Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/386

 look into futurity. ‘It is (said he) too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.’—this was the patriot voice of WASHINGTON; and this the constant tenor of his conduct.

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January 23, 1800.

Mr. C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, … remembered very well that in the Federal Convention great care was used to provide for the election of the President of the United States, independently of Congress; to take the business as far as possible out of their hands. The votes are to be given by Electors appointed for that express purpose, the Electors are to be appointed by each State, and the whole direction as to the manner of their appointment is given to the State Legislatures. Nothing was more clear to him than that Congress had no right to meddle with it at all; as the whole was entrusted to the State Legislatures, they must make provision for all questions arising on the occasion.

Mr. Baldwin, of Georgia … must say, for himself, that he did not agree that the present provisions on this subject were so defective and absurd as had been represented. His general respect for those who had gone before him in this House, and especially for the venerable assembly of the most experienced statesmen of the country by whom the Constitution had been formed, forbade him to entertain the belief that this subject, which is the strong feature that characterizes this as an Elective Government, could have been till now so entirely out of sight and neglected. Gentlemen appeared to him, from their observations, to forget that the Constitution in directing Electors to be appointed throughout the United States equal to the whole number of the Senators and Representatives in Congress, for the express purpose of entrusting this Constitutional branch of power to them, had provided for the existence of as respectable a body as Congress, and in whom the Constitution on this business has more confidence than in Congress. Experience had proved that a more venerable selection of characters could not be made in this country than usually composed that electoral body. And what are the questions which can arise on the subject entrusted to them to which they are