A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 6, part 2: Andrew Johnson

by Unknown

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 18, 1868.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

Experience has fully demonstrated the wisdom of the framers of the Federal Constitution. Under all circumstances the result of their labors was as near an approximation to perfection as was compatible with the fallibility of man. Such being the estimation in which the Constitution is and has ever been held by our countrymen, it is not surprising that any proposition for its alteration or amendment should be received with reluctance and distrust. While this sentiment deserves commendation and encouragement as a useful preventive of unnecessary attempt to change its provisions, it must be conceded that time has developed imperfections and omissions in the Constitution, the reformation of which has been demanded by the best interests of the country. Some of these have been remedied in the manner provided in the Constitution itself. There are others which, although heretofore brought to the attention of the people, have never been so presented as to enable the popular judgment to determine whether they should be corrected by means of additional amendments. My object in this communication is to suggest certain defects in the Constitution which seem to me to require correction, and to recommend that the judgment of the people be taken on the amendments proposed.

The first of the defects to which I desire to direct attention is in that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of President and Vice-President through the intervention of electors, and not by an immediate vote of the people. The importance of so amending this clause as to secure to the people the election of President and Vice-President by their direct votes was urged with great earnestness and ability by President Jackson in his first annual message, and the recommendation was repeated in five of his subsequent communications to Congress, extending through the eight years of his Administration. In his message of 1829 he said:

To the people belongs the right of electing their Chief Magistrate; it was never designed that their choice should in any case be defeated, either by the intervention of electoral colleges or by the agency confided, under certain contingencies, to the House of Representatives.

He then proceeded to state the objections to an election of President by the House of Representatives, the most important of which was that the choice of a clear majority of the people might be easily defeated. He then closed the argument with the following communication:

I would therefore recommend such an amendment of the Constitution as may remove all intermediate agency in the election of the President and Vice-President. The mode may be so regulated as to preserve to each State its present relative weight in the election, and a failure in the first attempt may be provided for by confining the second to a choice between the two highest candidates. In connection with such an amendment it would seem advisable to limit the service of the Chief Magistrate to a single term of either four or six years. If, however, it should not be adopted, it is worthy of consideration whether a provision disqualifying for office the Representatives in Congress on whom such an election may have devolved would not be proper.

Although this recommendation was repeated with undiminished earnestness in several of his succeeding messages, yet the proposed amendment was never adopted and submitted to the people by Congress. The danger of a defeat of the people's choice in an election by the House of Representatives remains unprovided for in the Constitution, and would be greatly increased if the House of Representatives should assume the power arbitrarily to reject the votes of a State which might not be cast in conformity with the wishes of the majority in that body.

But if President Jackson failed to secure the amendment to the Constitution which he urged so persistently, his arguments contributed largely to the formation of party organizations, which have effectually avoided the contingency of an election by the House of Representatives. These organizations, first by a resort to the caucus system of nominating candidates, and afterwards to State and national conventions, have been successful in so limiting the number of candidates as to escape the danger of an election by the House of Representatives.

It is clear, however, that in thus limiting the number of candidates the true object and spirit of the Constitution have been evaded and defeated. It is an essential feature in our republican system of government that every citizen possessing the constitutional qualifications has a right to become a candidate for the office of President and Vice-President, and that every qualified elector has a right to cast his vote for any citizen whom he may regard as worthy of these offices. But under the party organizations which have prevailed for years these asserted rights of the people have been as effectually cut off and destroyed as if the Constitution itself had inhibited their exercise.