The pilot and transcript. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1840-1841, 1840-11-07

val from Office, would be improper and injuri-
Gus in any other than the hands OF party
President.
beg you beware sir, how you hastily and
unadvisedly lend your powerful aid, 10 the
curtaiing OF any OF the essential powers OF that
department. You need not be told that
power once taken from it is gone forever; that
however strongly experience may prove Its
necessity, it win never be regained. Though
not of those who ascribe perfect wisdom 10 the
trainers OF our Constitution, or perfect lntalll-
bility TO anything merely human, yet partlcl-
pate in that profound reverence, common to
most ofour countrymen, for their far reaching
sagacity, and that strong repugnance to touch
ing any of their sacred work with the hand OF
innovation, except upon the clearest and most
undoubting conviction, after full experiment,
they committed an error When The increased
size of country and constantly increasing pop
ulation are demanding Government of pro-
portionably increasing energy, would it not be
madness to emasculale that department., upon
the energy of which the energy aud efficiency
of the whole so essentially depend?
The powers of the President have recently
become the subject OF much party discussion,
a general cry has been raised against them, and
the victor party will be supposed to have gained
much thereby. Those who act in the name OF
the Democracy will not suffer themselves to be
party are proposing to delicatcly prune with the
knife, they will insist upon hewing with the
broad-axe. The champion of the Constitution,
before he laws aside his conservative armor TO
lead the htuTdh against the powers OF the
President, would do well to bethmll him, whe'
Their it not better to give his aid In direct
ing the reform movement towards the mode oil
his appointment, rather than against the pow
crs Intentionally conferred upon him by the
trainers of the Constitution. If it be power you
wish to restrain, then look well to the ~mode of
his appointment, for it cOnfers upon him powers
far greater than all those granted by the Con-
stitution combined. and produces evils far more
deletcrious and dangerous than those that can
be traced to the mere exercise OF any or all his
powers. BY only pruning the constitutional
grant of powers, you leave the greatest OF all
his powers untouched. By leaving the mode OF
his appointment unaltered, your remedies will
prove inefficacious pallatives, because you never
reach the seat of the disease. In government
so essentially one OF public opinion as ours, the
fact of his being elected by direct vote OF the
whole nation, gives him practically more power
than all the express grants combined. In other
words, his whole powers as President are not
equal to his powers as head of the great political
party that put him i'll office. Indeed the most
ilnanswera6le objection to that mode Of select
ing him is, that when so elected he Will unne-
cessarily have too much power.
But even all this excess of power is not
1.-THE OF the evil growing out OF the mode OF his
election, entirely eXtraneous from any mere
exercise of his powers. 1t is true, that, to be
elected, he has to become the head OF party,
he has to be party President, his Admins
tration, a party Administration, and though
every such is necessarily a corrupt Admlnistra-
ton, vet, what is the corruption Of Government
and its few officials, IA comparison to the cor
ruption of the great body of society: The con-
tests growing out of the elections ofour Presi-
dents, direct and collateral, have done more to
lower the standard fpublic morals, and ditfuse
a general corruption throughout society, than
all other causes combined. Nothing is true, or
a more striking evidence of the general dIitu-
sion of this corruption, than what you stated at
Richmond, that it had become received dog
ma, ''that every thing is fair in politics" The
American, like the English voter, not only
shanelessly avows the sale Of his vote, men
we'll received in society not only shamelessly
avow the purchase of votes, but there Is the
best evidence for believing that the judges and
other officials at elections, fast falling into
the practice of conducting them fraudulently
No man knows better than you, that institu-
tons so essentially Democratic as ours are, can
have no permanent durability when they rest
upon foundation Of such corruption and cor
ruptiblity as that. Every intelligent observer
of the times sees, or lances that he foresees the
no distant day, when all our elections viii be
settled by the purse How much longer it will
be before they are settled by not more corrupt,
but sterner arbitrament, rests in the ken of
Providence alone.
Ifsuch be the deadly accompaniment of the
system of electing our Presidents, the question
presents itself, why continue the system? That
is the question, sir, put to you, and wish that
you, in your energetic and able manner would
put to this whole naton:--why continue the
system?
twill be my purpose, in succeeding numbers
to prove that we ought to abolish the election
of our Presidents.
To do this, shall begin with developing the
motives and inducement TO the present plan,
the mode in which its trainers contemplated il
should work in practice, point out wherein and
why their anticipations have been SO sadly dis
appointed, insist upon the evils Of the present
plan, and conclude with proposing substi-
tute.
subscribe myself, very respectfully, (not OF
the new, but of the old school, a true
KENTUCKY DEMOCRAT