The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-12-04
HOW ELECTORS VOTE.
The College Will Meet at Wash
ington City January 10.
S MODE OF PROCEDURE.
nv the Complicated Machinery Was
Adopted-The PerGuisitcs OF
the Electors.

NIw York, Nov. os-1Special Core
spondence. If the expectation Of John
jay. James Madison. Roger Sherman and
! The other great men who wrote the censti-
/ tr,ion OF the United States had been full
3 HlIed. the election of the president and
vice president would not occur until the
first Monday of January next. These men
reasoned that it would be wiser to dele
rate 10 a commission which they called
The Electoral College, sitting as a seperate
body in each state the responsibility of
thoosing for the people their president
ud ce-president. The idea that pre-
ysiled was that the citizens of every state
you'd be likely to select their ablest and
vsest men as members of this Electoral
College. and that these men perhaps
better acquainted with the necessities of
government and with the qualities of
/ public men would make a wiser choice,
and one less influenced by demagogic or
passionate impulse than the people yot-
i ing directly wouid be likely to do.
The form is still preserved. The presi-
. dent and vice president of the United
States are elected on the second Tuesday
In January. The formal declaration of the
election is made by the vice president of
the president of the senate in the presence
Of congress Once in four years the sen ate
sbandons its chamber, enters the house of
representatives in body. sits with that
BODY, thus constituting the congress- and
in its presence tellers who are members Of
the congress count the vote delivered in
the electoral college, report the count to
the vice president, who declares it, and on
e
the election of the president.
From tiie beginning the people practi-
caly repudiated the electoral college, and
stihe late election great portion of those
who voted for the electors had no clear
idea OF the functions of that body The
people subordinated the electoral college
At the first election. The name of Wash
ington was so prominently in the minds
Of the vast majority that when the cleo
toral college met they simply ratified by
lorna! vote the popular will. Yet there
we're some men at that day who believed
that some of the electors might without
mourning any great popular indignation
have voted for John Adams, for instance.
Under the original clause of the consti-
tuition there tame trouble very early. In
the election of 1900 Thomas Jefferson and
Aaron Burr were found to have received
an equal vote in the combined electoral
college If Jefferson had received one
more vote he would have been declared
elected president. while Burr would have
been declared chosen vice president, for in
the original constitution it was simply
provided that the man who received the
largest number of electoral votes should
be certified to congress rs having been
chosen president, and the man who re-
ceived the next largest as vice president.
Ii was seen that this provision was 60
{ ing to make trouble. 1t would be sure TO
result some time in the election of a vice
president of different political faith from
the president-elect, and Ii also made con-
slant peril that there would be no choice
In the electoral college, SO that congress
would be constantly required 20 choose
the president and vice president. Jeiier-
son was chosen by the house, and twenty
four years later John Quincy Adams was
also so chosen, but IN his case it was be-
cause no one had received a majority in
the electoral college.
In each of these elections there were
charges which amounted almost to
scandalous accusations that the friends of
the successful candidates had made
bargains There was passion as great
as any that has occurred in subsequent
elections when the accusation was made
BY MIR. Burr's friends that through a bar
gain with Alexander Hamilton, the creator
Of the Federalst party, Mr.. Jefferson, the
creator of the Democratic Republican
party. was chosen president by the house
over Mr. Burr. In 1924 il was the scandal
/ Of the day, although many believed it TO be
an unfounded one, that Mr.. Adams friends
had bargained with those of Henry CLAY,
tie terms of the bargain being that they
slonld elect Adams president, and that he
should appoint Mr.. Clay secretary OF state:
The accusation WAS widely believed, and
contemporaueous politicians of Clay's life
tine always believed that it cost him the
presidency and students of political his
J tory are inclined to that opinion new.
No serious disturbance, SO far as the
machinery of presidential elections is con-
cerBed, occurred until 1876 and 1877. Then
sdangerous crisis, owing 10 dispute over
the choice OF electors IN several states, WAS
developed. Ii was claimed by the Democ-
racy that a sufficient number of electors
had been fairly chosen to give Samuel J.
Tiiden majority in the electoral college.
II was adversely claimed by the opposing
party that the electors representing ii in
these disputed states had been chosen, but
aslngle vote was really in dispute, that IS
10 say, the contest was so close that the
claims al the victorious side could only be
established by majority OF one electoral
vote
This crisis is so recent that the vast
maloritv of citizens who voted at the
recent election remember ii well, although
there was great body Of voters in 1902
. who Of course. were mere lads in 1876.
and who know by tradition only what the
danger. the perilous excitement and the
mighty tension of that time were. Some
o. the shrewdest of the staresmen of that
Day we're of the opinion that nothing but
tae Tact that the country was fresh from
the experience If civil war prevented an
appeal being made TO arms. Other men,
ss'esmen IN both parties, were OF the
omnion that the American people would
not IN any event have initiated the habit
OF some Of the South American republics
IN deciding an election 10y military force.
inns grave srouaic suggested then what
vas suggested iii 1900. that the choice of
we president and wee president should be
delegated directly 10 the people and the
siectoral college abolished, and this would
doubtless be done were il not for the feel
ing that Il would give some states too great
power. tne great state casting an enor-
NOUS majority for the candidate of one
party might be able 90 overthrow popular
"a as expressed in z dozen or more states
NonA'4hg once, - q matter Of personal
.i'efeSt naaGe an estimate of what the ef-
et OF peculiar election by the people
rre"io ne It's figures were astonishing.
ihey showed that with two or three ex-
SSspoons The entire list Of presidents, since
1ohfoe's time. would be different; from
shat 1t now IS. The portraits of presi-
Sen.s Which hang in the Corcoran gallery
washington City would show different
49, nom those ROW exhibited.
iae men who are 10 elect the next presi-
eht ami vice president OF the United