The last, the most novel and complicated of the three, was reserved for Senator Powell of Kentucky to bring forward in This scheme, containing eleven sections, still retained the electoral college, but it reduced considerably its number by providing that Congress should apportion among the several States the electors according to the following ratio of population in Federal numbers: One elector to each State having less than a million, two to each State having one, but less than two million, and so on to seven to each State having a popula tion of eight millions. Each State having but one elector should be an electoral district, and each of the other States should be divided by Congress into districts equal to the number of its electors, each district to elect one elector. The electors should convene at the seat of government and form an electoral college on the first Monday of February, over which the Chief Justice of the United States should preside. The electors should then be distributed alphabetically into six classes as nearly equal as possible. Each class should choose an elector from the class next succeeding it, except class six, which should choose from class one. From the six so chosen two should be designated by lot, and from these two the college should choose one to be President, the other to be VicePresident. If the college should fail, except from exterior violence or intimidation, to make an election within twentyfour hours from the time it was formed, it should be dissolved, and a new election ordered, and the college should convene and proceed as before directed. Should there be no election by an electoral college before the 1st day of June, the Senate of the United States should form itself into an electoral college, and proceed according as was directed for the electoral college, within twenty-four hours. If they should fail to elect the office should devolve upon such officer of the Government as Congress should have theretofore directed. Then followed four other sections relating to further details of the system, one of which stipulated that every elector before entering upon the duties of his office should take an oath to support the Constitution, and declare that he had not and would not pledge his vote as an elector in favor of any person, or toward aiding any political party.

App., No. 1026. The plan of Judge Nicholson of Kentucky.

48. ELECTION OF PRESIDENT FROM PRESIDENTIAL SECTIONS.

The desire that a President should be selected only out of a previously designated group of men is akin to the design to compel the choice of a man resident in a designated section. Two amendments have been proposed which divide the country into Presidential sections. The first was introduced in 1822 by Mr. Montgomery of Kentucky; it did not change the method of the election, but provided for the creation of Presidential sections. The President was to be elected from each of four sections in rotation. The New England States and New York were to constitute one section. The remainder of the Middle States, with Maryland and Virginia, another; the Southern States another, and Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri another. There being twenty-four States in the Union at this time, it was provided that upon the admission of new States they should be incorporated within the section upon which they bordered. The number of the sections were to be determined by a "lottery" conducted in the presence of Congress. Provision was made for the division of any section when its population was shown by the census to be double that of the section containing the lowest represented number. The reception of the resolution may be inferred from the remark of its author: "However laughable it might appear to some gentlemen, he considered it a very serious matter."

The cause of the amendment was doubtless the jealousy awakened in the Middle States and New England, and still more in the West, by the fact that, with the exception of John Adams, all the Presidents up to this time had come from Virginia.3

The other resolution was introduced nearly forty years later, in February, 1861, shortly before the outbreak of the civil war. Entirely different motives prompted its introduction. It was an attempt by a Northern Democrat to make such a change in the Constitution that the Southern States would refrain from going out of the Union. Calhoun, in his speech of 1850 on the compromise, had made a somewhat similar proposition.* It

See ante, par. 34, for Mr. Southard's plan for an executive council.
App., No. 509.

The amendment proposed by Andrew Johnson in 1860 for the election of the President and Vice-President by district provided that the President and Vice-President should alternately be chosen from the North and South. Ante, p. 91.

4 Works, I, 393-396.

was now put forward by a Northern man, Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio. The four sections contemplated by the amendment were to be known, respectively, as the North, the West, the Pacific, and the South.

Unlike the proposition of 1822, this amendment proposed changing the method of electing the President. It provided that two of the electors for the State at large should be appointed by each State as the legislature thereof should direct. The others should be chosen in the respective Congressional districts of the State. A majority of all the electors in each of the four sections should be necessary for the choice of President and Vice-President; and the concurrence of a majority of the States of each section should be necessary for the choice of President by the House of Representatives, and of the Senators from each section for the choice of Vice-President, whenever the right of choice should devolve upon either of them.

Further articles provided for the term of the President and for a special election in the case of a failure by the House and Senate to elect when the choice devolved upon them.

The adoption of this amendment would have enabled the Southern States to have prevented the election of any man to the Presidency who was openly hostile to the system of slavery. In addition, this amendment in effect gave the South a negative on all legislation hostile to its interests, for it provided that on the demand of one-third of the Senators of any one section, on any bill, order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the House was necessary the vote should be held by sections and a majority of the Senators from each section voting should be necessary to its passage. It shared the fate of the other compromise measures introduced in the session of 1860-61.

49. ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT BY THE VOTERS AS CONGRESS SHALL DIRECT.

In addition to the amendments proposing to extend the power of the Federal Government to control and regulate the election of President and Vice-President, which are discussed in another paragraph, there have been three proposed amendments presented, conferring upon Congress the power to prescribe the method of electing the President.2 The first of these was introduced in 1869 by Mr. Buckalew of Pennsylvania. It

App., Nos. 901-903. See post, 49, 56, 86, 107.

2 See post, par. 53.

provided that "Congress shall have power to prescribe the manner in which the electors shall be chosen by the people." This amendment, as was said in the debate, would have enabled Congress to prescribe the single district system or any other improved method as seemed best at any given time. This resolution, after being presented several times, was finally passed by the Senate, in connection with the House suffrage amendment. The House refused to concur in the amendment, and the Senate, after receding from this article, failed to give the suffrage amendment the necessary two-thirds. The fifteenth amendment passed later without this article being incorporated in it.2

Twice since, in 1872 and in 1888, a very similar proposition, save that the vote should be given directly, without the intervention of electors, has been presented to Congress, the first time by General Banks, the last by Senator Cockrell.3

50. ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT IN CASE OF NO CHOICE AT THE FIRST ELECTION.

The greater number of the proposed amendments relating to the method of the election of President and Vice-President made provision for the method to be followed in case of no choice at the first election. The variety of the expedients proposed to effect an ultimate choice is only exceeded by the methods suggested for the primary election of the chief executive officers. Previous to the early "twenties" no amendment appears proposing any change in the clause of the twelfth amendment, which provides that in case of no choice for President or Vice-President by the electors the election of the former shall be made by the House of Representatives, and of the latter by the Senate.5

App., Nos. 1287, 1308. See post, par. 131.

This amendment was first proposed as an additional article to the Senate suffrage amendment, later withdrawn and presented as a separate amendment, finally passed by the Senate as an additional article of the House suffrage amendment, and reconsidered as recorded above.

3 App., Nos. 1356, 1715. Mr. Banks's proposition provided that the President and VicePresident should be "chosen by the electors qualified to vote in the election of Representatives to Congress," "in such manner and under such regulations as Congress may by law direct;" Mr. Cockrell's, for a direct vote "in such manner as Congress shall provide by law."

4 Except Hillhouse's proposition of the choice of President by lot. Ante, par. 47.

5 The twelfth amendment reduced the number of names submitted to the House from five to three. Compare art. 2, sec. 1, cl. 3, with the twelfth amendment. The Federalists had opposed this change made by the twelfth amendment as reducing the influence of the small States. Ante, par. 38, p. 79, note 4.

In 1823, as if in expectation of trouble in the next election, several amendments to alter this provision were introduced. The failure of the electors to choose a President in 1824, and the subsequent choice of Adams by the House, called forth a large number of resolutions proposing a variety of methods to diminish the probability of the election devolving upon the House of Representatives, some even stipulating that in no case should the choice be left to the House.' Naturally the friends of Jackson were the most zealous in urging this proposition, and with some success, for in 1825 the House, after a six weeks' debate, agreed to a resolution to take away from the two Houses the power of participating in eventual elections,3 but their committee were unable to agree upon "any specific plan," and were discharged.*

2

Although Congress was unable to agree upon any substitute for this provision of the Constitution, various expedients have been devised by individual members. These for convenience of treatment are classified into eleven groups, beginning with those proposing the least change, and proceeding to the most radical.

(1) The majority of the amendments in regard to the election of President and Vice-President did not propose to deprive Congress of the contingent power to elect, but some have suggested changes in the method and procedure of the

As the resolutions from the legislatures of the following States: Tennessee, App., No. 581a (1827); Alabama, No. 583 (1828); Georgia, No. 600 (1830); Maine, No. 658a (1838); legislature of Vermont nonconcurred. Am. An. Reg., p. 322. Ohio, No. 655a (1836).

2 See Sumner's Andrew Jackson, p. 106, for description of their hostility to President Adams. For Adams's views as to the propriety of election devolving upon the House, see his Memoirs, Vol. VII, pp. 301-303. For Jackson's position, see ante, par. 43. Van Buren said, "There was no point on which the people of the United States were more perfectly united than upon the propriety, not to say indisputable necessity, of taking the election of President from the House of Representatives." Quoted by O'Neil, p. 253. Madison wrote, in 1823: "An amendment of the Constitution on this point is justly called for by all its considerate and best friends." Works, Vol. II, p. 333.

By a vote of 138 to 52. (This amendment was called for by the legislature of Georgia in 1826. App., No. 577a. In 1836 the legislatures of Ohio and Maine recommended this restriction. App. Nos. 655a, 658a.) At the same time a declaratory resolution in favor of the district system of election of President directly was defeated. Ante, par. 43.

4 This failure showed that however generally it was agreed that the election ought not to devolve upon Congress, it was impossible to secure a sufficient number to agree upon any other plan. An article in Niles' Register referring to the action of the House, as above, said that the Southern States were opposed to "a further extension of the popular principle," while the greater States would not allow "a further extension of the Federal principle." "The large States will not give up one jot or tittle of the power that they have as to first choice of a President; nor will the small States abate their influence when the vote is to be * We despair of a change taken by States." because of the three parties to the question, to wit, the large States whether holding slaves or not, the nonslave-holding States and the slave-holding States, and the small States." Vol. Xxx, p. 233.

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