Читать книгу Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2) - Benton Thomas Hart - Страница 31

The attempt was renewed at the session of 1825-'26 to procure an amendment to the constitution, in relation to the election of the two first magistrates of the republic, so as to do away with all intermediate agencies, and give the election to the direct vote of the people. Several specific propositions were offered in the Senate to that effect, and all substituted by a general proposition submitted by Mr. Macon – "that a select committee be appointed to report upon the best and most practicable mode of electing the President and Vice-President: " and, on the motion of Mr. Van Buren, the number of the committee was raised to nine – instead of five – the usual number. The members of it were appointed by Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and were carefully selected, both geographically as coming from different sections of the Union, and personally and politically as being friendly to the object and known to the country. They were: Mr. Benton, chairman, Mr. Macon, Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Hugh L. White of Tennessee, Mr. Findlay of Pennsylvania, Mr. Dickerson of New Jersey, Mr. Holmes of Maine, Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, and Col. Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. The committee agreed upon a proposition of amendment, dispensing with electors, providing for districts in which the direct vote of the people was to be taken; and obviating all excuse for caucuses and conventions to concentrate public opinion by proposing a second election between the two highest in the event of no one receiving a majority of the whole number of district votes in the first election. The plan reported was in these words:

"That, hereafter the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be chosen by the People of the respective States, in the manner following: Each State shall be divided by the legislature thereof, into districts, equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives, to which such State may be entitled in the Congress of the United States; the said districts to be composed of contiguous territory, and to contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of persons, entitled to be represented, under the constitution, and to be laid off, for the first time, immediately after the ratification of this amendment, and afterwards at the session of the legislature next ensuing the appointment of representatives, by the Congress of the United States; or oftener, if deemed necessary by the State; but no alteration, after the first, or after each decennial formation of districts, shall take effect, at the next ensuing election, after such alteration is made. That, on the first Thursday, and succeeding Friday, in the month of August, of the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and on the same days in every fourth year thereafter, the citizens of each State, who possess the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, shall meet within their respective districts, and vote for a President and Vice-President of the United States, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with himself: and the person receiving the greatest number of votes for President, and the one receiving the greatest number of votes for Vice-President in each district shall be holden to have received one vote: which fact shall be immediately certified to the Governor of the State, to each of the senators in Congress from such State, and to the President of the Senate. The right of affixing the places in the districts at which the elections shall be held, the manner of holding the same, and of canvassing the votes, and certifying the returns, is reserved, exclusively, to the legislatures of the States. The Congress of the United States shall be in session on the second Monday of October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and on the same day in every fourth year thereafter: and the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be President, if such number be equal to a majority of the whole number of votes given; but if no person have such majority, then a second election shall be held, on the first Thursday and succeeding Friday, in the month of December, then next ensuing, between the persons having the two highest numbers, for the office of President: which second election shall be conducted, the result certified, and the votes counted, in the same manner as in the first; and the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President. But, if two or more persons shall have received the greatest and equal number of votes, at the second election, the House of Representatives shall choose one of them for President, as is now prescribed by the constitution. The person having the greatest number of votes for Vice-President, at the first election, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be equal to a majority of the whole number of votes given, and, if no person have such majority, then a second election shall take place, between the persons having the two highest numbers, on the same day that the second election is held for President, and the person having the highest number of votes for Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President. But if two or more persons shall have received the greatest number of votes in the second election, then the Senate shall choose one of them for Vice-President, as is now provided in the constitution. But, when a second election shall be necessary, in the case of Vice-President, and not necessary in the case of President, then the Senate shall choose a Vice-President, from the persons having the two highest numbers in the first election, as is now prescribed in the constitution."

The prominent features of this plan of election are: 1. The abolition of electors, and the direct vote of the people; 2. A second election between the two highest on each list, when no one has a majority of the whole; 3. Uniformity in the mode of election. – The advantages of this plan would be to get rid of all the machinery by which the selection of their two first magistrates is now taken out of the hands of the people, and usurped by self-constituted, illegal, and irresponsible bodies, – and place it in the only safe, proper, and disinterested hands – those of the people themselves. If adopted, there would be no pretext for caucuses or conventions, and no resort to the House of Representatives, – where the largest State is balanced by the smallest. If any one received a majority of the whole number of districts in the first election, then the democratic principle – the demos krateo– the majority to govern – is satisfied. If no one receives such majority, then the first election stands for a popular nomination of the two highest – a nomination by the people themselves – out of which two the election is sure to be made on the second trial. But to provide for a possible contingency – too improbable almost ever to occur – and to save in that case the trouble of a third popular election, a resort to the House of Representatives is allowed; it being nationally unimportant which is elected where the candidates were exactly equal in the public estimation. – Such was the plan the committee reported; and it is the perfect plan of a popular election, and has the advantage of being applicable to all elections, federal and State, from the highest to the lowest. The machinery of its operation is easy and simple, and it is recommended by every consideration of public good, which requires the abandonment of a defective system, which has failed – the overthrow of usurping bodies, which have seized upon the elections – and the preservation to the people of the business of selecting, as well as electing, their own high officers. The plan was unanimously recommended by the whole committee, composed as it was of experienced men taken from every section of the Union. But it did not receive the requisite support of two-thirds of the Senate to carry it through that body; and a similar plan proposed in the House of Representatives received the same fate there – reported by a committee, and unsustained by two-thirds of the House: and such, there is too much reason to apprehend, may be the fate of future similar propositions, originating in Congress, without the powerful impulsion of the people to urge them through. Select bodies are not the places for popular reforms. These reforms are for the benefit of the people, and should begin with the people; and the constitution itself, sensible of that necessity in this very case, has very wisely made provision for the popular initiative of constitutional amendments. The fifth article of that instrument gives the power of beginning the reform of itself to the States, in their legislatures, as well as to the federal government in its Congress: and there is the place to begin, and before the people themselves in their elections to the general assembly. And there should be no despair on account of the failures already suffered. No great reform is carried suddenly. It requires years of persevering exertion to produce the unanimity of opinion which is necessary to a great popular reformation: but because it is difficult, it is not impossible. The greatest reform ever effected by peaceful means in the history of any government was that of the parliamentary reform of Great Britain, by which the rotten boroughs were disfranchised, populous towns admitted to representation, the elective franchise extended, the House of Commons purified, and made the predominant branch – the master branch of the British government. And how was that great reform effected? By a few desultory exertions in the parliament itself? No, but by forty years of continued exertion, and by incessant appeals to the people themselves. The society for parliamentary reform, founded in 1792, by Earl Grey and Major Cartwright, succeeded in its efforts in 1832; and in their success there is matter for encouragement, as in their conduct there is an example for imitation. They carried the question to the people, and kept it there forty years, and saw it triumph – the two patriotic founders of the society living to see the consummation of their labors, and the country in the enjoyment of the inestimable advantage of a "Reformed Parliament."