Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/151

132 were well aware that the large States would take the lion's share of power and patronage; they knew that except by accident no citizen of theirs could ever reach the Presidency; and as accident alone could give the small States a chance, accident was to them a thing of value. Whatever tended to make their votes decisive was an additional inducement with them to accept the Constitution. The Vice-presidency, as originally created, more than doubled their chance of getting the Presidency, and was invented chiefly for this purpose; but this was not all. As the number of electoral votes alone decided between President and Vice-president, a tie-vote was likely often to occur; and such a tie was decided by the House of Representatives, where another bribe was intentionally offered to the small States by giving the election to the State delegations voting as units, so that the vote of Delaware weighed as heavily as the vote of Pennsylvania.

The alarm caused by Burr's rivalry with Jefferson in February, 1801, satisfied the Republican party that such a door to intrigue ought not to be left open. Oct. 17, 1803, before the Louisiana treaty was taken up, an amendment to the Constitution was moved by friends of the Administration in the House. This, which took shape at length as the Twelfth Amendment, obliged the members of the electoral college to distinguish in their ballots the persons voted for as President and Vice-president.

Slight as this change might appear, it tended toward