CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



191 



electors. And, even should a candidate have a 

 considerable support in the aggregate, it is all 

 wasted, unless it can be concentrated in suffi- 

 cient number in one State. A candidate may 

 have powerful support and large minorities, 

 scattered among five or six States, but, unless 

 he has a plurality in some one State, every vote 

 for him is thrown away. Practically, the 

 chance is limited to two, or at most to three 

 candidates ; and these must be the candidates 

 of a recognized party, strong enough to perfect 

 an organization, and to put an electoral ticket 

 in the field. As the voter cannot vote for his 

 candidate personally, he must vote for a num- 

 ber of candidates equal to the number of elec- 

 tors to which his State is entitled, and must 

 find that number who are precisely of his way 

 of thinking, and who will consent to serve if 

 elected; and moreover they must be distrib- 

 uted all over the State. Nor can the voter se- 

 lect the President of one party and the Vice- 

 President of another; he cannot vote for his 

 choice, for one of these offices, unless he ac- 

 cepts the candidate associated on the ticket 

 with him. At the last election, the choice of 

 every voter was practically restricted to Grant 

 and Greeley. If he desired a man other than 

 either of them, he had no way of making his 

 choice effective, even to the extent of his own 

 vote. Nor could he vote for Grant and Brown 

 or Greeley and Wilson. He was obliged to 

 vote for Grant and Wilson or for Greeley and 

 Brown, or to throw away his vote, which he 

 would do just as effectually by voting for any 

 other candidate, or for any two of them, except 

 on the ticket on which the two were associated. 

 "A great evil of this is that it strengthens 

 and perpetuates, indeed it makes quite neces- 

 sary the caucus or convention, which has grown 

 to be almost as much a part of our political 

 system as though it were embodied in the Con- 

 stitution, and which crushes the individuality 

 of the voter, and makes him only a part of a 

 great partisan machine, his only choice being 

 to which party he shall surrender his rights of 

 private judgment. How this opens the way 

 for intrigues and disreputable combinations and 

 for conspiracies to obtain power for personal 

 objects, how it pledges in advance, and as the 

 price of support in the convention, that great 

 patronage which the President wields, I need 

 not point out. It would greatly purify our 

 elections if the voters could select their can- 

 didates from the whole body of their fellow- 

 citizens, uncontrolled by convention or caucus, 

 and responsible only to their own sense of 

 right. It would not indeed supersede the con- 

 vention, but would deprive it of its tyranny, 

 and make it responsible to a patriotic public 

 opinion. The voter, if he did not like a can- 

 didate, would not be obliged to vote for him 

 because there was no other way to vote except 

 for one that he liked still less. And this con- 

 sideration would compel the nominating con- 

 ventions to greater prudence and wisdom in 

 the selection of candidates. 



"All the machinery of the existing system is 

 absurd, and is an obstacle rather than a facility, 

 on any other theory than that upon which in- 

 deed the Constitution was adopted, bnjb which 

 has utterly failed, that the electors should be 

 unpledged men, charged with the duty of 

 choosing a President, according to their own 

 judgment, and to what they might consider 

 the public good, not controlled or in any way 

 directed by the popular voice, which it was 

 supposed that they would guide, not follow. 

 Every one argues that the system should be 

 abandoned, that the theory of the election 

 should be conformed to the practice, and that 

 the machinery should be better adapted to the 

 purpose which it is intended to accomplish. 



" At the same time it is very much better to 

 make the change with as little violence as is 

 practicable to the traditions of the Government, 

 and to retain, as far as possible, all of the ori- 

 ginal intentions of the Constitution, except 

 where the intention has manifestly failed in 

 practice. Especially is it necessary to preserve 

 the recognition of the States, in the two elec- 

 tors which belong to each equally, beyond those 

 to which they are entitled on the basis of pop- 

 ulation. Not only is this right, but no amend- 

 ment which failed to recognize this equality 

 could obtain a two-thirds vote in this body, or 

 receive the requisite assent of three-quarters 

 of the States. 



" The amendment proposed happily secures 

 the right of individual selection, without in- 

 fringing upon the rights already secured to the 

 States. It permits every voter to vote for the 

 candidates of his choice for President and for 

 Vice-President, and yet preserves to the States 

 the equivalent of the two electoral votes to 

 which, by the original compact, they are enti- 

 tled, in addition to those which are based on 

 population. It presents the natural mode of 

 election, and abolishes the unnecessary for- 

 malities which separate the people from the 

 candidates. While it is desirable that the Chief 

 Executive of the country should be elected by 

 a majority of the people, and that his authority 

 should rest on the broadest basis of the popu- 

 lar will, yet, since so desirable result can only 

 be attained by the general concurrence of opin- 

 ion which must be left to its own free expres- 

 sion, it is a matter of necessity that some expe- 

 dient be resorted to, in the failure of such 

 concurrence. To require an absolute majority 

 to elect the President might practically prevent 

 an election; and- if there be no one whom a 

 majority of the people prefer, then the natural 

 expedient is to elect that one whom the great- 

 er number prefer. In the first instance, abso- 

 lute unanimity would be desirable ; but that is 

 practically impossible ; so a majority is accept- 

 ed ; and by the same natural conclusion, if an 

 absolute majority be unattainable, a plurality 

 is next best. So plain is this, that, in nearly 

 all the. States, a plurality elects the State offi- 

 cers, executive, legislative, and, when they are 

 chosen by the people, the judicial; in some 



