Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/29

MARTIN VAN BUREN 11 tions, maintaining a politic silence as to his personal opinions, which seem to have favored a revenue tariff with incidental protection. He vainly advo cated an amendment of the constitution for the election of president by the intervention of an electoral college to be specially chosen from as many separate districts as would comprise the whole country while representing the electoral power of all the states. The measure was designed to ap pease the jealousy of the small states by practically wiping out state lines in presidential elections and at the same time proposed to guard against elec tions by the house of representatives, as in case of no choice at a first scrutiny the electoral colleges were to be reconvened. After voting for a few "internal improvements," he opposed them as unconstitutional in the shape then given to them, and proposed in 1824 and again in 1825 to bring them within the power of congress by a constitu tional amendment that should protect the "sov ereignty of the states" while equally distributing these benefits of the government. In a debate on the Federal judiciary in 1826 he took high ground in favor of "state rights" as against the umpirage of the supreme court on political questions, and deplored the power of that court to arraign sov ereign states at its bar for the passage of laws alleged to impair "the obligation of contracts." He confessed admiration for the Republicans of