Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) / or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850

by Thomas Hart Benton

[CHAPTER CXLV.]

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION: ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT: MR. BENTON'S PLAN.

Mr. Benton asked the leave for which he had given notice on Wednesday, to bring in a joint resolution for the amendment of the Constitution of the United States in relation to the election of President and Vice-President, and prefaced his motion with an exposition of the principle and details of the amendment which he proposed to offer. This exposition, referring to a speech which he had made in the year 1824, and reproducing it for the present occasion, can only be analyzed in this brief notice.

Mr. B. said he found himself in a position to commence most of his speeches with "twenty years ago!"—a commencement rather equivocal, and liable to different interpretations in the minds of different persons; for, while he might suppose himself to be displaying sagacity and foresight, in finding a medicine for the cure of the present disorders of the state in the remedies of prevention which he had proposed long since, yet others might understand him in a different character, and consider him as belonging to the category of those who, in that long time, had learned nothing, and had forgot nothing. So it might be now; for he was endeavoring to revive a proposition which he had made exactly twenty years before, and for the revival of which he deemed the present time eminently propitious. The body politic was now sick; and the patient, in his agony, might take the medicine as a cure, which he refused, when well, to take as a prevention.

Mr. B. then proceeded to state the object and principle of his amendment, which was, to dispense with all intermediate bodies in the election of President and Vice-President, and to keep the election wholly in the hands of the people; and to do this by giving them a direct vote for the man of their choice, and holding a second election between the two highest, in the event of a failure in the first election to give a majority to any one. This was to do away with the machinery of all intermediate bodies to guide, control, or defeat the popular choice; whether a Congress caucus, or a national convention, to dictate the selection of candidates; or a body of electors to receive and deliver their votes; or a House of Representatives to sanction or frustrate their choice.

Mr. B. spoke warmly and decidedly in favor of the principle of his proposition, assuming it as a fundamental truth to which there was no exception, that liberty would be ruined by providing any kind of substitute for popular election! asserting that all elections would degenerate into fraud and violence, if any intermediate body was established between the voters and the object of their choice, and placed in a condition to be able to control, betray, or defeat that choice. This fundamental truth he supported upon arguments, drawn from the philosophy of government, and the nature of man, and illustrated by examples taken from the history of all elective governments which had ever existed. He showed that it was the law of the few to disregard the will of the many, when they got power into their hands; and that liberty had been destroyed wherever intermediate bodies obtained the direction of the popular will. He quoted a vast number of governments, both ancient and modern, as illustrations of this truth; and referred to the period of direct voting in Greece and in Rome, as the grand and glorious periods of popular government, when the unfettered will of the people annually brought forward the men of their own choice to administer their own affairs, and when those people went on advancing from year to year, and produced every thing great in arts and in arms—in public and in private life—which then exalted them to the skies, and still makes them fixed stars in the firmament of nations. He believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, but they must have fair play—fair play at the elections, on which all depended; and for that purpose should be free from the control of any intermediate, irresponsible body of men.

At present (he said), the will of the people was liable to be frustrated in the election of their chief officers (and that at no less than three different stages of the canvass), by the intervention of small bodies of men between themselves and the object of their choice. First, at the beginning of the process, in the nomination or selection of candidates. A Congress caucus formerly, and a national convention now govern and control that nomination; and never fail, when they choose, to find pretexts for substituting their own will for that of the people. Then a body of electors, to receive and hold the electoral votes, and who, it cannot be doubted, will soon be expert enough to find reasons for a similar substitution. Then the House of Representatives may come in at the conclusion, to do as they have done heretofore, and set the will of the people at absolute defiance. The remedy for all this is the direct vote, and a second election between the two highest, if the first one failed. This would operate fairly and rightfully. No matter how many candidates then appeared in the field. If any one obtained a majority of the whole number of votes, the popular principle was satisfied; the majority had prevailed, and acquiescence was the part of the minority. If no one obtained the majority, then the first election answered the purpose of a nomination—a real nomination by the people; and a second election between the two highest would give effect to the real will of the people.

Mr. B. then exposed the details of his proposed amendment, as contained in the joint resolution which he intended to offer. The plan of election contained in that resolution, was the work of eminent men—of Mr. Macon, Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Hugh L. White, Mr. Findlay, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Dickerson, of New Jersey, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Hayne, and Mr. R. M. Johnson, and was received with great favor by the Senate and the country at the time it was reported. Subsequent experience should make it still more acceptable, and entitle its details to a careful and indulgent consideration from the people, whose rights and welfare it is intended to preserve and promote.

The detail of the plan is to divide the States into districts; the people to vote direct in each district for the candidate they prefer; the candidate having the highest vote for President to receive the vote of the district for such office, and to count one. If any candidate receives the majority of the whole number of districts, such person to be elected; if no one receives such majority, the election to be held over again between the two highest. To afford time for these double elections, when they become necessary, the first one is proposed to be held in the month of August—at a time to which many of the State elections now conform, and to which all may be made to conform—and to be held on the same days throughout the Union. To receive the returns of such elections, the Congress is required to be in session, on the years of such elections, in the month of October; and if a second election becomes necessary, it will be held in December. Two days are proposed for the first election, because most of the State elections continue two days: one day alone is allowed for the second election, it being a brief issue between two candidates. To provide for the possibility of remote and most improbable contingencies, that of an equality of votes between the two candidates—a thing which cannot occur where the whole number of votes is odd, and is utterly improbable when they are even—and to keep the election from the House of Representatives, while preserving the principle which should prevail in elections by the House of Representatives, it is provided that the candidate, in the case of such equality, having the majority of votes in the majority of the States, shall be the person elected President. To provide against the possibility of another almost impossible contingency (that of more than two candidates having the highest, and, of course, the same number of votes in the first election, by an equality of votes between several), the proposed amendment is so worded as to let all—that is, all having the two highest number of votes—go before the people at the second election.

Such are the details for the election of President: they are the same for that of Vice-President, with the single exception that, when the first election should have been effective for the election of President, and not so for Vice-President, then, to save the trouble of a second election for the secondary office only, the present provision of the constitution should prevail, and the Senate choose between the two highest.