Year: 1872

Reasons Why.


The extraordinary and suggestive events
connected with our recent State elections, and
with the recent votes Of some of the Electoral
Colleges for President and Vice President,
have already resulted in the submission OF
resolutions in the national House of Repre-
sentatives for Two amendments to the consti-
tuition. One proposes to give the power to
Congress to fix uniform day for the State
elections in all the States; and the other, and
more important one, proposes the election OF
President and Vice President directly by the
people, the extension of the Presidential term
to six years and that the President shall be in
eligible for second term Both these amend
ments, excepting the one-term absurdity, are
desirable and for reasons which may be briefly
stated


| First, it is desirable that our State elections
shall all take place on the same day, especially
in the Presidential year, in order to remove
those corrupting influences now employed by
party politicians to carry such State elections
as are believed to be important in reference to
their moral effect upon the Presidential con-
test. For example, it has been contended by
the supporters of Greeley and Brown in the
late Presidential campaign that had they
carried the North Carolina State election for
Governor in August last the moral effect might
have given them Pennsylvania and Ohio in
October, and possibly the Presidential victory
in November that, in short, the Presidential
battle was actually fought and determined in
North Carolina, closely divided State be-
tween the contesting parties; that the national
issue was determined in that local battle Of
August, in which the administration party,
with its offices and its money, controlled the
that this statement as to the consequences of
the result in North Carolina is substantially
true that the party or parties supporting
Greeley and Brown were prostrated by their
defeat in North Carolina that the September
results in Vermont and Maine further dis
heartened and weakened them, and that from
the October results in Pennsylvania and Ohio
they threw up the sponge, and permitted the
main battle to go by default in November.
These are facts which cannot be overthrown.
| On the other hand, if all our State elections
of 1872, like that of New York, had come off
on the same day with the Presidential election,
it cannot be doubted that the local and Presi-
ent from the results actually before us. All
these floating elements which drift with the
tide Of these experimental State elections
would be held more closely to the principles
which they really favor with all these State
and national elections fixed for the same day.
The appliances of managing politicians
which may now carry the Presidency by car
rying half dozen preliminary State elections
in detail, would become comparatively impo-
tent if diffused over all the States for their
tactics and strategy. Hence we concur in the
proposition for an amendment of the consti-
tuition in this direction. Meantime Congress
might induce the States to adopt the idea in
providing by law that all the elections for
the House of Representatives shall be held on
the same day-to wit, on the day of the month
fixed ffor the Presidential election.


Under the constitution as originally adopted
the Presidential electors voted for two candi-
dates for President, the highest of which in the
l.
next highest the Vice President, provided that
each had majority of the whole electoral vote
cast Under this rule the republican party of
that day nominated as their two candidates for
President Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr,
and the federalists nominated John Adams
president at the time) and Charles c.
Pinckney. The electoral vote was-for Jeffer-
son, 70; for Burr, 70 republican electors);
for Adams, 65; for Pinckney g.; for John
Jay, ! federal electors). The tie between
Jefferson and Burr for President carried
the election into the House of Representa-
tives, and in that body for q time the
contest was SO close, hot and exciting as to
threaten a coup d ftat; but finally jefferson
was chosen President and so Burr became
! Vice President. The next thing was an
amendment Of the constitution to avoid repe-
tition Of the row experienced and the danger
escaped; and hence the provision for choice
of President and Vice President by the Elec-
toral Colleges, as the constitution now stands.


No further change was made in the mod1s
operandi of electing our President and Vice
President till after the election Of 1874, in
which the great Harry Clay" was defeated by
the comparatively obscure Tennessee Con-
gresham, James X. Polk Down to that
election and in that election the several States
voted for the President on the day of their
own appointment, and thus New York, being
among the last Of the States voting, and the
issue being with New York, it was charged
that Clay in this city had been cheated out of
the State and out Of the White House
by democratic frauds. There had been,
no doubt, in that canvass some cheat
ing on both sides, as usual; but the
wings demanded, as a cure for the evils COM
planned of, the same day in all the States for
the Presidential election, and, the democrats
mostly concurrinR. the law was passed as it