THE BOA CONSTRICTOR OF POLITICS. 153 



and Virginia, two less in Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama, 

 besides he'ino; wholly unrepresented in the six states above men- 

 tioned; and their opponents three members less than their share 

 in Iowa, besides being unrepresented in four states a? mentioned. 

 In a seventeenth state, Wisconsin, the party actually in the major- 

 ity was able to elect but one third of the State Assembly and but 

 three out of the eight Congressmen, while the republican minority 

 claims to havo carried the state and may yet succeed in getting a 

 sixth Congressmen. In Florida, where the parties are almost bal- 

 anced, the majority gets both the Congressmen, but has a minority 

 in the state legislature, a double injustice. In New York, M issa- 

 chusetts and Kansas the assembly men are unfairly distributed, so 

 there are but two states among the twenty-eight where the elec- 

 tions did justice to both parties, Vermont and Illinois, in the latter 

 of which a new system has been introduced as we shall soon see. 



Three presidents. Taylor in ISiS, Buchanan in 1853, and Lincoln 

 in 1830, secured large majorities in the electoral colbge, though 

 none of them had one half of the papular vote. In 1831, indeed, 

 Lincoln got a little more than half the votes and this give him ten- 

 elevenths of the electors, but if MiClellan had received 35,000 of 

 the votes given to Lincoln he might hive gained the majority of 

 the electors and become president, though he would still have been 

 in the minority at the polls. 



It is plain that the people are very imperfectly represented and 

 that neither party gets its fair share of the power. It is also plain 

 that corruption is much facilitated by the extreme difficulty of set- 

 ting aside the nominations of either party except in favor of those 

 of the other, perhaps equally bad. Parties would be slow to nom- 

 inate men who oppose civil service reform or lack character and 

 ability, or are mere tools of the ring, if such candidates could he de- 

 feated easily. This can now be done only when the bolters form 

 the majority of the district, and many a patriotic statesman, who 

 has friends enough to send him to Washington if they could act 

 together, sta3'S at home because he cannot carr\' the district where 

 he resides. What we want is a system of voting which will give a 

 fair share of power not only to each party but to every combina- 

 tion of independent voters, so that, for instance, of the one hundred 

 members of the assembly, in Wisconsin, forty, fifty, or sixty would 

 come from each part}'' according as it polls forty, fifty or sixty per 



