The Advocate and news., 1899-04-05
The Election OF United States
Senators by Direct Vote
Of the People.
John J. Ingalls,, in the New York Journal


The fathers and founders OF the Republic
and the trainers of the constitution have
been apOtheosized as the creators of a new
sy stem of political liberty and popular self
government. No doubt they deserve rever-
cnce and eulOgy. Among the builders of ma
tions they stand pre-eminent; but the fact
remains that they were mOnarchists and
arstocrats at heart, and had little faith
either in the intelligence of the common
people or their capacity to govern them
selves They believed that wealth, educa-
tiOn and brains, rather than numbers and
maiorities, should select the rulers and di-
rect the energies of the nation, and so they
committed the choice of president and vice
president to a college of electors, to be ap-
pointed by the states and provided that SEN
ators should be chosen by the legislatures
rather than directly by the people.
In theory the electoral college was to as
sembIe on given day at the different capi-
tails and in secret session choose a president
and vice president, as the conclave of car
dinals selects a pope. The people were to
be entirely excluded. They were to have
no part nor lot, nor voice in the matter. This
was the consent of the governed. The elec-
torate were to have nothing more to do with
the election Of the chief magistrate than
the laity of the Roman Catholic church in
the choice of their supreme pontiff.
j.
But democracy soon demolished this
clumsy device, and since 1926 it has been
obsolete. Through the successive stages of
a private caucus, legislative caucus, con-
gressional caucus and the perfected organi-
zation of township, county, state and ma
tional nominating conventions, the people
have abolished the electoral college. The
machinery remains, but the electors are the
servants are not the masters They meet
and vote, but their functions are diverting
anachrOnism. The elector who should now
do what the trainers of the constitution
intended he should do exercise his
own Judgment 1T and in so doing
vote for any other man than
the candidate named by the party of which
he is a member, would outclass Judas Is
CARROT in the execration of mankind. Had
a Bryan elector cast his vote for Mckinley,
or a Mckinley elector cast his vote for
Richard Croker, as each had the constitu-
tional, clear right to do, it is difficult to es-
innate the measure of the penalty which
popular Indignation would have inflicted.
This is one of the many unwritten amend
ments to the constitution which have so
changed that venerable instrument that
George Washington and the other deputies
would with difficulty recognize their work.
The senate is undoubtedly the most impress
sive and dignifed body in our political sys-
tenn Sharing executive power in the rati-
fication of treaties and the confirmation of
the appointments of ambassadors, judges
and other officers, it has gradually en-
croached upon the prerogatives of the presi-
dent and dictates the policy of administra-
tions. In our dual scheme the senate rep
resents the states as political entities. and
as the states have increased in population,
wealth and power the senate has assumed a
supremacy and pre-eminence not cOntem'
plated by its inventors.
j
The length of the term and the conditions
have made its membership the object of su-
preme desire, and as it is easier to manipu-
late legislature than to convince consti-
tuency, the tendency to bigOtry, corruption,
intrigue, plots and conspiracies has In
creased till senatorial elections have become
the scandal and reproach of Republican
government. The whole purpose and de-
sign of the constitution is thwarted. The
popular will is disregarded. States are mis-
represented or deprived of their lawful rep
resentation by loathsOme struggles that lack
the dignity of dog fight in the gutter and
are suppressed in immortality only by the
contests of Monte Carlo
The time has come for the people to re-
sumo their power There is no reason why
senators should not be chosen, as the gov
ernors of states are elected, by plurality vote
at the polls at the general election in No
vember preceding the expiration of the term.
There would then be no deadlocks, no futile
sessions wasted and factional fights, no
wholesale corruption, no dark horses, no
tongue-tied monOpolists in the seats of the
mighty.