Extracts from Speech of Hon. Thomas H. Benton,
On Proposed Amendments of the Constitution in relation to the election of President and Vice-President, Delivered in the U. S. Senate Chamber, A. D. 1824.
He said:—The evil of a want of uniformity in the choice of Presidential electors, is not limited to its disfiguring effect upon the face of our government, but goes to endanger the rights of the people, by permitting sudden alterations on the eve of an election, and to annihilate the rights of the small States, by enabling the large ones to combine, and to throw all their votes into the scale of a particular candidate. These obvious evils make it certain that any uniform rule would be preferable to the present state of things. But, in fixing on one, it is the duty of statesmen to select that which is calculated to give to every portion of the Union its due share in the choice of a chief magistrate, and to every individual citizen a fair opportunity of voting according to his will. This would be effected by adopting the District System. It would divide every State into districts equal to the whole number of votes to be given, and the people of each district would be governed by its own majority, and not by a majority existing in some remote part of the State. This would be agreeable to the rights of individuals: for in entering into society, and submitting to be bound by the decision of the majority, each individual retained the right of voting for himself wherever it was practicable, and of being governed by a majority of the vicinage, and not by majorities brought from remote sections to overwhelm him with their accumulated numbers. It would be agreeable to the interests of all parts of the States; for each State may have different interests in different parts; one part may be agricultural, another manufacturing, another commercial; and it would be unjust that the strongest should govern, or that two should combine and sacrifice the third. The district system would be agreeable to the intention of our present constitution, which, in giving to each elector a separate vote, instead of giving to each State a consolidated vote, composed of all its electoral suffrages, clearly intended that each mass of persons entitled to one elector, should have the right of giving one vote, according to their own sense of their own interest.
The general ticket system now existing in ten States, was the offspring of policy, and not of any disposition to give fair play to the will of the people. It was adopted by the leading men of those States, to enable them to consolidate the vote of the State. It would be easy to prove this by referring to facts of historical notoriety. It contributes to give power and consequence to the leaders who manage the elections, but it is a departure from the intention of the constitution; violates the rights of the minorities, and is attended with many other evils.
The intention of the constitution is violated because it was the intention of that instrument to give to each mass of persons, entitled to one elector, the power of giving an electoral vote to any candidate they preferred. The rights of minorities are violated, because a majority of one will carry the vote of the whole State. The principle is the same, whether the elector is chosen by general ticket, or by legislative ballot; a majority of one, in either case, carries the vote of the whole State. In New York, thirty-six electors are chosen; nineteen is a majority, and the candidate receiving this majority is fairly entitled to receive nineteen votes; but he counts in reality thirty-six: because the minority of seventeen are added to the majority. These seventeen votes belong to seventeen masses of people, of 40,000 souls each, in all 680,000 people, whose votes are seized upon, taken away, and presented to whom the majority pleases. Extend the calculation to the seventeen States now choosing electors by general ticket or legislative ballot, and it will show that three millions of souls, a population equal to that which carried us through the Revolution, may have their votes taken from them in the same way. To lose their votes is the fate of all minorities, and it is theirs only to submit; but this is not a case of votes lost, but of votes taken away, added to those of the majority, and given to a person to whom the minority was opposed.
He said, this objection (to the direct vote of the people) had a weight in the year 1787, to which it is not entitled in the year 1824. Our government was then young, schools and colleges were scarce, political science was then confined to few, and the means of diffusing intelligence were both inadequate and uncertain. The experiment of a popular government was just beginning; the people had been just released from subjection to an hereditary king, and were not yet practiced in the art of choosing a temporary chief for themselves. But thirty-six years have reversed this picture; thirty-six years, which have produced so many wonderful changes in America, have accomplished the work of many centuries upon the intelligence of its inhabitants. Within that period, schools, colleges, and universities have multiplied to an amazing extent. The means of diffusing intelligence have been wonderfully augmented by the establishment of six hundred newspapers, and upwards of five thousand post-offices. The whole course of an American’s life, civil, social, and religious, has become one continued scene of intellectual and of moral improvement. Once in every week, more than eleven thousand men, eminent for learning and for piety, perform the double duty of amending the hearts, and enlightening the understandings, of more than eleven thousand congregations of people. Under the benign influence of a free government, both our public institutions and private pursuits, our juries, elections, courts of justice, the liberal professions, and the mechanical arts, have each become a school of political science and of mental improvement. The federal legislature, in the annual message of the President, in reports of heads of departments, and committees of Congress, and speeches of members, pours forth a flood of intelligence which carries its waves to the remotest confines of the republic. In the different States, twenty-four State executives and State legislatures, are annually repeating the same process within a more limited sphere. The habit of universal travelling, and the practice of universal interchange of thought, are continually circulating the intelligence of the country, and augmenting its mass. The face of our country itself, its vast extent, its grand and varied features, contribute to expand the human intellect and magnify its power. Less than half a century of the enjoyment of liberty has given practical evidence of the great moral truth, that under a free government, the power of the intellect is the only power which rules the affairs of men; and virtue and intelligence the only durable passports to honor and preferment. The conviction of this great truth has created an universal taste for learning and for reading, and has convinced every parent that the endowments of the mind and the virtues of the heart, are the only imperishable, the only inestimable riches which he can leave to his posterity.
This objection (the danger of tumults and violence at the elections) is taken from the history of the ancient republics; and the tumultuary elections of Rome and Greece. But the justness of the example is denied. There is nothing in the laws of physiology which admits a parallel between the sanguinary Roman, the volatile Greek, and the phlegmatic American. There is nothing in the state of the respective countries, or in the manner of voting, which makes one an example for the other. The Romans voted in a mass, at a single voting place, even when the qualified voters amounted to millions of persons.
They came to the polls armed, and divided into classes, and voted, not by heads, but by centuries.
In the Grecian republics all the voters were brought together in a great city, and decided the contest in one great struggle.
In such assemblages, both the inducement to violence, and the means of committing it, were prepared by the government itself. In the United States all this is different. The voters are assembled in small bodies, at innumerable voting places, distributed over a vast extent of country. They come to the polls without arms, without odious instructions, without any temptation to violence, and with every inducement to harmony.
If heated during the day of election, they cool off upon returning to their homes, and resuming their ordinary occupations.
But let us admit the truth of the objection. Let us admit that the American people would be as tumultuary at this presidential election as were the citizens of the ancient republics at the election of their chief magistrates. What then? Are we thence to infer the inferiority of the officers thus elected, and the consequent degradation of the countries over which they presided? I answer no. So far from it, that I assert the superiority of these officers over all others ever obtained for the same countries, either by hereditary succession, or the most select mode of election. I affirm those periods of history to be the most glorious in arms, the most renowned in arts, the most celebrated in letters, the most useful in practice, and the most happy in the condition of the people, in which the whole body of the citizens voted direct for the chief officer of their country. Take the history of that commonwealth which yet shines as the leading star in the firmament of nations. Of the twenty-five centuries that the Roman state has existed, to what period do we look for the generals and statesmen, the poets and orators, the philosophers and historians, the sculptors, painters and architects, whose immortal works have fixed upon their country the admiring eyes of all succeeding ages? Is it to the reign of the seven first kings?—to the reigns of the emperors, proclaimed by the prætorian bands?—to the reigns of the Sovereign Pontiffs, chosen by a select body of electors in a conclave of most holy cardinals? No.—We look to none of these, but to that short interval of four centuries and a half which lies between the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the re-establishment of monarchy in the person of Octavius Cæsar. It is to this short period, during which the consuls, tribunes, and prætors, were annually elected by a direct vote of the people, to which we look ourselves, and to which we direct the infant minds of our children, for all the works and monuments of Roman greatness; for roads, bridges, and aqueducts, constructed; for victories gained, nations vanquished, commerce extended, treasure imported, libraries founded, learning encouraged, the arts flourishing, the city embellished, and the kings of the earth humbly suing to be admitted into the friendship, and taken under the protection of the Roman people. It was of this magnificent period that Cicero spoke, when he proclaimed the people of Rome to be the masters of kings, and the conquerors and commanders of all the nations of the earth. And, what is wonderful, during this whole period, in a succession of four hundred and fifty annual elections, the people never once prepared a citizen to the consulship who did not carry the prosperity and glory of the Republic to a point beyond that at which he had found it.
It is the same with the Grecian Republics. Thirty centuries have elapsed since they were founded; yet it is to an ephemeral period of one hundred and fifty years only the period of popular elections which intervened between the dispersing of a cloud of petty tyrants, and the coming of a great one in the person of Philip, King of Macedon, that we are to look for that galaxy of names which shed so much lustre upon their country, and in which we are to find the first cause of that intense sympathy which now burns in our bosoms at the name of Greece.
These short and brilliant periods exhibit the great triumph of popular elections; often tumultuary, often stained with blood, but always ending gloriously for the country.
Then the right of suffrage was enjoyed; the sovereignty of the people was no fiction. Then a sublime spectacle was seen, when the Roman citizen advanced to the polls and proclaimed: “I vote for Cato to be consul;” the Athenian, “I vote for Aristides to be Archon;” the Hebran, “I vote for Pelopidas to be Bœotrach;” the Lacedemonian, “I vote for Leonidas to be first of the Ephori,” and why not an American citizen the same? Why may he not go up to the poll and proclaim, “I vote for Thomas Jefferson to be President of the United States?” Why is he compelled to put his vote in the hands of another, and to incur all the hazards of an irresponsible agency, when he himself could immediately give his own vote for his own chosen candidate, without the slightest assistance from agents or managers?
But I have other objections to these intermediate electors. They are the peculiar and favorite institution of aristocratic republics, and elective monarchies. I refer the Senate to the late republics of Venice and Genoa; of France, and her litter; to the Kingdom of Poland; the empire of Germany, and the Pontificate of Rome. On the contrary, a direct vote by the people is the peculiar and favorite institution of democratic republics; as we have just seen in the governments of Rome, Athens, Thebes, and Sparta; to which may be added the principal cities of the Amphyctionic and Achaian leagues, and the renowned republic of Carthage when the rival of Rome.
I have now answered the objections which were brought forward in the year ’78. I ask for no judgment upon their validity of that day, but I affirm them to be without force or reason in the year 1824.
Time and EXPERIENCE have so decided. Yes, time and experience, the only infallible tests of good or bad institutions, have now shown that the continuance of the electoral system will be both useless and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and that the only effectual mode of preserving our government from the corruptions which have undermined the liberties of so many nations, is, to confide the election of our chief magistrates to those who are farthest removed from the influence of his patronage; that is to say, to the whole body of American citizens.
The electors are not independent; they have no superior intelligence; they are not left to their own judgment in the choice of a President; they are not above the control of the people; on the contrary, every elector is pledged, before he is chosen, to give his vote according to the will of those who choose him.
He is nothing but an agent, tied down to the execution of a precise trust. Every reason which induced the convention to institute electors has failed. They are no longer of any use, and may be dangerous to the liberties of the people. They are not useful, because they have no power over their own vote, and because the people can vote for a President as easily as they can vote for an elector. They are dangerous to the liberties of the people, because, in the first place, they introduce extraneous considerations into the election of President; and in the second place, they may sell the vote which is intrusted to their keeping. They introduce extraneous considerations, by bringing their own character and their own exertions into the presidential canvass. Every one sees this. Candidates for electors are now selected, not for the reasons mentioned in the Federalist, but for their devotion to a particular party, for their manners, and their talent at electioneering. The elector may betray the liberties of the people, by selling his vote. The operation is easy, because he votes by ballot; detection is impossible, because he does not sign his vote; the restraint is nothing but his own conscience, for there is no legal punishment for this breach of trust. If a swindler defrauds you out of a few dollars of property or money, he is whipped and pilloried, and rendered infamous in the eye of the law; but, if an elector should defraud 40,000 people of their vote, there is no remedy but to abuse him in newspapers, where the best men in the country may be abused, as Benedict Arnold or Judas Iscariot.
Every reason for instituting electors has failed, and every consideration of prudence requires them to be discontinued. They are nothing but agents, in a case which requires no agent; and no prudent man would, or ought, to employ an agent to take care of his money, his property, or his liberty, when he is equally capable to take care of them himself.
But, if the plan of the constitution had not failed—if we were now deriving from electors all the advantages expected from their institution—I, for one, would still be in favor of getting rid of them.
I should esteem the incorruptibility of the people, their disinterested desire to get the best man for President, to be more than a counterpoise to all the advantages which might be derived from the superior intelligence of a more enlightened, but smaller, and therefore, more corruptible body. I should be opposed to the intervention of electors, because the double process of electing a man to elect a man, would paralyze the spirit of the people, and destroy the life of the election itself. Doubtless this machinery was introduced into our constitution for the purpose of softening the action of the democratic element; but it also softens the interest of the people in the result of the election itself. It places them at too great a distance from their first servant. It interposes a body of men between the people and the object of their choice, and gives a false direction to the gratitude of the President elected. He feels himself indebted to the electors who collected the votes of the people, and not to the people, who gave their votes to the electors.
It enables a few men to govern many, and, in time, it will transfer the whole power of the election into the hands of a few, leaving to the people the humble occupation of confirming what has been done by superior authority.
IN MEMORIAM.
Hon. James G. Blaine’s Oration on President Garfield.
THE GRAND MORAL OF HIS CAREER.
An Elaborate, Polished and Scholarly Tribute by an Accomplished Orator, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, on Monday, Feb. 27, 1882.
At ten o’clock the doors of the House of Representatives were opened to holders of tickets for the memorial services, and in less than half an hour the galleries were filled, a large majority of the spectators being ladies, mostly in black. There were no signs of mourning in the hall, even the full-length portrait of the late President, James Abram Garfield, painted by E. F. Andrews, of Washington, being undraped. The three front rows of desks had been replaced by chairs to accommodate the invited guests, and the Marine Band was stationed in the lobby, back of the Speaker’s desk.
Among the distinguished guests first to arrive were George Bancroft, W. W. Corcoran, Cyrus Field and Admiral Worden, who took seats directly in front of the clerk’s desk. Among the guests who occupied seats upon the floor were General Schenck, Governor Hoyt, of Pennsylvania; Foster, of Ohio; Porter, of Indiana; Hamilton, of Maryland, and Bigelow, of Connecticut, and Adjutant-General Harmine, of Connecticut.
At 11.30 Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Hancock, Howard and Meigs, and Admirals Ammen and Rodgers entered at the north door of the chamber and were assigned seats to the left of the Speaker’s desk, and a few moments later the members of the Diplomatic Corps, in full regalia, were ushered in, headed by the Hawaiian Minister, as dean of the Corps. The Supreme Court of the District, headed by Marshal Henry, arrived next. Mrs. Blaine occupied a front seat in the gallery reserved for friends of the President. At twelve o’clock the House was called to order by Speaker Keifer, and prayer was offered by the Chaplain. The Speaker then announced that the House was assembled and ready to perform its part in the memorial services, and the resolutions to that effect were read by Clerk McPherson. At 12.10 the Senate was announced, and that body, headed by its officers, entered and took their assigned seats. The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, in their robes of office, came next, and were followed by President Arthur and his Cabinet. The President took the front seat on the right of the Presiding Officer’s chair, next to that occupied by Cyrus W. Field.
Senator Sherman and Representative McKinley (Ohio) occupied seats at the desk on the right and left of the orator of the day. Mr. West, the British Minister, was the only member of the Diplomatic Corps who did not wear the court uniform.
A delegation of gentlemen from the Society of the Army of the Cumberland acted as ushers at the main entrance to the Rotunda and in the various corridors leading to the galleries.
At 12.30 the orator of the day was announced, and after a short prayer by the Chaplain of the House, F. D. Power, president Davis said: “This day is dedicated by Congress for memorial services of the late President of the United States, James A. Garfield. I present to you the Hon. James G. Blaine, who has been fitly chosen as the orator for this historical occasion.”
Mr. Blaine then rose, and standing at the clerk’s desk, immediately in front of the two presiding officers, proceeded, with impressiveness of manner and clearness of tone, to deliver his eulogy from manuscript, as follows: