was changed so that one elector should be chosen from each representative district, and that the two additional electors for each State should be appointed "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct," following the words of the Constitution. This amendment was nega tived by 20 in favor to 13 opposed, - not two thirds. Again in 1818 Mr. Sanford of New York introduced the amendment in the Senate, by instruction of the New York legislature, as on previous occasions it had been introduced by others according to instructions from the legislatures of New Jersey and North Carolina. This time a great deal of attention was paid to the matter. It was debated at much length, three times referred to committees, and at last passed by a vote of 28 to 10. In the House, it was laid on the table by 79 to 73. Introduced in the Senate again in 1819, by Mr. Dickerson, it was again passed, this time without debate, by 29 to 13. Having been debated in the House, it was agreed to by the Committee of the Whole; but when it was reported to the House it was laid on the table, and never taken up. Yet at the same session Mr. Smith of North Carolina introduced this identical amendment, and, after debate, it was passed to a third reading by a vote of 103 to 59; but on the question of its passage it was lost, 92 voting in favor and 54 against it, not two thirds. The proposition never again came so near to success; but it was not abandoned, and as late as March, 1822, the Senate again passed the amendment by 29 to 11. The House did not take the matter up for consideration.

Another effort was made during Mr. Monroe's administration to deal with the matter of the electoral count. Judiciary Committee of the Senate was instructed to consider the subject, and Mr. Van Buren reported a bill which, after amendment, was passed on April 19,

1824. It covered the whole ground of the election and the count. The electors were to make five lists of their votes instead of three. One of these was to be sent to the seat of government by a messenger, two were to be deposited in the post-office and forwarded by two successive mails to the President of the Senate, and the other two were to be delivered to the judge of the district in which the electoral meeting was held. This was the only change proposed in the method of electing the President. The important section was the fifth, as follows:

SECTION 5. That at twelve o'clock of the day appointed for counting the votes that may be given at the next election for President and Vice-President, the Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives, and on all future occasions in the centre-room of the Capitol, at which meeting the President of the Senate shall be the presiding officer, but no debate shall be had nor question taken. The packet containing the certificates from the electors of each State shall then be opened by the President of the Senate, beginning with the State of New Hampshire and going through to Georgia, in the order in which the thirteen original States are enumerated in the Constitution, and afterwards through the other States in the order in which they were respectively admitted into the Union; and if no exceptions are taken thereto, all the votes contained in such certificates shall be counted; but if any exceptions be taken, the person taking the same shall state it in writing directly, and not argumentatively, and sign his name thereto; and if the exception be seconded by one member from the Senate and one member from the House of Representatives, and each of whom shall sign the said exception as having seconded the same, the exception shall be read by the President of the Senate, and then each House shall immediately retire, without question or debate, to its own apartment, and shall take the question on the exception, without debate, by ayes and noes. So soon as the question shall be taken in either House, a message shall be sent to the other informing them of the decision of the quest. and that the House sending the message is prepared to resume the count; and when such message shall have been received by both Houses, they shall meet again in the same room as before, and the

count shall be resumed. And if the two Houses have concurred in rejecting the vote or votes objected to, such vote or votes shall not be counted. The vote of one State being thus counted, another shall, in like manner, be called, and the certificate of the votes of the State thus called shall be proceeded on as is herein before directed; and so on, one after another, in the order above mentioned, until the count shall be completed.

The bill was sent to the House for concurrence, where it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and was reported back by Mr. Webster on the 10th of May, without amendment. It was then referred to the Committee of the Whole, and was never taken up for consideration.

XI.

THE SECOND ADAMS.

THE election of 1824 was unlike any other before or since; and in certain respects it is the most interesting contest of the long series. The Federal party was practically extinct. Only in a few of the States did it make a pretence of existing still, and it was in power nowhere. There were great political contests during Mr. Monroe's presidency, notably that over the admission of Missouri in 1820, but they were not party struggles. Substantially all the statesmen and newspapers of the country professed the same constitutional principles. But the " era of good feelings," in the strict sense of the phrase, was of short duration. The succession to the presidency was to be the issue upon which the foundations of the new parties were

to be laid.

The election was really pending almost three years. As early as April, 1822, Niles's "Register" remarked that there were already sixteen or seventeen candidates for the succession to Mr. Monroe; and very soon after that the discussion of "caucus or no caucus?" began in earnest. It was universally understood that Mr. W. H. Crawford of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury, was the candidate preferred by the President, who, however, did not obtrude his wishes upon the public in an unseemly manner. It was also known that the caucus, if one should be held, would be in the interest of Mr. Crawford.

Before the close of the year 1822, the minor candidates had been dropped, and there were six only before the

people, for four of whom there were electoral votes cast two years later. They were, in alphabetical order,- John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; Henry Clay, who had been Speaker of the House, but was then a private citizen; De Witt Clinton, Ex-Governor of New York, also in private life at the time; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury; and General Andrew Jackson, who had at that time held no civil office at Washington. The first of these candidates to be put in formal nomination was Mr. Clay, who was "recommended as a suitable person to succeed James Monroe as President," by the members of the Kentucky legislature on the 18th of November, 1822. In an address which accompanied this resolution the members of the meeting placed their preference upon "a warm affection for and a strong confidence in their distinguished fellow-citizen "; and their feeling that the time had come "when the people of the West may, with some confidence, appeal to the magnanimity of the whole Union for a favorable consideration of their equal and just claim to a fair participation in the executive government of these States." They nevertheless made the first consideration much the more prominent and important. The members of the Missouri legislature held a meeting about the same time, and adopted a resolution recommending Mr. Clay. Simi lar action was taken in Illinois and Ohio in January, 1823, and in Louisiana in March of the same year.

General Jackson seems first to have been nominated formally although it was well understood long before that he was a candidate-by a mass convention of the people of Blount County, Tennessee, in May or June, 1823, and afterwards by numerous conventions in all parts of the country. Mr. Adams was nominated by the legislatures of most of the New England States, early in