The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-16
A RECORD
New Relations
Exist
IN WASHINGTON
Mckinley and Hobart Agree
Unlike Predecessors.


personal connections between the first
and second officer of the governments.
1t is known, says writer in the Globe
Democrat, that Vice President Adams
thought that President Washington
should have awarded him more consid-
Grafton than was granted. Adams an
noyance on this score was natural, foi
he was impulsive and combative and
loved to exercise authority. He was a
great orator and debater, and was I'M
| fitted by temperament to preside over
an assemblage Of orators and debaters
and to maintain the silence and the
judicial attitude which his post i'm
posed. Moreover, at the outset he aud
| everybody else were in doubt as to the
precise scope of his functions as well
as those of the president He did not
know where Washington's powers end
ed and mis- own began.
Are we, asked Adams Of che SEN
ate, referring to Washington and him
self, the two kings of Sparta, the two
consuls of Rome or the two suffetes CT
Carthage?' His perpleXity in this par
ticular instance was provoked by a. re-
| port which reached the senate that
/
ter than Adams at the beginning of the
| government in 1889, was to be received
| in the senate chamber just before he
qualified for the presidency, and then
was to go to the house of representa-
| tives to be sworn in. William Maclay
an anti-federalist,, and thus a partisan
| enemy of Adams, tells in his journal
that Adams was in great distress at
this juncture." Gentlemen" said Ad-
ANS, to the senate, Il feel great diff
Guilty how to act. am possessed of
! two separate powers, the one in the esse
and the other in the posse. I am vice
| president In this [ am nothing, but
may be everything. But | am presi-
| dent Of the senate. When the president
! (of the United States) comes into the
senate what shall / be? [ cannot be
president then. No, gentlemen, 1 can
not. 1 wish gentlemen, to think what
1 shall be-
But the power which Adams, as vice
president, exercised over legislation
ought to have consoled him for his
Sights, or imagined Sights, by Wash
ington and the leaders in congress OF
the party to which Washington and
Adams belonged. The vice president
has vote when the senate is equally
divided. In the first congress- that Of
1789-91, there were about 20 equal d.
visions in the senate, OF more than
there was in any subsequent congress
There were only rs members of the
senate in that congress, and as North
Carolina did not ratify the constitution
until eight months after the senate met
and Rhode Island did NOT do this until
six months later than North Carolina,
there We're not even 26 members in the
senate all the time. The smaller the
deliberative body, of course, the more
frequent the ties. By his casting vote
n 1at~01l w on fpA
| eralist measures, many Of which have
had a decided influence on the struc-
ture and tendencies of the government,
Adams, as vice president, welded as
great power over vital legislation as
Washington, and greater than any
president since Washington, except
Lincoln.
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.
As Adams and Jefferson, the presi-
dent and vice president, respectively,
from 1897 to 1901. belonged to opposing
parties, as they had been rivals for the
presidency, and as Jefferson's friends,
the republicans (the political progen-
itors Of the democrats) were not yet
in control of congress, The social gap
during this time between the first and
second officers of the government was
even broader than the political gap.
The reason that the president and vice
president at that time could belong to
different parties was that each MEM
Der of the electoral college cast his two
votes for candidates without specify
ing which one he wanted for president
and which one for vice president, the
one obtaining the most votes, il ma
jority, being made president, and the
one having the second lttl gest number
becoming vice president. This system
would inevitably put men of different
parties in the first and second offices,
| respectively, sometimes, and it would
occasionally cause ties in the vote as
it did in the case of Jefferson and Burr
in 1900. The contest IN this instance,
as to which Of these should be presi-
dent, necessitated the 18th amendment
to the constitution by which since 1901,
each elector indicates which one of the
/ two persons he votes for is for pres1-
dent and which for vice president.
/ Naturally the contest between Jeffer-
son and Burr, the victorious republic
cans, in 1901, when the tie vote in the
Electoral college sent the matter to the
house of representatives, destroyed all
possibility of any warm friendship be-
tween the two during the term. 1t was
clearly the desire of all the republican
ELECTORS that Jefferson should get the
higher office, but when the federalist
lhouse had to choose between these two
Burr lnQlTeCtiy IOE election
as president, and most of the federaliSts
lin the house were favorable to the I'M
holy alliance, but Hamilton, then in
iprivate life, by his appeals to some of
the federalist members, defeated the
conspiracy. This course was particu-
ilarly honorable to Hamilton, as he dis
liked Jefferson. 1t also was one of the
melting causes of the hatred by Burr,
which eliminated in the duel three
years later by which Hamilton was
killed.
Nor was there much cordiality be-
tween Jefferson and Madison on the
one side, and George Clinton the vice
president during Jefferson'S second
term and Madison's first Clinton, who
had been a leader in New York politics
lmany years at the time when he was
Ihrst elected vice president, in 1894, was
ambitious to reach the higher office,
and he felt, as did many of his fell
low republicans in New York, and also
lin some Of the other northern states.
that the Virginia dynasty" which,
through Washington and Jefferson, had
the presidency during sixteen of the
20 years of the life of the government.
had ruled long enough. Through his
4 first term as vice president. Clinton
was quietly working to get the presi-
dency in 1908. but Jefferson and the
majority of the party favored Jeffer-
sons secretary of state, Madison Vir-
i empire state in population, had weight
lin the electoral college, and had official
Influence, but New York was beginning
to be her rival, and in 1920 reached the
first place in population, which she has
held ever since. In that very year.
however, the fourth of the Virginia
line Of presidents, Monroe, was elected