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TOO MUCH LEFT TO LOT.

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posing. Pickering moved to amend so that the House be given twenty-four hours in which to choose the President, after which an election should be made "according to law." This led Tracy, of Connecticut, to remark, that Pickering's motion would lead to a dozen explanatory amendments, to which the Massachusetts Senator replied that the President might be chosen by lot, or the names of the candidates be put in a box from which the Speaker might draw one. "Why not throw dice for the office, the highest number to win it?" asked Smith.1

Adams objected to the existing provision in the Constitution because it left the choice too much to mere lot, and he offered an amendment that in case the House did not choose within a fixed number of days, then the VicePresident should act as President, but in case that office was vacant, the succession should fall upon whomsoever the law might direct. Wright at once reminded Adams that it would be impossible to put anyone over the VicePresident when he had become President. It will be remembered that as yet no Vice-President had succeeded to the Presidency because of the death of a President and it was not as yet understood that he would be more than an acting-President. Indeed, very vague opinions of his functions, title and powers prevailed. Might it not be necessary in the amendment under consideration, to provide for a vacancy in the office of Vice-President as well? The succession provoked sufficient agitation to lead Wright to say that "we do not wish to see a man seated in the Executive chair whom the people never contemplated to place there, and who never had a vote." 2 To clear up the matter, Taylor, of Virginia, proposed that in case the House failed to elect a President, when the choice

1 Annals, Id., 130.

2 Annals, December 1, 1803, 135.

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OBJECTIONS TO AMENDMENT.

devolved upon it, the Vice-President should act as President in like manner as in case of the death or resignation of the President.

On the next day, Friday, Taylor wished to insert a limit of time, that the House must choose "before the fourth day of March next following." Adams liked the addition, because it would tend to control party spirit and to prevent evil. Pickering thought the time too long, and as he would have none left "for corruption to operate,' proposed to give the House two or three days, but Taylor's amendment was agreed to by a vote of twenty-one to ten.1

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The whole resolution was now before the Senate. White, of Delaware, then arose and delivered the longest speech heard in either House on the subject.2 He opposed any change. The country was divided, as doubtless it would continue to be divided, into two great political parties. If the amendment was adopted, it would follow, that every four years the four candidates in the field would be greatly tempted to tamper with the electors, because one of the four would be chosen President. True, a disputed election had occurred, but it had passed away and the country had suffered no harm. In the ordinary course of events, a similar case would rarely arise. As the country grew older, and new States came into the Union, the contingency became more improbable. It had become fashionable to attach little importance to the of fice of Vice-President, even to designate it as the fifth wheel of a wagon. But the functions of this officer were very great, not merely as a possible successor to the President, but in the administration of the government. If the proposed amendment passed, if the electors were to designate their votes, then irresistible temptation was held 1 Annals, 138.

2 Id., 139-151, December 2, 1803.

THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION.

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out for contracts and compromises among the larger States for these offices. Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina might totally exclude the other States. Already population had set its face southwestward and the States of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, together with the new States growing out of the territories on the Mississippi, would have it in their power, after the census of 1810, to appoint both President and Vice-President. This and other causes would give rise to schisms among the States which at last might plunge the country into civil war and produce a separation.

Plumer, of New Hampshire, touched on the basis of representation. The slave States had eighteen additional electors and representatives, a number equal to all that four and a half of the free States were entitled to choose. The amendment would lessen the weight and influence of the Eastern States and the inequality of representation would also remain. Tracy, of Connecticut, argued at length, that the amendment would deprive the small States of their most important rights. It was intended that the election by the House should be a compromise between the federal and the republican principle, and as Madison had said in the Virginia Convention, "in the eventual election, the small States would have the advantage; why then destroy every federal principle in the Constitution.?" The Convention, "to secure the rights of the minority, as well as to check the intolerance of the majority, placed the majority in jeopardy if they should attempt at grasping all the benefits of a President and Vice-President within themselves, to the total exclusion of the minority." Hillhouse declared that it was his purpose "to prevent a minor faction from carrying a VicePresident into that chair." Finally, the vote being taken

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TWO AMENDMENTS BEFORE CONGRESS.

on the amended report, it was again decided to insert the number three, instead of five, and to omit the proposition limiting the period for which a President could be elected and the resolution, in its amended form, passed by a vote of twenty-two to ten. At half past nine, in the evening, the final vote was taken that the resolution pass,— the division being the same as last made, which the VicePresident, Burr, declared to be a two-thirds vote;-and the amendment was sent to the House with a request for its concurrence.1

Two resolutions for amendment had now been passed: the House resolution sent to the Senate on the twentyeighth of October, and the Senate amendment, sent to the House on the first of December. The House measure retained the original provision of the Constitution that in case the election went to the House, the choice should be made from the five highest on the list; the Senate amendment limited the choice to three, and in case no President was chosen by the House before the fourth of March, the Vice-President should become President: otherwise, the two resolutions were similar. On the sixth of December, the House made the Senate resolution the order of the day.2 Griswold, of Connecticut, thought the Senate's inattention to the resolution sent up to it a grave act of discourtesy to the House. He objected to the Senate amendment because it had not been passed by a constitutional number of Senators. Everybody knew that the Senate consisted of thirty-four members and that twentythree constituted two-thirds of them, but only twenty-two Senators had voted for the resolution.

A long debate followed on the meaning of that pro

1 Annals, Id., 210; December 3, 1803.

2 Annals, Id., 646.

THE SENATE AMENDMENT TAKEN UP.

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vision in the Constitution regulating the vote when amendments are proposed: Did it mean that the vote must be by two-thirds of the Senate, or by two-thirds of the Senators present? The journals of Congress were searched. Randolph, of Virginia, discovered that some of the amendments of 1789 did not receive the support of two-thirds of the House. Ought they therefore to be expunged from the Constitution? Rodney told his colleagues that by the Constitution each House kept a Journal, determined its own rules and regulated its own proceedings. By what authority then could the House judge the Senate? The new amendment came to the House from the Senate through its legitimate organ, the clerk. Was one House thus to watch the other? "The Constitution is predicated on the moral integrity of the two Houses, and without such confidence in them, it cannot exist for a day."

Finally, it was decided, by a vote of eighty-five to thirty-four, that the Senate amendment should be taken up, its enactment, by the Senate, having proceeded, in the opinion of that body, in a constitutional manner, of which the Senate itself was final judge.1 Thus was settled, early in the history of the Government, a principle in Congressional legislation which the Constitution recognizes among the States, that full faith and credit shall be given to the public acts, records and proceedings, of one branch of Congress by the other.

On the seventh, Huger, of South Carolina, wished the districting amendment to be taken up with that from the Senate. Griswold, of New York, agreed with him, but not because the Legislatures of New York and South Carolina had proposed the amendment. Senators might

1 Annals, Id., 663; December 6, 1803.

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