It will be recollected that, previous to the adoption of the constitution, on all legislative subjects, in fact, on every measure of the constitution, each State had an equal voice; but very different is the case now, when, in the popular branch of your Government, you see one State represented by twenty-two members, and another by but one, voting according to numbers. So that, notwithstanding the ideas of those gentlemen, and the declaration of an honorable member from Maryland, on my right, (Mr. SMITH,) that, during his ten years’ service in Congress, he had never seen anything like State jealousies, State divisions, or State classification, I must be permitted to predicate part of my argument upon this business. Should any gentleman be able to show that the foundation is unsound, the superstructure of course will be easily demolished. Admitting, then, sir, for the sake of argument, that there were no very great objections to this proposed alteration in the mode of electing a President and Vice President, and that it were now part of the constitution, it might be unwise to strike it out, unless much stronger arguments had been urged against than I have heard in favor of it; yet I would not now vote for its adoption.
The United States are now divided, and will probably continue so, into two great political parties; whenever, under this amendment, a Presidential election shall come round, and the four rival candidates be proposed, two of them only will be voted for as President--one of these two must be the man; the chances in favor of each will be equal. Will not this increased probability of success afford more than double the inducement to those candidates, and their friends, to tamper with the Electors, to exercise intrigue, bribery, and corruption, as in an election upon the present plan, where the whole four would be voted for alike, where the chances against each are as three to one, and it is totally uncertain which of the gentlemen may succeed to the high office? And there must, indeed, be a great scarcity of character in the United States, when, in so extensive and populous a country, four citizens cannot be found, either of them worthy even of the Chief Magistracy of the nation. But, Mr. President, I have never yet seen the great inconvenience that has been so much clamored about, and that will be provided against in future by substituting this amendment. There was, indeed, a time when it became necessary for the House of Representatives to elect, by ballot, a President of the United States from the two highest in vote, and they were engaged here some days, as I have been told, in a very good-humored way, in the exercise of that constitutional right. They at length decided; and what was the consequence? The people were satisfied, and here the thing ended. What does this prove? that the constitution is defective? No, sir, but rather the wisdom and efficiency of the very provision intended to be stricken out, and that the people are acquainted with the nature of their Government; and give me leave to say, if fortune had smiled upon another man, and that election had eventuated in another way, the consequence would have been precisely the same; the great mass of the people would have been content and quiet; and those factious, restless disorganizers, that are the eternal disturbers of all well administered Governments, and who then talked of resistance, would have had too much prudence to hazard their necks in so dangerous an enterprise. I will not undertake to say that there was no danger apprehended on that occasion. I know many of the friends of the constitution had their fears; the experiment however proved them groundless; but what was the danger apprehended pending the election in the House of Representatives? Was it that they might choose Colonel Burr or Mr. Jefferson President? Not at all; they had, notwithstanding what had been said on this subject by the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. WRIGHT,) a clear constitutional right to choose either of them, as much so as the Electors in the several States had to vote for them in the first instance; the particular man was a consideration of but secondary importance to the country; the only ground of alarm was, lest the House should separate without making any choice, and the Government be without a head, the consequences of which no man could well calculate.