principles.'

991

And Mr. Hamilton:

"We have seen that the

tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the Legislative, at the expense of the other departments."' 2

417. A SINGLE EXECUTIVE.-The framers of the Constitution were more or less jealous of executive power. Το prevent even the semblance of monarchy, some of them favored an executive that should consist of two or more persons, chosen from the same number of divisions of the Union. On this question, the Virginia plan was silent; the Jersey plan proposed a plural executive; but Pinckney and Hamilton each proposed a single executive. By a vote of eight States to three the Convention, in committee of the whole, adopted the unitary plan.

418. ARGUMENTS PRO AND CON.-Mr. Randolph stated that the arguments against a single executive were these: (1) The people were opposed to it, and it would never have their confidence; (2) it was unnecessary; and (3) a single chief magistrate would commonly come from the central part of the Union, and consequently the remote parts would not be on an equal footing. It was replied that a plurality of magistrates chosen for the same number of districts would lead to constant struggles for local advantage; that the executive power would be weakened by its divisions and animosities; that the States all had single executives; that a plural executive would be particularly ill adapted to controlling the militia, the army, and the navy; that the animosities arising from a tripartite executive would not only interrupt the public administration, but diffuse their poison through the other branches of government, through the States, and at length through the people at large.

When slavery had divided the Nation into a North and a South, Mr. Calhoun proposed that there should be two Presidents, one for each section; and just before the Civil War, the proposition was renewed.

1 Elliot's Debates, V., 345.

2 The Federalist. No. 49.

419. THE STYLE AND TITLE OF THE EXECUTIVE.— Hamilton proposed that the chief magistrate be called Governor; Pinckney, that he be called President. A report submitted to the Convention proposed that his style should be, The President of the United States, and his title, His Excellency. President was already familiar to the country; the Albany plan of 1754 contained the name and recommended such an office; Congress had a President, and one or two of the States styled their chief magistrates President. So this stylé was generally approved.

Soon after the government went into operation some of the Federalists in Congress proposed the style, His Highness, the President of the United States, and Protector of their Liberties. It was then agreed that the President should be addressed in official documents as President of the United States.

420. THE LENGTH OF TERM AND RE-ELIGIBILITY.Hamilton proposed that the President should serve during good behavior. A single term of seven years was the declared preference of the Convention almost to its close, when, owing to a change in the plan of election that had previously been agreed upon, four years was adopted, and the restriction to a single term was struck out.

The wisdom of shortening the term and of making the President eligible for a second term, has been doubted from the very first, and especially in recent times. The main argument against a second term is, that the President will be apt to use the power that his office gives him, as the power to make appointments to office, to promote his re-election. It has therefore been many times suggested that the Constitution be so amended as to limit the President to one term of six or seven years.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT. ARTICLE II.

Section 1, Clause 2.-Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

421. THE QUESTION OF ELECTION.-A far more troublesome question than that of a single or plural executive was, How shall the Executive be chosen? It is said to have occupied more than one-seventh of all the time of the Convention. The question may be stated in this more definite form: How the Executive could be chosen and at the same time be independent of the power that chose him.

Many different plans were proposed:-Election by the Houses of Congress, by the Senate, by the people voting en masse, by the people voting in districts; election by electors chosen by the Governors of the States, by electors chosen by the people, by electors chosen by the State legislatures, by electors chosen by lot from Congress, by secondary electors chosen by primary electors, and electors appointed as the State legislatures should direct.

422. THE CONVENTION'S FIRST DECISION.-The Virginia plan proposed that the Executive should be chosen by Congress, and this mode of election was the decided preference of the Convention almost to the end of its session. favor of this mode by decided votes.

Many times it declared in

And yet, September 4, the Committee of Detail recommended election by electors, and two days later this plan was adopted by a vote as decided as the votes that had previously approved the Virginia proposition. The electoral plan appears to have been borrowed from Maryland, in which State it was used for the election of senators.

423.

OBJECTIONS TO ELECTION BY CONGRESS.-The Convention finally concluded that the independence of the President could not be secured if Congress elected him. It was admitted that a re-election by Congress, or the possibility of a re-election, would lead to serious evils. The President would be little more than a creature of Congress. Limiting him to a single term, it was finally concluded, would not meet the difficulty; and so the electoral plan was adopted because it would, as was thought, absolutely exclude the National Legislature from any share in the election of the President. This jealousy of Congress, as well as of all official influence in respect to the election, appears in the prohibition: "No Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."

424. OBJECTIONS TO POPULAR ELECTION.-On the other hand, it was thought impolitic to adopt any of the plans of popular election that were proposed. It was thought as necessary to avoid the "heats and ferments" of a popular contest as the intrigue and corruption of a Congressional contest. That calmness of mind, consideration, and superiority to temporary feeling which were essential, could not thus be secured, -so the Convention argued.

425. THE ELECTORAL PLAN.-So the Convention very deliberately adopted one of the electoral plans that had been proposed. The President should be chosen by State electors, appointed in any manner that the legislatures might determine. It was believed that State Colleges of Electors, chosen for their fitness, would elect better Presidents than

either Congress or the people. To prevent the excitement and manoeuvering that might attend a single meeting of all the Electors in one place, (as well, probably, as to save expense) it was provided, in the next clause, that the Electors should meet in their respective States to give their ballots.

The Electors of a State collectively are commonly called an Electoral College; the groups of electors of all the States the Electoral Colleges. The name is found in a law of 1845 that empowers each State to fill vacancies that may arise in its College of Electors. It had been used informally, however,

since 1821.

426. PLANS OF APPOINTING ELECTORS.-It is left to the State legislatures to direct the manner in which the Electors shall be appointed. In the early years of the Republic as many as four different methods were used: appointment by the branches of the legislature voting jointly; by the branches of the legislature voting concurrently; by the people of the States voting State tickets; and by the people voting in districts. Evidently the last gives the freest scope to public opinion, and is also the farthest removed from the ideas of 1787. In 1842 Congress adopted this plan for the election of Representatives, but the States wholly abandoned it from 1832 to 1891 as a mode of appointing the Electors. In the latter year the Legislature of Michigan passed a law enacting that the Representative Electors of that State should be elected in and by the same districts as the Representatives, and the Senatorial Electors in and by two Senatorial electoral districts, which districts the legislature also duly constituted.