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There being no choice for President under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that a candidate shall have a majority of all the electoral votes, the election was thrown into the House. In the contest in the House, Clay, who was out of the fight, threw his strength, or as much of it as he could control, to Adams, which gave him 13 States, as against 7 for Jackson and 4 for Crawford. Though the election of Adams was perfectly regular and constitutional, it forced the liberal and strict schools of interpreters wide apart, and the latter, carrying their fight to the country in the shape of a rebuke to those Representatives who had slaughtered Jackson, soon had the vantage ground.

1820

Republican.

James Monroe, Va.,

231

Daniel D. Tompkins, N. Y., 218

Total electoral vote, 235. The Missouri vote was disputed; and New Hampshire gave one vote to J. Q. Adams.

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This was the first National election which distinguished between nominees for President and Vice-President, under Twelfth Amendment to Federal Constitution.

Republican. Thomas Jefferson, Va., 73 Aaron Burr, N. Y.,

1800.

Federal.

73

John Adams, Mass., 65
C. C. Pinckney, S. C., 64

As there was, up till this time, no distinction between nominees for President and Vice-President-the one having the highest number of votes being the President—and Jeffer son and Burr having each 73 votes, the election went to the House, where a prolonged and bitter struggle ensued, resulting in the choice of Jefferson. This dispute led to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution.

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George Washington was nominated by a caucus of the Continental Congress. The State Legislatures chose electors for President and Vice-President on the first Wednesday of January, 1789. These electors voted on the first Wednesday in February, casting 69 votes for Washington as President, and 34 for John Adams as Vice-President. Washington was sworn into office by Chancellor Livingstone on April 29, 1789.

PARTIES, PAST AND PRESENT.

POLITICAL parties are inseparable from republican institutions. They are the birth of free thought and expression. If at all times they are the birth of high and noble sentiment and have for a purpose something definite and useful, they are both a necessity and blessing. If, on the contrary, they find birth in ignorance, fanaticism or sheer arbitrariness, and in their exercise of power use only low and brutish forces, they become elements of danger, and are not to be classed as among the welcome political energies.

Happily for our free institutions, volcanic parties, those of quick rise and fierce outburst, those that bear on their foreheads their own danger signal, are of short life. This is so for two great reasons. First, a high state of effervescence soon exhausts itself, and a high state of explos iveness generally leads to a speedy bursting of the bands of organization. Second, the sober intelligence of the country, the property instinct, the solid business interests. the peace and order sentiment, will not, for any long time, tolerate threats of danger or intolerable disturbance.

There are therefore philosophers who look upon parties of any and every kind as essential. Their argument is that no matter what may be the aim of a party, nor how narrow and fanatical, or even dangerous, it may be, it is better that it should find the rebuke and correction which

an outlet affords, than smoulder and consume like some internal fire, and thus prolong apprehension of irruption. This argument shows a high appreciation of the corrective forces in society, and a strong reliance on the conservatism of our institutions. And it has the historic fact to support it, that as yet excessive partyism has somewhat resembled violent disease, and run a swift course without detriment to a resolute constitution. Washington's opinion of political parties was this: "From the natural tendency of governments of a popular character, it is certain there will always be enough of party spirit for salutary purposes. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

NAMES AND DRIFT OF PARTIES.

Party names are frequently misnomers, in so far as they reflect the principles and objects of parties. Some have been assumed hastily, by force of outward circumstances, and without reference to preconceived purposes. Others have been forced upon new political organizations in a spirit of the ludicrous, or as a likeness of something familiar, or as an expression of intense enmity. Thus Whig" came into use in America, as a distinctive and honorable party name, for no other reason than because it was familiar and suited an existing fancy. In its colonial sense it was a convenient set-off to the title "Tory," but in its truly national sense, and as the designation of the successor to the National Republican party, or as descriptive of one who favored internal improvements, a protective tariff, and a strong central government, or as the op

posite of "Democrat," it had no significance whatever. "Whig" was originally the word "Whiggamore," a member of a body of insurgents, carters and others, who marched from the southwest of Scotland upon Edinburgh, in 1648, in opposition to the compromise with Charles I. Their cry of Whiggam, used in driving their horses, gave them the title of "Whiggamore raiders." The name, in the contracted form of Whig, passed, in a spirit of derision to the Presbyterian rebels of the west of Scotland. After the restoration, 1660, it was applied to the Roundheads or Parliamentarians, as opposed to the Cavaliers. Still a nickname, and opposed to that other nickname, "tory," it came to designate the liberal, or country, partyof England, a use that was continued till the title "Tory was lost in that of "Conservative," after 1832.

"Tory" itself was an English party nickname for a hundred and fifty years, and while it covered those who sustained the court and the divine right of kings, its orig inal use by the Whigs was to confuse all Tories with the tories or outlaws, inhabiting the Irish bogs. So the word "locofoco" as a designation of Democrat, and hence of the party, sprang into popular use, after 1835, through the incident of re-lighting the extinguished gas in Tammany Hall by means of friction matches, then a new device, and called "locofocos." The title "Know Nothing," was meaningless as to the principles of the American party, and only indirectly perpetuates the fact that it grew out of a set of secret societies.

But a greater anomaly as to political parties is that where they exist for any great length of time they frequently cross their principles, and sometimes drift entirely away from the intentions of their founders. In such instances, where original principles are lost sight of,

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