Mr. BRADLEY moved an adjournment. The motion was agreed to.
The consideration of the report on the amendment to the constitution being taken up, the amendment as directed to be printed on the preceding day, was taken up, and read, as follows:
_Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring_, That the following amendment be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said constitution, viz:
In all future elections of President and Vice President, the Electors shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and, in distinct ballots, the person voted for as Vice President, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. The person voted for as President having a majority of the votes of all the Electors appointed, shall be the President, and if no person have such majority, then from the three highest on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose the President in the manner directed by the constitution. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President, shall be Vice President; and in case of an equal number of votes for two or more persons for the Vice President, they being the highest on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President from those having such equal number, in the manner directed by the constitution; but no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President, shall be eligible to that of the President of the United States.
Mr. BRADLEY did not approve of the amendment as it now stood; he could not see why the Vice President should not be chosen by a majority, as well as the President. He considered the possibility of the Vice President becoming President by any casualty, as a good reason for both being chosen by the same ratio of numbers. If it should be carried as the amendment now stands, the office of Vice President would be hawked about at market, and given as change for votes for the Presidency. And what would be the effect?--that it might so happen that a citizen chosen only for the office of Vice President, might by the death of the President, though chosen only by a plurality, become President, and hold the office for three years eleven months and thirty days. He did not approve of many arguments which he had heard on the preceding day, and however disposed to concur in the principle of designation for the two offices, he could not give it his vote in the present shape. He would, in order to render the report more congenial with his wishes, move to strike out the following words beginning with the words _shall_, in the thirteenth line, to _constitution_, in the eighteenth. The motion was seconded.