Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/325

 CH. XXXVI.] time, as well as means, would be wanting to accomplish, by bribery or intrigue of any considerable number, a betrayal of their duty. The president, too, who should be thus appointed, would be lar more independent, than if chosen by a legislative body, to whom he might be expected to make correspondent sacrifices, to gratify their wishes, or reward their services. And on the other hand, being chosen by the voice of the people, his gratitude would take the natural direction, and sedulously guard their rights. In addition to these grounds, it has been suggested, that a still greater and more insuperable difficulty against a choice directly by the people, as a single community, was, that such a measure would be an entire consolidation of the government of the country, and an annihilation of the state sovereignties, so far as concerned the organization of the executive department of the Union. This was not to be permitted, or endured; and it would, besides, have destroyed the balance of the Union, and reduced the weight of the slave-holding states to a degree, which they would have deemed altogether inadmissible. 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 13, p. 261. It is not perceived, how either of these results could have taken place, unless upon some plan, (which was never proposed,) which should disregard altogether the existence of the states, and take away all representation of the slave population. The choice might have been directly by the people without any such course. And in point of fact, such an objection, as that suggested by Mr. Chancellor Kent, to a choice by the people, does not seem to have occurred to the authors of the Federalist. If the choice had been directly by the people, each state having as many votes for president, as it would be entitled to electors, the result would have been exactly, as it now is. If each state had been entitled to one vote, only, then the state sovereignties would have been completely represented by the people of each state upon an equality. If the choice had been by the people in districts, according to the ratio of representation, then the president would have been chosen by a majority of the people in a majority of the representative districts. There would be no more a consolidation, than there now is in the house of representatives. In neither view could there be any injurious inequality bearing on the Southern states.