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one-eleventh part of the whole population, if we include somewhat more than a million of slaves, or between one-eighth and one-ninth part, if we count only the free part of the population.

CHAPTER XII.

As the Law of Elections is a rock upon which many other nations have split, every thing which relates to its history, in a country where the science of government is avowedly made the subject of experiment, carries with it more than common interest. A slight sketch, therefore, of what has actually taken place in one of the principal States -that of New York-may possibly be considered curious by many people, more particularly, as the facts it unfolds to view will materially help the explanation of various collateral matters of some importance. Such a glance, besides showing how the details of such things are managed in America, will serve to give an idea of the unstable nature of written constitutions, where the executive, legislative, and popular powers are all so much intermingled, that none of these members of the bodypolitic can have any steady independent action.

From the adoption of the United States Consti

tution in 1789, up to 1824, the electors for the President were invariably chosen, in the State of New York, by the legislature. In the autumn of 1824, a Presidential Election took place, very bitter and acrimonious in its course. The revolutionary stock of Presidents, to use an expression I often heard in America, being exhausted with Mr Monroe, the deference which on previous occasions had been paid to candidates with such historical pretensions, no longer existed; and four prominent candidates, each availing himself of his privilege to assail the rest, took the field-Messrs Crawford, Adams, and Clay, and General Jackson.

The choice of electors being in the legislature, and a majority of the members being known to entertain a preference for Mr Crawford, it was considered next to certain that he would receive the entire vote of the State, or that the whole of the 36 electors named in his ticket would be chosen by the legislature. It became, therefore, a matter of common interest with the several minorities who supported the other three candidates, at all events to prevent this result. Various objections which had been urged during the previous year, against a choice of Presidential Electors by the legislature, were, accordingly, revived with great activity. That mode of election was denounced as anti-republican-aristocratical-as having been unjustly

wrested from the people, and too long withheld from them. The people, as the source of all sovereignty, were urged to re-assume the exercise of their rights, speedily and fully. No doctrine, indeed, could be more palatable to the multitude, for it ministered to their natural proneness to wield all practicable authority. These notions, though urged at first by interested men, for selfish purposes, were so strictly in accordance with the taste of the country, that they soon became general over the State, and the public mind was inflamed thereby to a high degree.

During the session of the legislature in January 1824, vigorous attempts were made to change the law of election. In the House of Assembly, the friends of Mr Crawford, though originally in the majority, at last yielded to the popular ferment, and, after a stormy and protracted debate, passed a bill, directing that the electors for the President should no longer be chosen by the legislature, but by general ticket;-in other words, that a majority of the votes collected over the whole State should carry the day. In the senate, however, which consisted of 32 members, 17, or a bare majority, resisted all the efforts made to shake them, in and out of doors, and seemed determined not to relinquish the Constitutional power which had been so long exercised. The necessary consequence of the bill not

passing both houses before their adjournment, was the indefinite postponement of all projects of change; and, of course, the choice of electors continued, as before, with the legislature.

The popular feeling, however, was not to be so easily stifled, nor their love of change suppressed by a slender majority in the least numerous and popular house in their legislature. These feelings were still farther inflamed by a proclamation issued at midsummer by the governor, in the same year, -1824, convening an extra session, for the express purpose of reconsidering this question, which already agitated the State from end to end. What was very singular, both houses, with more than their usual moral courage, refused to legislate farther, and actually adjourned without making any change in the law.

In November of that year, 1824, the same legislature accordingly assembled for the purpose of choosing the electors for the President; and it so happened, that exactly at this moment the annual general election took place for the legislature of next year, 1825, while that of 1824 was still in session. The people, who were highly indignant at the supposed denial of their rights, returned a large majority of new members to the succeeding legislature favourable to a change in the obnoxious law. This expression of popular sentiment out of doors,

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