tional authority. There was, perhaps, too much of this. It savored of apathy and indifference, which, on such a subject, he regarded as the worst of evils. If the people would not elect a president, some one must. Their indifference will give a morbid energy to political intriguers and office hunters.

They will seek importance by influencing the election of the executive. God forbid, said he, that we should put it into the power of men to raise themselves by such means. Let our aspirations rather be, "Lead us not into temptation."

By the present constitution, the three highest candidates are referred to Congress. Is this because congress is more intelligent than the people?

If the people are capable of voting for three, they are capable of voting for one. The evils of both systems are at present united. The candidates are sent to congress without giving any latitude of discretion-yet enough for the purposes of corruption.

In this government the executive acts unseen. He expends money, distributes armies, regulates and controls not in the public eye, before which the legislature acts; but in silence. He is only brought before the public through the legislature, and that sees him only through the lumbering documents on the table. He would preserve

congress from the operation of such an executive. When that body elects a president, it makes itself his partizan. Instead of exercising a control; it will feel bound to sustain the president of its choice, and the independence of the legislature is destroyed. "To say nothing here of corruption, there is hardly a man among us, proud as we are of our own dignity, who cannot have the sternness of his virtue relaxed by a smile, or an act of confidence on the part of the executive. The people are without the circle of this influence; but we, their virtuous legislators, can be reached by a thousand modes.”

In congress, such is the state of things, that, in general, the choice of the people must be defeated. Minorities will always combine against majorities. The man who is the choice of the nation stands on his own principles. You cannot approach him; and, upon a principle as certain as gravitation, minorities will unite against him. The vote is by states; and by the corruption of the smaller states, a president may be elected. Even excluding the idea of corruption, the effect is to array factions in congress, and to render it probable that the executive will be elected by a minority. What will be the consequence of bringing in a president under such circumstances? You place him at the head of af

fairs, with the consciousness that he has no power, and his whole patronage will be used to bolster up his popularity. He is compelled by his situation to become a political intriguer. He feared the influence of executive patronage. He had well considered it when he said, that since man was created, there never was a political body which would not become corrupt. Corruption steals upon us in a thousand shapes. The bribery of office is the most dangerous, since it can be effected in the guise of patriotism.

All experience teaches us the irresistible power of temptation, when vice assumes the form of virtue. The great enemy of mankind would not have consummated the ruin of our first parents, had he appeared in his native deformity: but he came as the serpent-as the president may-and presented a beautiful apple, and told his glozing story, you can be guilty of no crime; you will obtain the knowledge of good and evil. Such was

temptation which few can resist. Satan himself could not devise a scheme, which would more infallibly introduce corruption and death into our political Eden. This is the fountain of our danger. The history of every free government illustrates it. They all have fallen under the corrupting influence of executive patronage.

Are we exempt? he asked. Are the statesmen of the United States more pure? The people, indeed, are, from the peculiar structure of society, superior to the people of England. But there is no country, where office has more attraction than in the United States. He did not say this in censure, or in praise. Human nature is the same every where.

We are, however, somewhat worse than in England. A member of parliament would disdain to accept a petty office at the hands of the king. A member of congress will accept any office.

We see all principles, all the colours of the rainbow in our cabinet-a sacrifice of principle at the shrine of power.

These evils must be resisted now, in their incipient state, or never.

To effect this desirable object, he offered the following modification of his original proposition. That the constitution should be so amended, as to prevent the election of president and vice president, from devolving upon the house of

representatives. 2dly. That an uniform system of voting by districts in each state, equal in number to the senators and representatives of that state, ought to be established, and that each district should have one vote. 3dly. That a select committee be appointed, to report a joint resolution embracing those objects.

These resolutions, and the arguments, by which they were support ed, necessarily provoked much discussion. Mr. Storrs, of New-York, opposed them in a speech which, made a strong impression on the the house. He entirely denied the fundamental principles upon which the mover of the resolutions had advocated them, viz. that the original adjustment of the electoral power, was intended to obtain the sense of a majority of the people of the United States, in the election of a president; that in that adjustment,the democratic representative principle was introduced into the system; that the district system is most congenial to the spirit of the constitution; and that the general ticket system, tends to subvert the will of a majority of the people. He regarded the great end to be accomplished in the formation of the constitution was, the establishment of a national government, which should be adequate to the objects, in which we all had a common interest; and which, at

the same time, should preserve the just influence and power of the several states of the confederacy. The parties to the compact came together, in the character of separate and independent communities of people, distinct and sovereign. In all that related to their external relations, and in much that concerned their domestic prosperity, their true and obvious policy was the same.

The formation, however, of a common government, was attended with great difficulties.

The natural advantages of some of the states, and the habits and character of their citizens, had led them to look to commerce, as the chief source of their prosperity. In other states a difference of situation and habits, had caused another interest to predominate. In several of the states there existed common political interests, peculiar in their character, and closely connected with their internal peace and security-perhaps their very existence-which these states could never safely subject to the operation of any system, not under their exclusive control. It was a most difficult and delicate matter to unite, even for the most desirable ends, the various and, in some respects, repugnant interests of the parties to the federal constitution.

At that time, the security of all these various interests was con

responsible to the several states. The power and resources of the states were in the hands of these legislatures, as the guardians of the common political interests, of the people who created them. In the formation of a federal government, they were called upon, to take from their state legislatures many of the powers of sovereignty, and to confer them on the national government. In the distribution not only of these powers; but of all those incidentally accessary to the new system, they were most sensiby alive to the security of their separate interests, and the preservation of their just relative political influence, in that peculiar system, which was to be established more or less on the basis of the popular principle of a representation of the people of the several states, as different sovereign communities. This was the intention of the framers of the constitution. The compact is between the people of the respective states, as distinct sovereign communities. It is not to be treated as the creature of the state legislatures. They were not parties in any sense to this compact. The constitution speaks throughout of the parties, in the character of distinct state communities. He inferred, that it was an error to treat that part, which prescribes the

on the pure popular representative principle which the amendment professes to adopt. In settling that part, as in the other branches of the government, the principles upon which the compromise for the preservation of these various interests was made, were consulted. The senate was not established on such a basis: Nor was the house of

representatives. There was one interest, which helped to swell the numerical power of some of the states in that house, which was subversive of the whole foundation of popular representation in a free government; and, in any event, the smaller states are secured one representative on principles, which were not necessarily connected with their population.

The distribution of the electoral power has been graduated among the states, by their collective numerical power, in the house and the senate, carrying in it the ingredient of all the federative, as well as representative principles, which entered into this political system.

From these principles he concluded, that in the election of president it was intended to preserve inviolably, the expression of the will of the people of the several states, as distinct political communities. It was not to collect the sense of the people of the United