Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart
college, and was elected. Mr. Nathan Sandford, Senator in Congress from New-York, had been placed on the ticket with Mr. Clay, and received 30 votes. The 24 votes of Virginia were given to Mr. Macon, as a compliment, he not being a candidate, and having refused to become one. The nine votes of Georgia were given to Mr. Van Buren, also as a compliment, he not being on the list of candidates. Mr. Albert Gallatin had been nominated in the Congress caucus with Mr. Crawford, but finding the proceedings of that caucus unacceptable to the people he had withdrawn from the canvass. Mr. Calhoun was the only substantive vice-presidential candidate before the people, and his election was an evidence of good feeling in the North towards southern men – he receiving the main part of his votes from that quarter – 114 votes from the non-slaveholding States, and only 68 from the slaveholding. A southern man, and a slaveholder, Mr. Calhoun was indebted to northern men and non-slaveholders, for the honorable distinction of an election in the electoral colleges – the only one in the electoral colleges – the only one on all the lists of presidential and vice-presidential candidates who had that honor. Surely there was no disposition in the free States at that time to be unjust, or unkind to the South.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DEATH OF JOHN TAYLOR, OF CAROLINE
For by that designation was discriminated, in his own State, the eminent republican statesman of Virginia, who was a Senator in Congress in the first term of General Washington's administration, and in the last term of Mr. Monroe – and who, having voluntarily withdrawn himself from that high station during the intermediate thirty years, devoted himself to the noble pursuits of agriculture, literature, the study of political economy, and the service of his State or county when called by his fellow-citizens. Personally I knew him but slightly, our meeting in the Senate being our first acquaintance, and our senatorial association limited to the single session of which he was a member – 1823-24; – at the end of which he died. But all my observation of him, and his whole appearance and deportment, went to confirm the reputation of his individuality of character, and high qualities of the head and the heart. I can hardly figure to myself the ideal of a republican statesman more perfect and complete than he was in reality: – plain and solid, a wise counsellor, a ready and vigorous debater, acute and comprehensive, ripe in all historical and political knowledge, innately republican – modest, courteous, benevolent, hospitable – a skilful, practical farmer, giving his time to his farm and his books, when not called by an emergency to the public service – and returning to his books and his farm when the emergency was over. His whole character was announced in his looks and deportment, and in his uniform (senatorial) dress – the coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons of the same "London brown," and in the cut of a former fashion – beaver hat with ample brim – fine white linen – and a gold-headed cane, carried not for show, but for use and support when walking and bending under the heaviness of years. He seemed to have been cast in the same mould with Mr. Macon, and it was pleasant to see them together, looking like two Grecian sages, and showing that regard for each other which every one felt for them both. He belonged to that constellation of great men which shone so brightly in Virginia in his day, and the light of which was not limited to Virginia, or our America, but spread through the bounds of the civilized world. He was the author of several works, political and agricultural, of which his Arator in one class, and his Construction Construed in another, were the principal – one adorning and exalting the plough with the attributes of science; the other exploring the confines of the federal and the State governments, and presenting a mine of constitutional law very profitably to be examined by the political student who will not be repulsed from a banquet of rich ideas, by the quaint Sir Edward Coke style – (the only point of resemblance between the republican statesman, and the crown officer of Elizabeth and James) – in which it is dressed. Devotion to State rights was the ruling feature of his policy; and to keep both governments, State and federal, within their respective constitutional orbits, was the labor of his political life.
In the years 1798 and '99, Mr. Taylor was a member of the General Assembly of his State, called into service by the circumstances of the times; and was selected on account of the dignity and gravity of his character, his power and readiness in debate, and his signal devotion to the rights of the States, to bring forward those celebrated resolutions which Mr. Jefferson conceived, which his friends sanctioned, which Mr. Madison drew up, and which "John Taylor, of Caroline," presented; – which are a perfect exposition of the principles of our duplicate form of government, and of the limitations upon the power of the federal government; – and which, in their declaration of the unconstitutionality of the alien and sedition laws, and appeal to other States for their co-operation, had nothing in view but to initiate a State movement by two-thirds of the States (the number required by the fifth article of the federal constitution), to amend, or authoritatively expound the constitution; – the idea of forcible resistance to the execution of any act of Congress being expressly disclaimed at the time.
CHAPTER XIX.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
It has already been shown that the theory of the constitution, and its practical working, was entirely different in the election of President and Vice-President – that by the theory, the people were only to choose electors, to whose superior intelligence the choice of fit persons for these high stations was entirely committed – and that, in practice, this theory had entirely failed from the beginning. From the very first election the electors were made subordinate to the people, having no choice of their own, and pledged to deliver their votes for a particular person, according to the will of those who elected them. Thus the theory had failed in its application to the electoral college; but there might be a second or contingent election, and has been; and here the theory of the constitution has failed again. In the event of no choice being made by the electors, either for want of a majority of electoral votes being given to any one, or on account of an equal majority for two, the House of Representatives became an electoral college for the occasion, limited to a choice out of the five highest (before the constitution was amended), or the two highest having an equal majority. The President and Vice-President were not then voted for separately, or with any designation of their office. All appeared upon the record as presidential nominees – the highest on the list having a majority, to be President; the next highest, also having a majority, to be Vice-President; but the people, from the beginning, had discriminated between the persons for these respective places, always meaning one on their ticket for President, the other for Vice-President. But, by the theory of the constitution and its words, those intended Vice-Presidents might be elected President in the House of Representatives, either by being among the five highest when there was no majority, or being one of two in an equal majority. This theory failed in the House of Representatives from the first election, the demos krateo principle – the people to govern – prevailing there as in the electoral colleges, and overruling the constitutional design in each.
The first election in the House of Representatives was that of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, in the session of 1800-1801. These gentlemen had each a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, and an equal majority – 73 each – Mr. Burr being intended for Vice-President. One of the contingencies had then occurred in which the election went to the House of Representatives. The federalists had acted more wisely, one of their State electoral colleges (that of Rhode Island), having withheld a vote from the intended Vice-President on their side, Mr. Charles Colesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina; and so prevented an equality of votes between him and Mr. John Adams. It would have been entirely constitutional in the House of Representatives to have elected Mr. Burr President, but at the same time, a gross violation of the democratic principle, which requires the will of the majority to be complied with. The federal States undertook to elect Mr. Burr, and kept up the struggle for seven days and nights, and until the thirty-sixth ballot. There were sixteen States, and it required the concurrence of nine to effect an election. Until the thirty-sixth Mr. Jefferson had eight, Mr. Burr six, and two were divided. On the thirty-sixth ballot Mr. Jefferson had ten States and was elected. General Hamilton, though not then in public life, took a decided part in this election, rising above all personal and all party considerations, and urging the federalists from the beginning to vote for Mr. Jefferson. Thus the democratic principle prevailed. The choice of the people was elected by the House of Representatives; and the struggle was fatal to those who had opposed that principle. The federal party was broken down, and