always insisted upon voting for a president and not for a proxy. The result has been that the president, being the only part of the government for whom the whole people vote, has absorbed by far the greater part of governmental popularity, and is to-day, in most people's minds, the dominant figure in the national government. Certainly the past goes to show that popular choice has on the whole been safer than selected choice could ever have been, for the Presidents chosen by the people have been successful, while those brought forward by politicians have been failures. Another illuminating fact is that the Vice President is always the choice of the politicians, the people taking little interest in the selection of that official; and his almost invariable failure is equally well known.
As the method of choosing the President has proved wholly inoperative, so too it has proved markedly inefficient. Twice it has broken down to an extent that has threatened the safety of the government, and twice it has placed in office men not fairly elected, thus defeating the will of the people. The Electoral College has lost its object, and only endangers the country in every Presidential election. An amendment to the constitution, doing away with it, and making the President elected by the people, is the most necessary revision the compact needs.
The President has not, as even the convention feared he might, endeavored to make himself king or dictator; he has not even made any marked attempt to perpetuate himself in office. In moments of necessity he has overridden the constitution and usurped such powers as he deemed necessary, but never with the object of personal aggrandizement or injury of the people. Nor can there be any question that the Presidents who have so acted, have done it with reluctance, and were the first to end the exercise of such extra-constitutional sway, when the conditions allowed. If American democracy had done nothing else, it would have proved its right to fame by the fact that it has chosen twenty Presidents, not one of
