trolling influence upon the members in deciding upon the plan for choosing the President. It seemed to them both natural and necessary that in the exercise of this high function, the States, as such, should have a voice, and be represented according to their separate populations, without having their votes merged into the general mass, losing their identity as states in the final decision. In estimating the merits of the scheme adopted it is reasonable that we take account of the situation as it then was, and of the reasons for its introduction into our economy. If the controlling reasons for it were valid at that time, and if its adoption met an emergency in harmonizing conflicting claims, and in satisfying the demands of the smaller States, the wisdom of the action is vindicated, whether the same conditions still exist as reasons for the continuance of the plan, or whether they have so changed as to justify the revision of the electoral system, or its abandonment altogether. Without doubt great changes in the situation have come; and such changes as could not have been anticipated, either as to their character or magnitude.

It was not possible for the wisest statesmen of these days to imagine the facilities which our times afford to the average voter for exercising an intelligent and independent judgment with reference to the qualifications of candidates or as to the merits of proposed policies of administration. Those in office did not then, as they do now, perform their duties in the glare of the midday sun and in the focus of millions of watchful eyes. Neither steam nor lightning aided in the diffusion of knowledge. Travel was slow and difficult, while the weekly mail and the weekly papers were the best privileges of the favored sections, leaving vast regions with the slightest opportunities for communication with the world at large. The horseback mail, the stage-coach, and the canal-boat represented the best achievements of civilization for spreading intelligence. The national conventions of the parties were not known at that time as agencies for bringing out candidates; nor is it at all probable that the influence of such agencies for directing voters and controlling elections entered into the calculations of the times. The power of party drill was imperfectly understood and perhaps formed no part of the thought of those whose best energies were given to the study of the best plan for expressing the popular will in the choice of the Chief Magistrate. It was the

recognized right of any eligible citizen to become a candidate for this office at the instigation of his friends, or at his own option, without formal nomination by a political party; and the reasonable probability that each election would find several candidates in the field, rendering it unlikely that any one would secure a majority of the popular vote under such conditions, or even such a plurality as would make it desirable to declare him elected. was no doubt considered, and had weight in determining the conclusion reached. The force of this reasoning has not yet

lost its significance.

It is not possible to do full justice to the authors of the electoral plan without considering the electoral bodies of the several States, in their true character as electoral bodies in fact, with the duties, privileges, and responsibilities of the individual electors composing them. The electors were not chosen to act as passive agents in carrying out imperative instructions, which it would be political treason to depart from under any conceivable exigency, although as representatives of the people they could not do otherwise than respect the wishes of their constituents, and secure the election of their first choice if possible; but they were not absolutely debarred from the exercise of personal judgment in the event of conditions arising not anticipated before the election. It was evidently understood that the electors chosen by popular vote were to exercise some discretion after becoming electors, as to the candidates who should finally receive their votes. The original idea appears to have been that the electors of any State might come together as a body charged with an important trust, and consider the whole situation, including the known wishes of their constituents, and the availability of candidates, and the desirability of securing for their people a second choice, if their first choice had become an impossibility, and, after proper discussion and deliberation, each elector cast his vote according to his own judgment and sense of duty. But this discretion of the individual elector is not now to be thought of as part of the scheme; for custom has laid restrictions upon the members of the body, and therefore upon the body itself, which the law did not lay upon them. The electors can do nothing more than voice the expressed will of those whose ballots place them in the body.

The original electoral plan has been changed by constitutional

amendment, and this fact suggests that other changes may be made when later experiences and observations make it plain that altered conditions render changes desirable and expedient. It was not long after the system was set in operation till the provision requiring the electors to vote only for candidates for the Presidency, making the one who received the highest vote the President, and the one who received the largest vote next to the highest the Vice-President, was unwise, as it always placed in the second office of the government a disappointed man, and the one who had been the successful candidate's strongest competitor for the first place. The provision was then made for electing the Vice-President as now, so that the President and Vice-President might be in complete harmony, and work together for the success of the administration. This change was a necessary one, a step in the right direction, and other changes will doubtless be made as soon as the wisdom of making them shall become apparent. But the people of the country will be slow to approve of modifications of the organic law without the clearest evidence that the proposed alteration will be an improvement. Notwithstanding the seeming radicalism seen in party movements and excitements, the people of this country are at heart loyal to the established government, and essentially conservative. They are not clamoring for changes for the sake of changes-not even for the election by popular vote. There will be very serious hesitation before demanding that change, so long as there can be no assurance that in the future canvassings for the high office there will be only two candidates in the field, so that a majority of the votes will be certainly given to one or the other. It is clearly undesirable to go into an election by the people, with the strong probability that a choice by a majority is impossible; and it is even less desirable to have such an election decided by a plurality, although on the present plan it sometimes occurs that the defeated candidate receives more votes than the successful one.

If there must be an election by less than a majority, it is better that it be by the voice of the States through the electoral agency than by a plurality of the whole vote. The distribution of the popular vote is something for consideration. The rights of the States are supposed to be better secured by this plan than could be done by merging the whole voting population of the country into one body. The massing of the votes in one section

to override those in another section, and this upon sectional and local issues, is measurably forestalled by this plan. At least this is the impression, and it is manifestly one design of this unique method of expressing the will of the people.

Assuming that the electoral plan is to continue, the question of its improvability is pertinent. Voting by States is the fundamental idea in it, its basal thought, as it is also in the alternative provision for an election by the House of Representatives, in the event of a failure to elect by the electors chosen by the States. It is evident that the notion of State sovereignty, which prevailed prior to the adoption of the Constitution, had something to do with shaping the plan as it was originally made, and as it exists at the present time. It was inevitable that this idea should have prominence in the Constitutional Convention, and have large influence, commanding almost universal assent, while as yet the national union was not consummated; for, while the country was under the tentative articles of confederation, there was extraordinary sensitiveness in the public mind with regard to the independence of the several States, so recently achieved. Some of the States were larger than others, but all were alike independent, and the smaller dreaded over-slaughing or absorption by the larger, and naturally insisted upon protection against any tendency towards such a result in any scheme of federation or union that might be proposed. All eyes were open to catch the first appearance of anything that looked like giving the large and powerful States any advantage over the others, except the natural advantages of territory and population, which could not be affected or controlled by law. The Constitution, when completed, had to be approved by the States separately, in order to its adoption, and this provision for the independent action of the States in choosing the chief executive officer was, no doubt, influential in conciliating those who were reluctant to come into the Union. Whether it secured equality of power in this respect or not, it looked in that direction, and approximated that end as nearly as was possible. Especially when the election fell into the House of Representatives, it had the appearance of giving the smaller States an equal voice with the larger in this important action. There are checks and helps in the system which amount to real advantages, although it is not possible to devise a scheme that will give perfect equality to the States as such, so long as

representation in the electoral college, or in the House of Representatives, is based on population; and population is the only basis on which it can be based. It is, therefore, evident that all expectation of making the small States equal to the large States should be abandoned as unwise and impracticable.

In the present system the advantage of the individual voter for electors is with the voters in the larger States. This is an inequality that should be remedied; for, while there is no good reason why a State like Rhode Island or Nevada, or some new Territory just coming into statehood, should have as much power in the choice of President as Pennsylvania or New York, there is no reason why the individual voter in the large States should have greater power than the voter in the small State. This contention is not for the equality of States as States, but for the equality of voters as voters. When the election takes place in the House of Representatives, and each State casts a single vote, that vote being determined by the majority of representatives from the State, the small State makes the nearest approach to equality with the large State that is possible under the Constitution. Then the relation of the vote to population is nearly disregarded. The justice of this near approach to equality is not apparent, and now that "the more perfect union" is formed, and the Constitution is in force, which bears directly upon the rights of the people, as well as upon the States as organized bodies, it is not impertinent to assume that the primary reasons for this equality of States have passed out of existence, if they ever had any foundation or substance outside of State pride or local prejudice. The claim

for equality which has reason in it is the equality of voters, or the claim that one man's vote shall count for as much as any other man's vote anywhere in the Union.

With the existing method of choosing electors for the State on a common ticket the equality sought is impossible, and yet the inequality is so subtle or so well hidden that some effort is necessary to bring it fully into view. In looking for it, the question to be pursued is not the right of the individual to cast his vote, for that is conceded; but it has reference to the relative power of a single vote when cast in a large State or in a small State. In other words, it is a question as to whether it is a larger privilege to vote for twenty or thirty electors than it is to vote for three or five. Does one vote cast for each of thirty electors have