The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-21
ELECTION OF PRESIDENTS.
BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.

York, October 21, 1863, oy Ohhries rrancls
Adams, Jr., and is published IN the journal
of the association
paper ON the Protection of the Ballot"
was read before the American Social Science
Association at its meeting in Albany, on the
10th of February, 1869, and was subse-
uuently printed in the journal of the society.
In it the following query was suggested:-
'iWhat good reason can be given why Tin
our Presidential eleciions) we should vote for
one man, or thirty men, who, in turn, are to
be pledged to vote for another man, desig-
mated to them beforehand, instead of voting
directly for the object of our choice?
Can any good reason be suggested why the
people of this country should not directly
vote for their Presidents as they ever have for
their Governors?
This question did not have long to wait for
a conclusive answer. When advanced, it was
accompanied with the remark that the subject
stood rather Sin need of suggestion and dis
cussion than of patent legislative panaceas or
individual dogmatism." In this spirit it was
responded to by the press. Among others a
very able criticism shortly afterwards ap-
peared in the editorial columns of the Chicago
Tribune, which, while emphatically condemn
ing the present mode of choosing the Electoral
Colleges, pointed out very clearly how greater
dangers might not improbably be found to
exist in the election of President by direct
popular vote than by the method now in use.
This reply to the question, if sustained by
reason and fact, is conclusive, and shows chat
no relief is to be found in the direction indi-
Gated.
In O previous paper on this subject it was
very broadly stated that the present system
of choosing the Electoral Colleges, on general
ticket in each State, acts as nothing more
nor less than a premium on fraud, making
the violation of the ballot by one party in one
locality an alleged political necessity" for a
counterbalancing violation of it by another
party in another locality. Particular sections
of the country-those in which an election is
close and hotly contested-are, by the prac-
tical working of this system, regularly
pointed out at every election as the decisive
points, SO that the least astute politician
knows beforehand just where votes will be
wanted and Just where they will be useless.
He can, therefore, work intelligently, and,
indeed, almost exactly, adapting his
means to his ends. For instance, in
the last Presidential election, unless
fraud we're counteracted by fraud, it was ap-
parent to every one that the manufacture of
a few thousand votes in New York city would
decide the thirty three electoral votes of the
State. This would exactly counteract, in the
grand result, any possible majority, the other
way, of the legal votes cast in Illinois, Massa-
chusetts, and Vermont, where the election
was practically uncontested. New York city
decisive point; a place where every fraudu-
lent vote would carry great fictitious weight.
The result of the election showed that the
same state of affairs existed elsewhere. Votes
in Kansas were of no value in face of ma
jority of 1000; 164 ballots, fraudulent
or legal, settled the result in Oregon,
and negatived that in the State first
named. 1t was argued in the pre-
vious paper that it was futile to hope
for any purity in elections while the elections
actually revealed such enormous disparities
of influence; as long as the system at once
supplied such a great incentive to fraud, and
designated so precisely the localities in which
it could be committed. The case of the cleo
tion of 1914 was cited. There can be no
doubt that Mr.. Polk received a majority of
the legal votes cast in that election; there is
strong reason for believing, however, that
Mr.. Clay was the legally elected President
The result, then, turned on the vote of New
York, whose Electoral College numbered
thirty-six members. The party which sup
ported Mr.. Polk carried the day. but subse-
quent investigation by the Judiciary Commit
tee of the U. s. Senate abundantly proved
the perpetration of extensive frauds in that
State, which, not impossibly, decided the
contest. (Sen. Docs, 2Sth Cong, I'd Sess.,
Rep. No. 173.
1t is useless and wicked to argue that, in
this as in other cases, fraud was probably off
set by fraud, and that the result practically
reflected the will of the legal majority. Al
lowing this to be true in fact, it settles the
question as to that system which establishes,
for any portion of its citizens, cheating as
the only alternative to defeat. 1t certainly is
not conducive to public morality that fraud
should be recognized as regular element in
politics; indeed, it would be far better
to resort to force at once. The suggestion,
however, is not true in fact.
AS is well known, the perpetration of frauds
on large scale is possible only under certain
circumstances They can be effected in great
cities, where the inhabitants are necessarily
unknown to each other; or in rude and law
less communities. Our annals are, unfortu-
nately, replete with precedents coming under
either head. Similar outrages, however, are
not, nor can they be, perpetrated, on any
large scale, by party which only controls
well-regulated and moderately populated sec
tions of country.
1t only remains to solve the problem of
how this fraud can be reduced within the mar
rowest limits. The present system puts the
largest possible premium upon it, for, under
it, one fraudulent vote, in given locality,
always may, and often does, outweigh a
hundred legal votes across an imaginary
line which divides States. To remedy this,
it was proposed to abolish the system of Elec-
toral Colleges altogether. 1t was suggested
that, if the President was elected by direct
popular vote, as the Governors of the States
now are, and always have been, the effect of
illegal voting would, ati least, be reduced to
natural limits. few or great many frau
dulent votes in one State could, at most, only
counterbalance an exactly equal number OF
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