192 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



States, a majority is required for members of 

 Congress on the first trial ; but, in all, a plural- 

 ity elects on the second. Nor does the present 

 mode of election secure a majority of the peo- 

 ple to the election of President. It may hap- 

 pen, and has happened, that the candidate re- 

 ceiving a majority of the electoral vote is in a 

 minority of the popular vote. On the whole, 

 it must be admitted that, next to an absolute 

 majority, a plurality presents the most natural 

 and the fairest mode of election, and that the 

 other expedients, however well planned, have 

 not commended themselves in practice. 



u Although, therefore, I do not object to the 

 election by the House of Representatives, for 

 the reasons that have been stated elsewhere, I 

 freely agree that it should be abandoned. It 

 may seem, at first, that the smaller States 

 make some surrender of power by changing 

 the system which gives them an equal suffrage 

 in the last resort. This might be true if the 

 smaller States had some interest apart from 

 the larger ones and opposed to them. If it 

 were so, I should recognize* a deep if not a 

 fatal detect in our political system. I see no 

 such opposition of interests. Experience has 

 shown that the questions which have organ- 

 ized parties and divided the country pass over 

 State lines without noting them, and invade 

 alike the large and the small States. There is 

 nothing in the disparity of the geographical 

 limits which makes it probable that New York 

 and Rhode Island shall separate on political 

 questions, or that Delaware and Florida shall 

 unite. The smaller States are distributed in 

 all parts of the Union, East, West, North, 

 South, and Middle. They have no purposes 

 that are not as likely to be common to the 

 larger States as to each other. All the appre- 

 hensions of a combination of the larger States, 

 to the disadvantage of the smaller, have proved 

 groundless. There is nothing for them to com- 

 bine for or against. The great interests of the 

 country are common to all the States, and 

 where there have been separate interests, real 

 or imaginary, they have not been based on the 

 territorial limits of the members of the Union. 

 I do not, therefore, regard the surrender of 

 the equal suffrage in the election by the House 

 of Representatives as an important concession. 

 But I can plainly see that in the mode pro- 

 posed of election by districts the overshadow- 

 ing power of the great States is destroyed. 

 They will no longer cast their solid vote for 

 President, bearing down four or five of the 

 smaller States, each of which may, possibly, 

 cast a greater popular majority, the other way. 

 New York may cast thirty-five votes for one 

 candidate, while the popular majority is less 

 than that which Delaware, with but three 

 votes, gives for the opposing candidate. The 

 present system gives immense power to major- 

 ities, however small, in the great States, and 

 disfranchises the minority, however near it 

 rises toward the majority^ Thus the State of 

 New York, outside the city, may give a ma- 



jority one way, and the overwhelming vote of 

 the city, not the purest and most authentic, 

 may reverse it, and carry, not only the force 

 that properly belongs to the city, but the en- 

 tire State, leaving to the rest of the State, to 

 the great inland cities, to the rich rural dis- 

 tricts, to the prosperous and enterprising com- 

 munities, from the Hudson to the great lakes, 

 no voice in the election, for which the hetero- 

 geneous and often the corrupt masses of the 

 city speak, not for itself alone, but for the 

 State. By the system proposed, the minority 

 in each State will be represented, and a great 

 State, divided nearly equally, will have no 

 greater preponderance than a small State 

 united upon one candidate. 



"The frauds which in 1844 carried the thir- 

 ty-six electoral votes of New York for Polk, 

 under the present system, would, under the 

 amendments proposed, have carried only the 

 four votes in the city, and the inducement to 

 the frauds would have been wanting, for the 

 honest vote of the city was for Polk, and the 

 frauds were perpetrated only to overbalance 

 the suffrage of the interior. Thus the purity 

 of the election would be greatly promoted by 

 the change. The motive to fraud would be 

 much diminished, and the effect of fraud would 

 be much lessened. 



" The danger of a disputed election for Pres- 

 ident, in a State whose electoral vote would 

 decide the contest, is a most serious one. There 

 is no tribunal for the verification of the votes; 

 and, although the election may be carried, 

 notoriously, by fraud, or by violence, the elec- 

 toral votes must be returned and counted. The 

 fraud or the violence may be punished, but 

 the wrong that they have committed remains, 

 and there is no redress for it. And the ap- 

 pointment of the electors being left entirely 

 with the Legislatures of the States, there would 

 be no mode or power of appointment if a 

 State Legislature should repeal the law direct- 

 ing the manner of the election. The Federal 

 Government has no power to perpetuate the 

 executive authority. In the exciting election 

 which resulted in the choice of Jefferson by 

 the House of Representatives, the Legislature 

 of Maryland was Federal, and it was supposed 

 that the popular vote would be for Jefferson. 

 It was seriously contemplated that the Legis- 

 lature should repeal the law under which the 

 electors were chosen by the people, and should 

 choose them by the Legislature ; and this, on 

 the avowed ground that it was necessary to 

 defeat the candidate whom it was supposed 

 that the majority of the people preferred. 

 This was recommended on no less authority 

 than that of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. 

 When a man so pure, so patriotic, and so con- 

 servative, could see his way clear to make such 

 a recommendation, what might be apprehended 

 from heated partisans and selfish aspirants for 

 political power? If that suggestion had been 

 carried out, and the ten electoral votes of 

 Maryland had been given wholly for Adams, 



