300

PASSES BOTH HOUSES.

Foster, a Representative from New Hampshire, offered a like resolution, which was ordered to be printed; but two weeks later, the House by a vote of fifty-six to twentyeight, negatived his motion to refer the resolution to a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union. On the twenty-third of January, 1800,1 James Ross, of Pennsylvania, moved for a Special Committee to report a bill for deciding disputed elections of President and VicePresident. Three days later, the Committee reported one which passed to a second reading on the fourteenth of February, which was debated and amended, and passed the Senate on the twenty-eighth of March. It was taken up in the House on the sixteenth of April, was discussed till the first of May, was then amended and passed on the second. It was amended by the Senate, was sent back to the House, and, by a vote of seventy-three to fifteen, was there rejected on the ninth.

The defeated measure attempted no more than to regulate the procedure in case of a disputed election. While on its progress, the question of amending the Constitution, in the matter of electing President and Vice-President, again came before the House, on the fourth of February, in the form of a substitute for the existing constitutional provision, providing like the propositions offered by Smith and Foster, for a designated electoral vote. It was referred to the Committee of the Whole, but no further action was taken. On the fourteenth of March, John Nicholas, of Virginia, submitted a resolution to the House for amending the Constitution, proposing that after the third of March, 1801, the choice of the electors of President and Vice-President should be made by dividing each State into a number of districts equal to its number of electors. But no action was taken 1 Annals, 29.

till the twenty-first of November, when this resolution was referred to a Select Committee, which, on the twentysecond of January, 1801, made an elaborate report that no change from the method prescribed by the Constitution was expedient.1

Meanwhile the Presidential election of 1800 had occurred, its results were known and the first case of a failure to choose a President had arisen. Federal intrigues to make Pinckney President and to bring Adams to the second place not only weakened the party, but ultimately overwhelmed Hamilton, their principal instigator, with disaster. The formal vote of the electors, on the

1 Annals, 941-946.

"The most favorable event would certainly be the division of every State into districts for the election of electors; with that single point, and only common sense in the administration, Republicanism would be established for one generation, at least, beyond controversy; but if not obtainable as a general constitutional provision, I think that our friends, whilst they can, ought to introduce it immediately in New York." (Referring to the approaching Constitutional Convention, which assembled at Albany, October 13, 1801).

Gallatin to Jefferson, September 14, 1801.

Adams' Gallatin, I, 51.

"The district mode was mostly, if not exclusively, in view when the Constitution was framed and adopted, and was exchanged for the general ticket and legislative election, as the only expedient for baffling the policy of the particular States which had set the example."

Madison to Hay, August 23, 1823.

Madison's Works, III, 334.

"The amendment to the Constitution of which you speak would be a remedy to a certain degree. So will a different amendment which I know will be proposed, to-wit,-to have no electors, but let the people vote directly, and the ticket which has a plurality of the votes of any State to be considered as receiving thereby the whole vote of the State."

Jefferson, in reply to Gallatin, above, September 18, 1801. Jefferson's Works, VIII, 94.

a See Life and Works of John Adams, I, 576-597.

302

ELECTION OF JEFFERSON AND BURR.

eleventh of February, 1801, gave seventy-three votes to Jefferson; seventy-three to Aaron Burr; sixty-five to John Adams; sixty-four to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and one to John Jay. The electors had failed to choose, and the election of a President devolved, by the provision of the Constitution, on the House. Before Wednesday, the twelfth, had passed, the House cast nineteen ballots, but without result. On the eighteenth, at one o'clock, the thirty-sixth ballot was taken. Ten States voted for Thomas Jefferson; four, for Burr, and two cast blank votes. By this vote, Jefferson was President, and Burr, having the same number was Vice-President. Thus events had demonstrated that the inconveniences discussed during the last three years were not problematical, but, as many believed, substantial. At the election of 1800, sixteen States voted, and in eight, the electors were chosen by the legislatures. In the remaining eight, they were chosen by the voters. But the mere method of obtaining electors had no bearings on the final issue. The electors of Connecticut were appointed by its legislature and they voted for Adams and Pinckney; the South Carolina electors, appointed in the same manner, voted for Jefferson and Burr. The New Hampshire electors, chosen by the voters of that State, cast their ballots for Adams and Pinckney; the electors of Kentucky and Tennessee, also chosen directly by the people, voted for Jefferson and Burr.

On party lines, the Union was divided into eight Republican and six Federal States; the remaining two being

1 Annals, 1021-1033.

2 Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia.

3 In 1789 the electors were chosen by the legislature in Conn., N. J., Dela., Pa., S. C., Ga. In 1792, in Conn., N. J., Pa., Dela., S. C., Ga.

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."1 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.