something more than a mere question of convenience, whether he should, at the final stage of the process, be elected by a less number than a majority of all the States. That part of the plan which proposed to elect him by a majority of all the electoral votes, giving to each State as many votes as it was to have in both houses of Congress, might make the individual, when so elected, theoretically the choice of a majority of the people of the United States, although not necessarily the choice of a majority of the States. But there was a peculiar feature of this plan, -afterwards, in the year 1804, changed to a more direct method, by which the electors were required to return their votes for two persons, without designating which of them was their choice for President, and which for Vice-President, the designation being determined by the numbers of votes found to be given for each person. This method of voting increased the chances of a failure to choose the President by the electoral votes. It is not easy to understand why the framers of the Constitution adhered to it; although it is probable that its original design was to prevent corruption and intrigue. Whatever its purpose may have been, it served to make still more prominent the expediency, not only of removing the ultimate election from the Senate, but of providing some mode of conducting that election by which an appointment by a minority of the States would be prevented, when a majority of the electoral votes had not united upon any one individual, or had united upon two.

The plan which had been prepared by the grand committee, and which adjusted the relations between the executive and the Senate respecting appointments and treaties, had left no body in the government so likely to be free from intimate relations with the President, and at the same time so capable of being made the instrument of an election, as the House of Representatives. By the fundamental principle on which that body had been agreed to be organized, in direct contrast to the basis of the Senate, its members were the representatives of the people inhabiting the several States, and in the business of legislation a majority of their votes was to express the will of a majority of the people of the United States. But the representatives were to be chosen in the separate States; and nothing was more easy, therefore, than to provide that, in any other function, they should act as the agents of their States, making the States themselves the real parties to the act, without doing any violence to the principle on which they were assembled for the purposes of legislation. Accordingly, as soon as a transfer of the ultimate election from the Senate to the House of Repre sentatives was proposed, the method of voting by States was adopted, with only a single dissent.1 The establishment of two thirds as a quorum of the States for this purpose, and the provision that a majority of all the States should be necessary to a choice, followed naturally as the proper safeguards against corruption, and were adopted unanimously.

Delaware. Elliot, V. 519.

The principal office of the executive department was thus, provided for; but the ultimate choice of the Vice-President remained to be regulated. This office was unknown to the draft of the Constitution prepared by the committee of detail, and was suggested only when the mode of organizing the executive, and of providing for some of the separate functions of the Senate, came to be closely considered together. We are to look for its purposes, therefore, in the provisions specially devised for the settlement of these relations. In the first place, it was apparent that the executive would be a branch of the government that ought never to be vacant. The principle which, in hereditary monarchies, on the death of the sovereign, instantly devolves the executive power upon him who stands next in a fixed order of succession, must in some degree be imitated in purely elective governments, if great mischiefs are to be avoided. The difficulty which attends its application to such governments consists not in the nature of the principle itself, but in finding a number of public functionaries who can be placed in a certain order of succession, without creating mere heirs to the succession, for that purpose alone. In hereditary governments, the members of a family, in a designated order, stand as the successive recipients of the executive office; and each of them, until he reaches the throne, may have no other function in the state than that of an heir, near or remote, to the crown, and may, without inconvenience to the public welfare, occupy

that position alone. But in elective, and especially in republican governments, the succession must be devolved on some person already filling some other office; for to designate as a successor to the chief magistrate a person who has no public employment, and no other public position than that of an heir apparent, would be attended with many obvious disadvantages, in such a government.

Fortunately, the peculiar construction of the Senate was found to require a presiding officer who should not be a member of the body itself. As each State was to be represented by two' delegates, and as it would be important not to withdraw either of them from active participation in the business of the chamber, a presiding officer was needed who would represent neither of the States. By placing the Vice-President of the United States in this position, he would have a place of dignity and importance, would be at all times conversant with the public interests, and might pass to the chief magistracy, on the occurrence of a vacancy, attended with the public confidence and respect. This arrangement was devised by the grand committee, and was adopted with general consent. It contemplated, also, that the Vice-President, as President of the Senate, should have no vote, unless upon questions on which the Senate should be equally divided; and on account of his relation to this branch of the legislature, the ultimate election of the Vice-President, when the electors had failed to appoint him under the rule prescribed, was retained in the hands of the Senate.

The rule that was to determine when the VicePresident was to succeed to the functions of the chief magistrate, was also embraced in the plan of the grand committee. It was apparent that a vacancy in the principal office might occur by death, by resignation, by the effect of inability to discharge its powers and duties, and by the consequences of an impeachment. When either of these events should occur, it was provided that the office should devolve on the Vice-President. In the case of death or resignation of the President, no uncertainty can arise. In a case of impeachment, a judgment of conviction operates as a removal from office. But the grand committee did not provide, and the Constitution does not contain any provision or direction, for ascertaining the case of an inability to discharge the powers and duties of the office. When

such an inability is supposed to have occurred, and is not made known by the President himself, how is it to be ascertained? Is there any department of the government that can, with or without a provision of law, proceed to inquire into the capacity of the President, and to pronounce him unable to discharge his powers and duties? What is meant by the Constitution as inability is a case which does not fall within the power of impeachment, for that is confined to treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. It is the case of a simple incapacity, arising from insanity, or ill health, or, as might possibly occur, from restraint of the person of the President by a public enemy. But in the