Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/336

 328 the house shall elect "from the five highest on the list." Suppose there were six candidates, three of whom had an equal number; who are to be preferred? The amendment is, that the house shall elect "from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three." Suppose there should be four candidates, two of whom should have an equality of votes; who are to be preferred? Such a case is quite within the range of probability; and may hereafter occasion very serious dissensions. One object in lessening the number of the persons to be balloted for from five to three, doubtless was, to take away the chance of any person having very few votes from being chosen president against the general sense of the nation. Yet it is obvious now, that a person having but a very small number of electoral votes, might, under the present plan, be chosen president, if the other votes were divided between two eminent rival candidates; the friends of each of whom might prefer any other to such rival candidate. Nay, their very hostility to each other might combine them in a common struggle to throw the final choice upon the third candidate, whom they might hope to control, or fear to disoblige.

§ 1466. It is observable, that the language of the constitution is, that "each state shall appoint in such "manner, as the legislature thereof may direct," the number of electors, to which the state is entitled. Under this authority the appointment of electors has been variously provided for by the state legislatures. In some states the legislature have directly chosen the electors by themselves; in others they have been chosen by the people by a general ticket throughout the whole state; and in others by the people in electoral