Danville intelligencer. [volume] (Danville, Pa.) 1859-1907, 1904-11-11
THE NATIONAL ELECTION.

Presidents of the United States have been elect
ed who did not receive ma jorty of all the votes
cast Such results lead many to regard the present
constitutional method of choosing the Chief Execr-
tive an imperfect and undemocratic device for
recording the popular will, and plans have been
suggested for the certitcation of the votes poed in
the respective States mt Il national election to a Fed
eral returning board, which shall declare who has
been elected to the Presidency
The existing electoral system was not adopted
by the trainers of the Constitution because it was
impossible to invent scheme to ascertain record
and declare the popular vote cast in the country at
presidential election. The submission of the issue
to direct vote of the people was considered with
other propositions, but the present system was
adopted as the best that could be devised to meet
the eXi gencies of national election. One of the
purposes OF the system, as presented by Alexander
Hamilton in the Federast, is to prevent, as far as
possible, ''tumut and disorder. Hamilton declared
that the electoral plan promised to be an efcctual
remedy against this mischief. He argued that the
choice of several, to form intermediate body of
electors would be much less likely to convulse the
country with violence than the choice of one, who
was himself ''to be the final object of the public
wishes" Hamilton held, with great force that in
asmuch as the electors chosen in each State are to
assemble and vote in the State in which they are
chosen, this 'detached and divided situation" would
expose them much less to hearts and ferments that
might be communicated to them from the people,
than if they all to be convened at one time in
one place.
George Ticknor Curtis, in his luminous ''Con-
stitutiona History of the United States" says that
if the choice of the President had been committed
TO ma ority of the qualified voters of the different
States, State in which manhood suffrage univer-
sally prevailed would contribute greater relative
portion of the national majority than a State in
which suffrage was more restricted
" Under the rule which gives to the people of
each State the relative representation in the
Electoral College that they have in the two houses of
Congress- representation, that is to say which is
based upon population without regard to the laws of
suffrage more just and equal method is applied
fo ascertaning the relative contribution of the peo-
pie of each State to the majority of the people of the
United States.
The basis of representation in Congress would
be affected by the Thirteenth Amendment, if en-
forced. The reasoning of Mr.. Curtis applies to
conditions existing before its passage. This writer
remarks, furthermore that if the election of Chief
Magistrate were to be given to the people of the
Union by direct vote they would have to vote in
their respective States according to their own State
rules of suffrage, which differ considerably, or else
there would have TO be national qualification fol-
this special purpose. The suggestion of an inter
mediate body of voters for the express purpose of
choosing the President presented alternative
method