popular vote, and has varied from it 

 several times from 30 to 35 per cent. ; that 

 under the present system an election may be 

 had by the States in the House of Representa- 

 tives in defiance of the popular vote and in de- 

 fiance of the plurality vote of the electors. 



"General Jackson in 1824 had the largest 

 popular majority that any President has ever 

 received in the United States, and he had a 

 large plurality of the electoral votes also ; but 

 there were four candidates, and he did not get 

 a majority of all the electors. The election 

 went to the House of Representatives, and Mr. 

 Adams, who did not receive one-third of the 

 popular vote, .was elected over General Jack- 

 son. What has been done may be done again. 



" Then there is no method now of contesting 

 a fraudulent election of electors. Though the 

 fraud may be so open that the world knows it, 

 yet that vote must be counted unless the Presi- 

 dent of the Senate shall take the responsibility 

 of withholding the vote on the day when it is 

 to be counted. I say further that there is no 

 power in Congress, that there is no room left 

 to the States, in point of fact, to contest the 

 election of electors; that under an election in 

 the House, the vote being taken by States, 

 forty-five members of that House may elect a 

 President against the wishes of two hundred 

 and forty-seven; that the States casting the 

 vote may have a population of only one-fifth 

 of the entire population of the United States. 



"Mr. President, the original theory that the 

 people could not be intrusted with the election 

 has failed. We now understand that large 

 constituencies are safer than small constituen- 

 cies. The patronage of the President is ample 

 to reach every elector; it is ample to reach 

 every member of the House of Representatives, 

 but it is not ample enough to reach the people 

 of the United States where they vote directly 

 for the candidate of their choice. We are in 

 danger of a collision at any time. In a closely- 

 contested election, to be decided by fraudulent 

 votes, to be decided by arbitrary conduct on 

 the part of the President of the Senate, there 

 is danger of revolution. 



"Now, I submit to the members of the 

 Senate that this question is too important to 

 be passed over. It ought not to go over this 

 session without action. You may not be able 



