Part 9

TUESDAY, November 15.

Mr. WORTHINGTON presented the petition of a number of the inhabitants of the Indiana Territory, praying to be set off into a separate district, for reasons therein stated.

Ordered, That it be referred to Mr. BRADLEY and others, the committee to whom were referred on the 7th instant, petitions on the same subject, to consider and report thereon to the Senate.

WEDNESDAY, November 23.

Amendment to the Constitution.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the report of the committee to whom was referred the motion for an amendment to the constitution in the mode of electing the President and the Vice President of the United States; whereupon, the President pro tem. (Mr. BROWN) submitted to the consideration of the Senate the following question of order:

“When an amendment to be proposed to the constitution is under consideration, shall the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present be requisite to decide any question for amendments, or extending to the merits, being short of the final question?”

The proposition offered by the President was then called up for decision, whether two-thirds were necessary--ayes 13, noes 18.

Mr. BUTLER desired to know from the President if the question now decided did not require a majority of two-thirds?

The PRESIDENT said, according to the rule of the House, the question required only a principal majority to decide.

Mr. DAYTON’s motion for striking out what related to the Vice President was called for, and the question taken on striking out--ayes 12, noes 19.

The report of the committee at large being then under consideration,

Mr. NICHOLAS moved to strike out all following the seventh line of the report, to the end, for the purpose of inserting the following:

“In all future elections of President and Vice President, the Electors shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and, in distinct ballots, the person voted for as Vice President, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. The person voted for as President, having a majority of the votes of all the Electors appointed, shall be the President; and if no person have such majority, then from the three highest on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose the President in the manner directed by the constitution. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President, shall be the Vice President; and in case of an equal number of votes for two or more persons for Vice President, they being the highest on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President from those having such equal number, in the manner directed by the constitution; but no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President, shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.”

Mr. ADAMS objected to the number “three” instead of five, and wished five to be restored, as the House of Representatives had already agreed to it. He asked for a division of the question; which was not agreed to.

Upon the question for striking out being put, it was carried without a dissenting voice, and the amendment of Mr. NICHOLAS adopted in the report, leaving the number blank.

Mr. DAYTON moved to fill up the blank with the number five; upon the question being put, it was lost--only eleven rose in the affirmative.

Mr. ANDERSON moved to strike out the word “two” in the nineteenth line--ayes 6. Lost.

Mr. S. SMITH then moved to fill the blank with the word “three;” which was carried--ayes 18, noes 13.

Mr. ADAMS suggested an objection to the amendment as it stood, which appeared to arise out of the treaty of cession of Louisiana. His original idea was adverse to the limitation to natural-born citizens, as superfluous; but, as it stood, the terms upon which Louisiana was acquired had rendered a change necessary, for it appeared to him that there was no alternative, but to admit those born in Louisiana as well as those born in the United States to the right of being chosen for President and Vice President.

Mr. BUTLER said that, if there was a numerous portion of those who were already citizens of the United States who can never aspire to, nor be eligible for, those situations under the constitution, he did not see how this supposed alternative could be upheld. The people of Louisiana, under the treaty and under the constitution, will clearly come under the description of naturalized citizens. While he was up, he would take the opportunity of speaking to the question at large, and to examine the motives which produced this amendment; the principal cause of solicitude, on this subject, he understood to be the base intrigues which were said to have been carried on at the Presidential election.

Mr. WRIGHT called to order; and a short altercation on the point of order took place.

Mr. BUTLER proceeded. He had on a former day asked if he might, in this stage of the discussion, take a view of the whole subject; the House had decided in the affirmative. When the proposition was first laid before the House, he had felt a disposition in favor of it; his mind had been shocked by those base intrigues, which had taken place at the late Presidential election, and he was hurried by indignation into a temper which a little cool reflection and some observation on a particular mode of action in that House, had checked and corrected, and finally convinced him that much caution was required in a proceeding of that nature, and that, in all human probability, such a scene of intrigue may never occur again; that it became questionable whether any steps whatever were necessary. Upon a careful review of the subject, it appeared to him that an alteration might make matters worse; for though at present there has been afforded, by a course of accidents and oversights, room for intrigue, it would be preferable to leave it to the care and discretion of the States at large to prevent the recurrence of the danger, than put into the hands of four of the large States the perpetual choice of President, to the exclusion of the other thirteen States. It was a reasonable principle that every State should, in turn, have the choice of the Chief Magistrate made from among its citizens. The jealousy of the small States was natural; and he would not tire the House by bringing to their ears arguments from the history of Greece, because the subject must be familiar to every member of that House, and, indeed, to every school-boy. He would not weary them with the painful history of the conflicts of Athens and Sparta, for the supremacy of Greece, and the fatal effects of their quarrels and ambition on the smaller States of that inveterate confederacy of Republics. Their history is that of all nations in similar circumstances; for man is man in every clime, and passion mingles in all his actions. If the smaller States were to agree to this amendment, it would fix for ever the combination of the larger States, and they would not only choose the President but the Vice President also in spite of the smaller States. It would ill become him who had been a member of that convention which had the honor of forming the present constitution to let a measure such as the present pass without the most deliberate investigation of its effects. Before the present constitution was adopted all the States held an equal vote on all national questions; by the constitution their sovereignty was guarantied, and the instrument of guarantee and right, he had subscribed his name to as a Representative from South Carolina, and had used all the zeal and influence of which he was possessed to promote its adoption. To give his assent to any violation of it, or any unnecessary innovation on its principles, would be a deviation from morality.

The question was immediately taken on the report and carried--yeas 20, nays 11.

Mr. ADAMS said, that though he had voted for the amendment, he disapproved of the alteration from five to three. He felt, however, though a representative of a large State, a deep interest in this question. Was there no champion of the small States to stand up in that House and vindicate their rights?

Mr. DAYTON was not here as champion of the small States; but, as the representative of one of them, he was ready to enter his protest against being delivered over bound hand and foot to four or five of the large States. The gentleman from South Carolina had offered arguments on the subject irrefutable. The little portion of influence left us he has demonstrated to be now about to be taken away, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. ADAMS,) after aiding the effort with his vote, has taken mercy upon us, and after he has helped to knock us down, asks us why we do not stand up for ourselves.

Mr. S. SMITH was not surprised to find those who were members of the old Congress, in which the subject of large and small States was frequently agitated, familiar with the subject of those days. Under the present constitution he had been ten years in Congress and had never heard the subject agitated, nor the least ground given for any apprehension on this subject; he had seen the small States possess all the advantages secured to them without even a moment’s jealousy. The State he represented was once considered a large State; the increase of others in population, however, had rendered it properly belonging to neither class; it was an intermediate State; but from the natural progression of the Union it must be ranked among the small States. In this view then he could speak dispassionately, and the small States could not with reason be apprehensive that a State, which must speedily take rank among them, could be indifferent to their rights if there were the least cause for apprehension.

He had moved for the insertion of three instead of five, with this precise and special intention, that the people themselves should have the power of electing the President and Vice President; and that intrigues should be thereby for ever frustrated. The intention of the convention was that the election of the chief officers of the Government should come as immediately from the people as was practicable, and that the Legislature should possess the power only in such an exigency as accident might give birth to, but which they had considered as likely to occur. Had it not been for these considerations, the large States never would have given up the advantages which they held in point of numbers. If the number five were to be continued, and the House of Representatives made the last resort, he would undertake to say, that four times out of five the choice would devolve upon them.