Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/516

506 a general ticket. This mode compounds and blends both the will of the people and the will of the states, and confers an influence in the election of an officer, who has most powor to assail or defend both, upon the principle of equality as applying both to the states and to the people. Whereas this union of influence between state equality and human equality is defeated, by state electors which exclude the one, and by district electors which exclude the other, from a share in the election of the president; and the exclusion of either from an influence over the officer by whom it is most endangered, will weaken its means for self preservation, and create means for severing the union between friends, neither of whom can probably exist without the other.

But the district mode of election, is far more inconsistent with the principles of our Union, than that by state legislatures; because, in that mode, state will, though one of the parties to the union, loses its whole influence; wherein an election by state legislatures, popular will retains an influence upon the election of a president, equivalent to its influence over these legislatures. And as a state influence in this election, is a great security to the division of power between the states and the general government, the loss of it would endanger all the securities for a free government, arising from that division.

The importance of this subject will justify an effort to explain our meaning by different language. It has been invariably contended, that the people are the source of all the sections of our government. They have formed themselves into two societies, state and general. In establishing a general government, they have defended both these associations of their own, by constituting that government of three organs; one appointed by themselves in their popular capacity; another appointed by themselves, by representation, in their state capacity; and the third, appointed by themselves, partly in their popular and partly in their state capacity. If the responsibility of the third organ to the nation, in each of its social characters, is equal, the end of our