question filled Congress and the country with heat and tumult throughout the winter of 1876-7.

463. The Electoral Commission.-The Senate was Republican and the House of Representatives Democratic, and it was well known in advance that the Houses would not agree when the time came to count the votes. Congress accordingly created an Electoral Commission, for that case only, consisting of 5 Senators, 5 Representatives, and 5 Justices of the Supreme Court, with power to decide which of the disputed votes should be counted. After listening to lengthy arguments pro and con, the Commission decided, 8 to 7, that the Republican votes from all the States in dispute were the legal ones, and the Republican candidates were declared elected, 185 votes to 184.

464. Law of 1887.-Serious difficulties in the election of President had now occurred in 1800, 1824, and 1876. Moreover, such difficulties would have occurred at other times, as in 1865 and 1869, had not the same political party controlled large majorities in both Houses of Congress. Experience had therefore proved that Presidential elections were fraught with serious dangers to the Republic. To meet these points of danger, Congress passed, in 1887, an "Act to provide for and regulate the counting of votes for President and Vice-President, and the decision of questions arising therein." Section 2 of this act makes the determination of the State authorities, under State laws previously passed, final in all cases of disputed appointments of Electors, thus answering the principal question of 1877. Subsequent sections prescribe the mode of procedure in cases of objection to a single return or of plural returns from any State. This law, which is very minute in its provisions, removes from a Presidential election many of the dangers that had previously attended it.

465. The Vice-President.-If the House of Representatives, when the right of choice devolves upon it, shall not choose a President before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President-elect shall act as Presi

dent, as in case of the death, resignation, or removal of the President. Such a case as this has never occurred. If no man has for Vice President a majority of the votes of the Electors appointed, then the Senate shall choose one of the persons having the two highest numbers on the list for Vice-President. R. W. Johnson lacked one vote of an election in 1836, and the Senate promptly elected him. When the election of the President goes to the House, and the election of the Vice-President to the Senate, the Vice-President may be chosen first.

Section 1, Clause 4.-The Congress may determine the time of choosing the Electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

466. Days Fixed. The Continental Congress appointed the first Wednesday in January, 1789, as the day for choosing the first Electors; the first Wednesday in February as the day for the Electors to give their votes, and the first Wednesday in March as the day for the new Government to go into operation. In 1792 Congress enacted that the appointment of Electors should be made within thirtyfour days preceding the first Wednesday of December, every fourth year; and this rule continued in force until 1845, when Congress made the day uniform throughout the Union, the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November. From 1792 to 1887 the Electors gave their votes on the first Wednesday in December; the present rule is the second Monday in January. The Old Congress did not fix the day for opening the certificates and counting the votes in 1789; it was done April 16, but since that date the rule has been the second Wednesday of February. The propriety of uniform days for appointing Electors, and for them to give their votes throughout the Union, is manifest.

The first Wednesday in March, 1789, was the fourth day of that month. Congress enacted in 1792: "That the term of four years

for which the President and Vice-President shall be elected shall in

all cases commence on the fourth day of March next succeeding the day on which the votes of the Electors shall have been given." Amendment XII. makes this day a part of the Constitution itself. The following table is a partial exhibit of the methods that have been employed in appointing Electors. (The table is copied, with corrections, from The Nation, No. 1351.)

CHAPTER XXX.

THE FAILURE OF THE ELECTORAL PLAN.

REFERENCES.

Johnston's articles, The Executive in United States History, Electors and the Electoral S stem, Electoral Votes and Disputed Elec tions (In Lalor's Cyclopædia); Stanwood, History of Presidential Elec'ions; Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Chaps. V., VII., VIII.; The Presidential Count: A Complete Official Record of the Proceedings of Congress at the Counting of the Electoral Votes, Etc. (Published by D. Appleton & Co.)

It was formerly supposed that the electoral method of choosing the President and Vice-President was the happy invention of the Federal Convention. But in later years attempts have been made to find an original for it. Some writers have seen a resemblance between this plan and the election of the Pope by the College of Cardinals. Sir H. S. Maine thought the Convention was influenced by the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, according to which the Emperor was chosen by seven imperial electors. A far more probable conjecture is that the framers of the Constitution found their copy in provisions of the constitution of Maryland, 1776, which delegated the choice of the fifteen State senators to an electoral body chosen every five years by the qualified electors of the State. But whether invented or copied, the electoral scheme has failed more signally to accomplish the ends for which it was designed than any other part of the Federal Constitution. Professor Johnston, who held the theory of invention, remarks that the system is almost the only feature of the Constitution which was purely artificial, and not a natural growth, that 1 Stevens: The Sources of the Constitution, pp. 152-154.

it was the one which met least criticism from critics, and warmest praise from "The Federalist," and that democracy had ridden right over it. The plan excluded Congress from formal participation in choosing the Executive, but it did not shut out Congressional influence; still less did it exclude the people, or prevent those heats and ferments that the members of the Convention thought it so necessary to shun. Our quadrennial presidential elections are just what the men of 1787 supposed they had made impossible. Amendment XII. has corrected the particular evils that it was designed to correct; but it has not hindered in the slightest degree that political development which, while observing all the forms of the Constitution, has wholly defeated the object of the electoral system, viz.: the election of the President and Vice-President by independent electors. In other words, the Constitution of the People is at this point wholly at variance with the Constitution of the Government.

We shall therefore take a general view of the process by which the expected operation of the plan has been frustrated.

467. Party Government. The role parties play in the politics of the country was not foreseen in 1787. By the close of Washington's second administration, party lines were closely drawn; and since this time, save during the Era of Good Feeling (1816-1824), there have been two powerful political parties, nearly matched in strength, one or the other of which has elected the President. Men divide on political questions; the resulting parties are resolved on giving effect to their ideas and policies; and to do this, organization and party machinery become necessary. This development of party government it is that has completely changed the operation of the electoral plan. How this came about, a sketch of the modes of making nominations will show.

468. Nomination by Consent.—In 1788 and 1792 Washington was nominated by the unanimous voice of the people, without delegates, conventions, or popular assemblies. Adams was nominated for Vice President in a similar way, but not with equal unanimity. In 1796, when the Federal and Democratic Republican parties were already formed, Adams and Pinckney, Jefferson and Burr, were designated as candidates by the common consent of their respective