JEFFERSON'S ADVICE.

303

partly Federal, partly Republican. Again, there were no platforms or conventions, but Adams and Pinckney were the recognized Federalist candidates; Jefferson and Burr, the Democratic-Republican. Testing the final choice by the electoral vote of the States, the result expressed the will of the country more perfectly than did the election of Adams and Jefferson in 1796. There remained one fact, most distressing to the Federalists, that they had not succeeded in bringing either of their candidates into office. The conviction spread, too, that the election in the House had been effected by collusion. Mingled with this rumor, which many Federalists took no pains to correct, were the mutterings of the friends of Burr, who had confidently expected his election to the Presidency. In brief, the method of choosing the Chief Magistrate was suddenly confused with the animosities, the ambitions, the schemes and the disappointments of partisans. It was no longer solely a constitutional question, but strictly a question of politics. Engendered by whatever cause, the idea gained ground that the Constitution had proved defective in an essential part and that it must be amended. "I have been above all things solaced," wrote Jefferson about a month after the election, "by the prospect which opened on us, in the event of a non-election of a President; in which case, the federal government would have been in the situation of a clock or watch run down. of force, nor of any occasion for it. vited by the Republican members of virtual President and Vice-President, would have been. on the ground in eight weeks, would have repaired the Constitution and wound it up again." As the Senate consisted of nineteen Democratic-Republicans and thirteen

There was no idea A convention, inCongress, with the

1 Jefferson to Priestly, March 21, 1801. Works, (Ford's Ed.) VIII, 22.

304 THE AMENDMENT RENEWED IN THE HOUSE.

Federalists; and the House, of seventy-one Republicans and thirty-four Federalists, the "republican members on the ground" were a factor to be reckoned with. A constitutional amendment, if made a strictly party measure, was sure of passing, and none the less sure because it might be directed by the first American statesman who also was one of the most astute politicians the world has ever known.

Another year passed before further effort to amend the Constitution with respect to the election of President and Vice-President was made. On the twelfth of April, 1802, Dewitt Clinton, in the Senate, submitted an amendment that the persons voted for as President or VicePresident, "be particularly designated." Three days later, the amendment districting the States for electors, was again proposed, but later was postponed till the next session of Congress. Meanwhile the House had been hearing amendatory propositions. Benjamin Walker, a New York member, on the fifteenth of February, presented the joint resolutions of the New York Legislature on the subject;2 and on the nineteenth, the districting amendment, providing also for a designation of the candidates was again proposed, and, with the New York resolutions, was referred to the Committee of the Whole. Joint resolutions from the legislature of North Carolina were presented by the eloquent John Stanley, a representative from that State, and were referred, but they were not reached in Committee of the Whole till the first of May, when the two proposed amendments were for the first time discussed. But the debate was brief and chiefly on the expediency of taking up the matter so near the close of the session. However, the amendment to desig

1 Annals, 259.

2 Annals, 509.

THE HOUSES DISAGREE.

305

nate the candidates was carried, on the second, by a vote of forty-seven to fourteen, and, on the following day, was read in the Senate. By a vote of fifteen to eight, the Senate refused to concur. The House was informed of this action, and Congress adjourned. But the defeated amendment was presented again on the third of January, by Leib, of Pennsylvania, who remarked that his constituents were extremely anxious on the subject. On the eighth of February, Bayard of Delaware, moved that the House go into committee on the subject; Griswold, of Connecticut, renewed the motion on the ninth, but the House finally, without a division, discharged the Committee from any consideration of the two amendments that had been referred to it and no further action was taken during the session.

When, for a long period of time, the same propositions come up before Congress, whether originating among its members, or with State legislatures, or with constituencies, they will at last be heard. On the seventeenth of October, 1803, when the Eighth Congress assembled, it was nearly six years since Smith, of South Carolina, had offered his resolution to the House that the Constitution be amended so as to direct the electors to designate the candidates voted for as President and those voted for as Vice-President. On the first day of the session, John Dawson, of Virginia, renewed this old motion, and on the following day, the House, in Committee of the Whole, set itself seriously to its consideration.2 Dawson's amendment merely directed the designation of the electoral votes; Nicholson, of Maryland, detecting the uncertainty that would prevail if the amendment went no further, as the Constitution provided that after the choice of Presi

1 Annals, 304.

2 Annals, 8th Cong., 1st Sess., 372.

306

A QUESTION OF PROCEDURE.

dent, the person having the greatest number of votes should be Vice-President, wished Dawson's amendment changed so that the person receiving the highest number of votes for Vice-President should thereby be elected, unless the vote for two or more was equal, in which case the Senate should choose. Clopton, of Virginia, wished the choice, if to be made by the House, limited to two candidates, instead of five, as the Constitution provided, and this should apply to the election in the Senate, also. On the twentieth, the amendatory propositions on Nicholson's motion, was referred to a Committee of Seventeen,—one from each State, of which Dawson was chairman. To this committee the amendment for districting the Union for electors was also referred.

A question of procedure arising, the Speaker, Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, decided that according to the usages of the House, a simple majority was competent to decide all matters preliminary to the final adoption of amendments. Dawson, on the twenty-second, offered a revision of his amendment, embracing Clopton's idea, but limiting the choice to the three highest on the list, in cases when the election went to the House; but to two, when the Vice-President was chosen by the Senate. The Select Committee, two days later, reported Dawson's last amendment, but the limitation of the House to three candidates, instead of five, was at once objected to as a limitation of the rights of the small States. The great object of the amendment, remarked Sanford, of Kentucky, "ought to be to prevent persons voted for as Vice-President from becoming President; other innovation upon the Constitution was improper. No danger could arise from extending the right of the House to making a choice from the five highest." Caesar Rodney, of Delaware, agreed 1 Annals, Id., 381.

THREE OR FIVE CANDIDATES.

307

with Goddard, of Connecticut, that five would allow a larger choice than three, and thus favor the small States.

In defense of the report, Dawson explained, that the committee did not think three a discrimination because when both President and Vice-President were voted for without discrimination, the choice was made from five. Campbell, of Tennessee, had remarked that by limiting the number to three, the choice would nearer approach the will of the people. "What is this will," inquired Goddard, "but the will of the large States, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania?" When it was known that the election might go to the House, the people would choose their Representatives accordingly. "The fewer the number of candidates," replied Alston, of North Carolina, "the less chance that the House would be called upon to make the choice." On the twenty-sixth, the committee reported a resolution which was agreed to by the House. The candidates should be designated; and in case no person was chosen President by the electors, the House should elect from the three highest on the list. If no Vice-President was chosen, the Senate should elect from those highest on the list and having an equal number of votes. But the friends of the number five made it the issue, on the following day, when, by a vote of fifty-nine to fortyseven, it was inserted; and the amendment, as now changed, was ordered engrossed and passed to a third reading.

On the twenty-eighth the debate of the measure began.1 This debate is no less interesting for its bearing upon the immediate question than for the interpretation it gives of the nature of the Constitution, and the light it throws on the scope and operation of that instrument, as understood in the opening years of the new century. In 1803, most 1 Id., 515.