perhaps can be, proposed. A National Executive will be subservient to the State Legislatures, if the latter had the power of election. An appointment by the State Executive was liable to the insuperable objection, that there would be intrigue with the Legislature by the candidates and their partisans.

"The option before us then lay between an appointment by Electors chosen by the people, and an immediate appointment by the people. He thought the former mode free from many of the objections which had been urged against it, and greatly preferable to an appointment by the National Legislature. As the Electors would be chosen for the occasion, would meet at once, and proceed immediately to an appointment, there would be very little opportunity for cabal or corruption.

"As a further precaution, it might be required that they should meet at some place distant from the seat of government. The second difficulty arose from the disproportion of qualified voters in the Northern and Southern States, and the disadvantages which this node would throw on the latter. The answer to this objection was, in the first place, that this disproportion would be continually decreasing under the influence of the republican laws introduced in the Southern States, and the more rapid increase of their population; in the second place, that local considerations must give way to the general interest. As an individual from the Southern States, he was willing to make the sacrifice."

Mr. Gerry said:

"A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment. He observed that such a society of men existed in the order of the Cincinnati. They are respectable, united, and influential. They will, in fact, elect the Chief Magistrate in every instance, if the election be referred to the people."

Mr. John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, said he had long leaned towards an election by the people, which he regarded as the best and purest source.

The question being taken, the Convention again indorsed the plan of election by Congress for the term of seven years, by a vote of six States to three. The whole proceedings were then referred to a committee of detail, and the Convention adjourned to the 6th of August (ten days), to give them time to prepare and report the Constitution. On that day, the Committee reported the clause concerning the President in this form: "He shall be elected by ballot by the Legislature, during the term of seven years." After protracted discussions (not, however, involving the election of President), the whole scheme was again referred, on the 31st of August, to a committee of eleven.

On the 4th of September, Mr. Brearly, of New Jersey, from this committee, reported in substance the present Electoral system for

choosing the President, in lieu of the plan so often adopted by the Convention for electing the Executive by Congress:

"Each State shall appoint, in such manner as its Legislature may direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole number of Senators and members of the House of Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Legislature."

To this was added a proviso, that if an equal number of votes should be given to two persons by the Electors, the Senate should immediately choose, by ballot, one of them for President; and if no person should have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the Senate should choose the President.

An explanation of this change being called for, Gouverneur Morris, from the committee, said that nobody had appeared to be satisfied with an appointment of the President by the Legislature. Many were even anxious for an immediate choice by the people. It was indispensably necessary to make the Executive independent of the Legislature. As the Electors would vote at the same time throughout the United States, and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided. It would be impossible also to corrupt them.

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, declared that the plan was liable to the strong objection that nineteen times out of twenty the President would be chosen by the Senate-an improper body for the purpose.

Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, said that the Electors would be strangers to the several candidates, and of course unable to decide on their comparative merits. It would also throw the whole appointment, in fact, into the Senate.

Mr. Wilson thought the plan, on the whole, a valuable improvement on the former. It gets rid of one great evil-that of cabal and corruption; and continental characters would multiply as the States more and more coalesce, so as to enable the Electors in every part of the Union to know and judge of them. He thought, however, it would be better to refer the eventual appointment to the Legislature rather than to the Senate.

Mr. Randolph concurred in the latter proposition.

Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, was greatly opposed to the plan reported by the committee. It would throw the whole power into

the Senate.

Mr. Wilson moved to strike out " Senate," and insert the word "Legislature."

Mr. Madison considered it a primary object to render an eventual resort to any part of the Legislature improbable.

Mr. Wilson's motion was then defeated-ayes, 3 States; nays, 7 States.

Mr. Hamilton disliked the whole scheme of government, though

he liked the new modification on the whole better than that in the

first report.

The question was taken on the report for appointing a President by Electors, and carried by a vote of nine States against two.

An amendment was moved that the Electors meet at the seat of the general government, but only one State voted for this provision. Mr. Spaight, of North Carolina, said if the election by Electors was to be crammed down, he would prefer their meeting all together and deciding finally, without any reference to the Senate, and again moved that the Electors meet at the seat of government.

This was again voted down.

An amendment was then adopted adding the words, “but the election shall be on the same day throughout the United States."

Roger Sherman suggested that it would be better that the House of Representatives should elect, in case of a tie, or the want of a majority in the Electoral vote. He moved to strike out the words "the Senate shall immediately choose," and insert" the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President, the members from each State having one vote."

Mr. Mason liked this mode best, as lessening the aristocratical influence of the Senate.

The question being taken, ten States voted yea, and one State (Delaware) voted nay.

Thus the Electoral system was at length incorporated into the Constitution on the 6th of September, 1787-the Convention having been in continuous session over four months. Ten days later the Convention adjourned.

It will be noted (and the fact is most remarkable) that the members of the Convention voted three several times (and once by a unanimous vote of all the States) to make the President elective by the two Houses of Congress; that they voted once to make him elective by a body of Electors chosen by the State Legislatures only · and that they voted finally to make him elective by a body of Electors chosen as the State Legislatures might ordain. The proposition to choose the President by direct vote of the people, though offered and voted on, found so little favor, that only a single State supported it in the Convention, in which twelve States were represented.

A CERTAIN Irish author, in describing a change in religious creed on the part of an eminent person, observed that "he abandoned the errors of the Church of Rome, and embraced those of the Church of England."

IN Voltaire's collected works there are 33,000,000 alphabetical characters. In the Bible, only 3,566,480.

THE HISTORY OF THE INCOME-TAX.

IN considering the question of the expediency of a tax upon incomes as a part of our revenue system, it is well to know precisely what has been done as to an income-tax by former legislation. The country having once derived from an income-tax what would now be equivalent to the heavy proportion of one fifth the annual revenue of the Government, and that within a period not far removed, it will be seen at once how important an item this would form in any reorganization of our system of taxation, which should look to imposing a share of the burdens of government upon property rather than upon the consumption of commodities.

The first income-tax was passed by Congress July 1, 1862, and took effect in the year 1863, It taxed all incomes over $500 and under $10,000 at the rate of three per cent, and on all over $10,000 it levied a tax of five per cent. Owing to the late time of its taking effect, it brought into the Treasury but a small sum prior to the year 1864, when there was collected under the head of income-tax a little over $15,000,000. By the act of March 3, 1865, the income-tax law was amended so as to increase the three per cent tax to five per cent, and the five per cent tax on incomes over $10,000 was changed to a ten per cent tax upon the excess over $5000 income, the exemption of $600 remaining the same. The most of the tax for the year 1865, however, was collected under a former law, and brought into the Treasury not less a sum than $21,000,000 for the fiscal year 1834-65. The following year, 1865-66, the war having ceased, and the country being in a high state of development in all its resources, the income-tax rose to a point the highest ever reached in the history of the tax. The returns for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, showed a total revenue from the income tax of $60,547,882.43. This was but little diminished in the following year, 1866-67, when the net revenue from the income-tax footed up $57,040,640.67.

The income-tax act was further amended, March 2, 1867, so as to increase the exemption, then standing at $600, up to $1000. At the same time all discrimination as to the taxing of large incomes a higher rate was abolished, and the tax fixed at five per cent on all

incomes in excess of $1000. The act also contained the limitation or proviso that the taxes on incomes should be levied and collected until, and including, the year 1870, and no longer. Under this modified tax there was collected, in the year 1868, the large sum of $32,027,610.78; in 1869, $25,025,068.86; and in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1870, $27,115,046.11.

The agitation against the income-tax, which led finally to its repeal, was perhaps far more owing to the excess of the rate charged than to any real objection to the tax itself. Special Commissioner David A. Wells, in his report on the revenue system for the year 1869, set forth the fact that an income-tax of five per cent was greater than had ever been imposed by any other nation, except in time of war, or in extraordinary national exigencies. He recommended the reduction of the tax from five per cent to three per cent on all incomes over $1000, accompanying the suggestion with an expression of opinion that an assessment of three per cent would probably yield to the Treasury a sum almost, if not quite equal to that collected at five per cent. The reason assigned for this was, that while the reduction of the rate would afford a great and welcome relief to the classes then paying it, it would at the same time bring within reach of the income-tax law great numbers who had hitherto avoided giving in their receipts at all, or had made imperfect or fraudulent returns, in order to escape the excessive tax. "A tax of five per cent," said Commissioner Wells, "is evidently too high for revenue purposes." He also recommended that the exemption from the income-tax on account of rent, in addition to the $1000 exemption, should be fixed at the maximum of $200. The existing law, as construed in collection, permitted any one to deduct the full amount paid for rent from his annual income. Evidently, no claim could properly be made for the exemption of rent to any large extent which would not be equally valid in support of the exemption of any other class of expenditure. Certainly high rents are as much a luxury as any form of expenditure, and are as little to be considered in exemption from income taxation.

The same report of Commissioner Wells (being the last during his term of office) set forth the doctrine, that through an income-tax a larger proportion is contributed to the revenue by the classes best able to afford it than by any other method of taxation whatever. These classes owe most to the protection of the government, and it is certainly a wide departure from the true doctrine and methods of taxation that they should be exempted from the burdens of its support, with the single exception of the tax on consumption, through the tariff, which they bear in common with the poorest in the community.

In meeting the proposition then seriously advocated in many quarters, that the income-tax should be wholly removed, Mr. Wells called