157 to elect the President was to make the Chief Magistrate its

servant. Direct election by the people was deemed impossible as it was apprehended that each State would vote fo r its own leading citizen and no election would result. H istory gave the delegates two great examples of an indirect selection of a Chief Executive, the one was the H oly Roman Empire, whose head was selected by so-called electors, and the other was the head of the Roman Catholic Church, who was selected by the College o f Cardinals. Unable thus to solve the problem, the question was referred to a committee, and this committee recommended the plan, not of one electoral college, which theoretically might have been effective, but of as many colleges as there were States, fo r each State was empowered to select its own electors, who should meet by themselves and then certify their choice to the Central Government. There was thus no jo int deliberation between all the electors in any one session.

The plan contained the further preposterous error o f pro­

viding that the two nominees, who received the largest number of votes should be, respectively, President and Vice-President.

This scheme was apparently the work of the supersubtie Gouverneur M orris, who argued that as the various electoral colleges o f the several States would vote at the same time and at a great distance from each other “ the great evil o f cabal was avoided and that it would put them beyond the possibility o f bribery.

The Convention evidently contemplated the possibility that there would be many nominees and consequently no election, and to provide for this contingency the Constitution provided that in the event of no election the House of Representatives should elect the President. This involved a final concession to the little States, fo r while the House o f Representatives was selected by proportionate representation it was provided that in such an election the House should vote by States, each State having only one vote, without respect to its size or importance.

This was the great failure o f the Constitution. From the beginning it was, except in form, a nullity. I t was altogether

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alien to the democratic genius o f the American people. As to the legislature, the people might have been contented for some time w ith the theory o f a representative democracy; but in the matter o f the Chief Magistrate, who would have the great­

est powers of any single American, and who would make a more powerful appeal to the popular imagination than any other public official, the American people, w ith their democratic instincts, would never have tolerated any plan that was not in substance and in fact a direct election by the people.

Such has been the case from the beginning, and yet the obsolete machinery o f the electoral college has always held out a threat to the public peace and a possible civil war.*

One regrettable and disastrous change was made by the Convention at the last moment. I t had been previously pro­

vided that the President should serve fo r seven years and should thereafter be ineligible. Unfortunately, this was stricken out in the last days of the Convention and the present term of office o f four years, w ith eligibility fo r réélection, was substituted. The crude device of the electoral college, while always a potential menace to the public safety, has rarely in practice been injurious, but the eligibility o f the President to succeed himself and his short tenure of office has had almost from the beginning a malevolent influence upon American politics. The evil has been somewhat mitigated by the wise precedent, which Washington established, which morally fo r­

bids a third term, but the strength o f even this tradition has been sensibly lessened in recent times. The result is that every President, w ith the exception o f Washington, has been powerfully influenced in the selection and development o f his policies by their effect upon his prospects o f succession.

I f the Chief Executive were free from this obvious tempta­

* The disputed election o f 1876 finally turned on the right of a post­

master in Oregon to serve as an elector, and had he been disqualified M r. Tilden and not M r. Hayes would have been inaugurated as President.

Only the too vivid recollections of a then recent civil w ar prevented another conflict in the Centennial Year of the nation’s history.

I t is possible that the present House of Representatives may be called upon to elect the next President of the United States, and if so, an acri­

monious conflict, due wholly to the cumbrous and useless machinery of the electoral college, is a possibility.

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tion to play politics, w ith its injection o f a powerful personal interest in the judicial exercise o f his great duties, many a chapter o f American history would have been written to better purpose. Moreover, the eligibility fo r reelection has the effect o f attaching to the person of the President the whole force o f executive power ; and as the nation grows ever greater and its civil service multiplies it becomes increasingly difficult to defeat any President either fo r renomination or fo r reelection.

Fortunately, this evil has been mitigated by the long line o f patriotic statesmen who have been chosen as Chief Magistrate, and as long as the third-term tradition has any moral influence the natural desire of a President to shape his policies to succeed himself w ill be limited to his first term. A longer tenure of office and the elimination of this powerful element o f personal ambition would have been o f incalculable benefit.

The debates proceeded on this and other questions in good temper, and almost the only question that again gave rise to passionate argument was that o f slavery. The extreme Southern States declared that they would never accept the new plan “ except the right to import slaves be untouched.” This question was finally compromised by agreeing that the importa­

tion o f slaves should end after the year 1808, I t however le ft the slave population then existing in a state o f bondage, and fo r this necessary compromise the nation seventy-five years later was to pay dearly by one o f the most destructive civil wars in the annals o f mankind.

August was now drawing to a close. The Convention had been in session fo r more than three months. O f its work the public knew nothing, and this notwithstanding the acute in­

terest which the American people, not merely facing the peril o f anarchy, but actually suffering from it, must have taken in the Convention. Its vital importance was not underestimated.

While its builders, like all master builders, did “ build better than they knew,” yet it cannot be said that they under­

estimated the importance o f their labors. As one o f their number, Gouverneur M orris said : “ The whole human race w ill be affected by the proceedings o f this convention.” A fte r it

adjourned one of its greatest participants, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, said:

“ A fte r the lapse of six thousand years since the crea­

tion o f the world, America now presents the first instance o f a people assembled to say deliberately and calmly and to decide leisurely and peaceably on the form of govern­

ment by which they w ill bind themselves and their poster­

ity.”

In the absence o f any authentic information, the rumour spread through the colonies that the Convention was about to reconstitute a monarchy by inviting the second son of George I I I , the Bishop of Osnaburg, to be King of the United States;

and these rumors became so persistent as to evoke from the silent Convention a semi-official denial. There is some reason to believe that a very small m inority did see in the restoration of a constitutional monarchy the only solution of the problem.

On September 8 the committee had finally considered and, after modifications, approved the draft of the Committee on Detail, and a new committee was thereupon appointed “ to revise the style of and arrange the articles that had been agreed to by the House.” I his committee was one of excep­

tional strength. Its members were Dr. W illiam Samuel John­

son, a graduate of O xford and a friend o f his great namesake, Samuel Johnson; Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur M orris, a brilliant mind with an unusual g ift fo r lucid expression, James Madison, a true scholar in politics, and Rufus King, an orator who, in the inflated language o f the day, was ranked among the luminaries of the present age.”

The convention then adjourned to await the final revision o f the draft by the Committee on Style.

On September 12 the committee reported. W hile it is not certain, it be believed that its work was largely that of Gouver­

neur M orris.*

* M o rris said in a letter to Tim othy Pickering, dated December 22, 1814:

Having rejected redundant and equivocal terms, I believed it to be as clear as our language would permit; excepting, nevertheless,. a p a rt o f what relates to the judiciary. O n that subject, conflicting opinions had been maintained with so much professional astuteness,

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