Original pur

pose of the lege not ful

electoral col

filled

make an intelligent selection for the presidency. The electors were to use their own judgment, and it was not necessary that all the electors chosen in one state should vote for the same candidate. The people on election day were not supposed to be voting for a president but for presidential electors. This theory was never realized. The two elections of Washington, in 1788 and 1792, were unanimous. In the second contested election, that of 1800, the electors simply registered the result of the popular vote, and it has been so ever since. Immediately after the popular election, a whole month before the meeting of the electoral college, we know who is to be the next president. There is no law to prevent an elector from voting for a different pair of candidates from those at the head of the party ticket, but the custom has become as binding as a statute. The elector is chosen to vote for specified candidates, and he must do so.

chosen in

On the other hand, it was not until long after 1800 that all the electoral votes of the same state were necessarily given to Electors the same pair of candidates. It was formerly customary in many states to choose the electors by districts. A state entitled to ten electors would choose eight of them in its eight congressional districts, and there were various ways of choos

many states

by districts; now usually on a general

ticket

ing the other two. In some of the districts one party would have a majority, in others the other, and so the electoral vote of the state would be divided between two pairs of candidates. After 1830 it became customary to choose the electors upon a general ticket, and thus the electoral vote became solid in each state.1

Minority presidents

This system, of course, increases the chances of electing presidents who have received a minority of the popular vote. A candidate may carry one state by an immense majority and thus gain six or eight electoral votes ; he may come within a few hundred of carrying another state and thus lose thirty-six electoral votes. Or a small third party may divert some thousands of votes from the principal candidate without affecting the electoral vote of the state. Since Washington's second term we have had twenty-five contested elections, and in nine of these the elected president has failed to receive a majority of the popular vote; Adams in 1824 (elected by the House of Representa

1 In 1860 the vote of New Jersey was divided between Lincoln and Douglas, but that was because the names of three of the seven Douglas electors were upon two different tickets, and thus got a majority of votes while the other four fell short. In 1892 the state of Michigan chose its electors by districts.

2 All have been contested, except Monroe's reëlection in 1820, when there was no opposing candidate.

Advantages

ral system

tives), Polk in 1844, Taylor in 1848, Buchanan in 1856, Lincoln in 1860, Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 1880, Cleveland in 1884, Harrison in 1888. This has suggested more or less vague speculation as to the advisableness of changing the method of electing the president. It has been suggested that it would be well to abolish the electoral college, and resort to a direct popular vote, without reference to state lines. Such a method would be open to one serious objection. In a closely contested election on the present method the result may remain doubtful for three or four days, while a narrow majority of a few hundred of the electovotes in some great state is being ascertained by careful counting. It was so in 1884. This period of doubt is sure to be a period of intense and dangerous excitement. In an election without reference to states, the result would more often be doubtful, and it would be sometimes necessary to count every vote in every little out-of-the-way corner of the country before the question could be settled. The occasions for dispute would be multiplied a hundred-fold, with most demoralizing effect. Our present method is doubtless clumsy, but the solidity of the electoral colleges is a safeguard, and as all parties understand the system it is in the long run as fair for one as for another.

The Constitution says nothing about the method of nominating candidates for the presidency, neither has it been made the subject of legislation. It has been determined by convenience. It was not necessary to nominate Washington, and the candidacies of Adams and Jefferson were also matters of general understanding. In 1800 the Republican and Federalist members of Congress respectively held secret Nomination meetings or caucuses, chiefly for the of candidates purpose of agreeing upon candidates by congresfor the vice-presidency and making

sional caucus (1800-24)

some plans for the canvass. It became customary to nominate candidates in such congressional caucuses, but there was much hostile comment upon the system as undemocratic. Sometimes the "favourite son" of a state was nominated by the legislature, but as the means of travel improved, the nominating convention came to be preferred. In 1824 there were four candidates for the presidency, — Adams, Jackson, Clay, and Crawford. Adams was nominated by the legislatures of most of the New England states; Clay by the legislature of Kentucky, followed by the legislatures of Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and Louisiana; Crawford by the legislature of Virginia; and Jackson by a mass convention of the people of Blount County in Tennessee, followed by local conventions in many other states. The congres

sional caucus met and nominated Crawford, but this indorsement did not help him,' and this method was no longer tried. In 1832 for the first time the candidates were all nominated in national conventions.

These conventions, as fully developed, are representative bodies chosen for the specific purpose of nominating candidates and Nominating making those declarations of principle conventions and policy known as "platforms." Each state is allowed twice as many delegates as it has electoral votes. "The delegates are chosen by local conventions in their several states, viz., two for each congressional district by the party convention of that district, and four for the whole state (called delegates-at-large) by the state convention. As each convention is composed of delegates from primaries, it is the composition of the primaries which determines that of the local conventions, and it is the composition of the local conventions which determines that of the national." The "primary" is the smallest nominating convention. It stands in somewhat the same relation to the national convention as the relation of a township The "prior ward to the whole United States. mary A primary is a little caucus of all the voters of

1 Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, pp. 80-83. 2 Bryce, American Commonwealth, vol. ii. p. 145; see also p. 52.