The objection is clearly and irresistibly shown: the remedy is not so clear. The Congress representation for the time being is suggested for the rule of the convention: it is not always the true rule. A safer one is, the general character of the State—its general party vote—and its probable present party strength. Even that rule may not attain exact precision; but, between a rule which may admit of a slight error, and no rule at all to keep out notorious unfounded votes—votes representing no constituency, unable to choose an elector, having no existence when the election comes on, yet potential at the nomination, and perhaps governing it: between these two extremes there is no room for hesitation, or choice: the adoption of some rule which would exclude notoriously impotent votes, becomes essential to the rights and safety of the party, and is peremptorily demanded by the principle of popular representation. The danger of centralizing the nomination—(which, so far as the party is concerned, is the election)—in the hands of a few States, by the present convention mode of nomination, is next shown by Mr. Calhoun.
"But, in order to realize how the convention will operate, it will be necessary to view the combined effects of the objections which I have made. Thus viewed, it will be found, that a convention so constituted, tends irresistibly to centralization—centralization of the control over the presidential election in the hands of a few of the central, large States, at first, and finally, in political managers, office-holders, and office-seekers; or to express it differently, in that portion of the community, who live, or expect to live on the government, in contradistinction to the great mass, who expect to live on their own means or their honest industry; and who maintain the government; and politically speaking, emphatically the people. That such would be the case, may be inferred from the fact, that it would afford the means to some six or seven States lying contiguous and not far from the centre of the Union, to control the nomination, and through that the election, by concentrating their united votes in the convention. Give them the power of doing so, and it would not long lie dormant. What may be done by combination, where the temptation is so great, will be sure ere long to be done. To combine and conquer, is not less true as a maxim, where power is concerned, than 'divide and conquer.' Nothing is better established, than that the desire for power can bring together and unite the most discordant materials."
After showing the danger of centralizing the nomination in the hands of a few great contiguous States, Mr. Calhoun goes on to show the danger of a still more fatal and corrupt centralization—that of throwing the nomination into the meshes of a train-band of office-holders and office-seekers—professional President-makers, who live by the trade, having no object but their own reward, preferring a weak to a strong man because they can manage him easiest: and accomplishing their purposes by corrupt combinations, fraudulent contrivances, and direct bribery. Of these train-bands, Mr. Calhoun says:
"But the tendency to centralization will not stop there. The appointment of delegates en masse by State convention, would tend at the same time, and even with great force, to neutralize the control in the hands of the few, who make politics a trade. The farther the convention is removed from the people, the more certainly the control over it will be placed in the hands of the interested few, and when removed three or four degrees, as has been shown it will be, where the appointment is by State conventions, the power of the people will cease, and the seekers of Executive favor will become supreme. At that stage, an active, trained and combined corps will be formed in the party, whose whole time and attention will be directed to politics. Into their hands the appointments of delegates in all the stages will fall, and they will take special care that none but themselves or their humble and obedient dependents shall be appointed. The central and State conventions will be filled by the most experienced and cunning, and after nominating the President, they will take good care to divide the patronage and offices, both of the general and State governments, among themselves and their dependents. But why say will? Is it not already the case? Have there not been many instances of State conventions being filled by office holders and office seekers, who, after making the nomination, have divided the offices in the State among themselves and their partisans, and joined in recommending to the candidate whom they have just nominated to appoint them to the offices to which they have been respectively allotted? If such be the case in the infancy of the system, it must end, if such conventions should become the established usage, in the President nominating his successor. When it comes to that, it will not be long before the sword will take the place of the constitution."
And it has come to that. Mr. Tyler set the example in 1844—immediately after this address of Mr. Calhoun was written—and had a presidential convention of his own, composed of office holders and office seekers. Since then the example has been pretty well followed; and now any President that pleases may nominate his successor by having the convention filled with the mercenaries in office, or trying to get in. The evil has now reached a pass that must be corrected, or the elective franchise abandoned. Conventions must be reformed—that is to say, purged of office holders and office seekers—purged of impotent votes—purged of all delegates forbid by the constitution to be electors—purged of intrigue, corruption and jugglery—and brought to reflect the will of the people; or, they must suffer the fate of the Congress caucuses, and be put down. Far better—a thousand times better—to let the constitution work its course; as many candidates offer for President as please; and if no one gets a majority of the whole, then the House of Representatives to choose one from the three highest on the list. In that event, the people would be the nominating body: they would present the three, out of which their representatives would be obliged to take one. This would be a nomination by the People, and an election by the States.
One other objection to these degenerate conventions Mr. Calhoun did not mention, but it became since he made his address a prominent one, and an abuse in itself, which insures success to the train-band mercenaries whose profligate practices he so well describes. This is the two-thirds rule, as it is called; the rule that requires a vote of two-thirds of the convention to make a nomination. This puts it in the power of the minority to govern the majority, and enables a few veteran intriguers to manage as they please. And when it is remembered that many are allowed—even the delegates of whole States—to vote in the convention, which can give no vote to the party at the election, it might actually happen that the whole nomination might be contrived and made by straw-delegates, whose constituency could not give a single electoral vote.
[CHAPTER CXXXVIII.]
ANNEXATION OF TEXAS: SECRET NEGOTIATION PRESIDENTIAL INTRIGUE: SCHEMES OF SPECULATION AND DISUNION.
The President's annual message at the commencement of the session 1843-'44, contained an elaborated paragraph on the subject of Texas and Mexico, which, to those not in the secret, was a complete mystification: to others, and especially to those who had been observant of signs, it foreshadowed a design to interfere in the war between those parties, and to take Texas under the protection of the Union, and to make her cause our own. A scheme of annexation was visible in the studied picture presented of homogeniality between that country and the United States, geographically and otherwise; and which homogeniality was now sufficient to risk a war with Great Britain and Mexico (for the message squinted at war with both), to get Texas back, although it had not been sufficient when the country was ceded to Spain to prevent Mr. Tyler from sanctioning the cession—as he did as a member of the House in 1820 in voting against Mr. Clay's resolution, disapproving and condemning that cession. This enigmatical paragraph was, in fact, intended to break the way for the production of a treaty of annexation, covertly conceived and carried on with all the features of an intrigue, and in flagrant violation of the principles and usages of the government. Acquisitions of territory had previously been made by legislation, and by treaty, as in the case of Louisiana in 1803, and of Florida in 1819; but these treaties were founded upon legislative acts—upon the consent of Congress previously obtained—and in which the treaty-making power was but the instrument of the legislative will. This previous consent and authorization of Congress had not been obtained—on the contrary, had been eschewed and ignored by the secrecy with which the negotiation had been conducted; and was intended to be kept secret until the treaty was concluded, and then to force its adoption for the purpose of increasing the area of slave territory, or to make its rejection a cause for the secession of the Southern States; and in either event, and in all cases, to make the question of annexation a controlling one in the nomination of presidential candidates, and also in the election itself.