he takes less thought. We do not
refer to the change of the functions of the Electoral College from those
of a real electing body to those of a mere recorder of the votes of the
people of the several States, which has been much remarked upon of late
years. That change took place very early; and thus far it has been
productive of no trouble or even of inconvenience. If that were all,
there would be little need of any modification of our system of electing
the President. But there has been of later years--say within the last
half century--a change from the political condition of the country to
which the Electoral College was adapted. We are in the habit, in
patriotic moments, of lauding the wisdom and the foresight of the
fathers of the republic. And they were wise, and good, and patriotic
men; but as to their foresight, it would seem that we are to-day a
living witness that they were quite incapable of seeing into the
political future. We are now demanding that the Electoral College shall
be abolished, and the President be elected by a direct popular vote; and
yet nothing is surer than that the distinct purpose of the founders of
our Federal Union was to prevent such an election. Their design was to
establish, not a democratic government, working more or less by
mass-meeting--a direct vote of the mass of the citizens--but a
representative republican government, in which the people should commit
their affairs to their representatives, who should have full power to
manage them according to their discretion, entirely irrespective of the
dictation of their constituents, although not without respect for their
opinions and wishes. The doctrine of instruction, by which the
representative is turned into a mere delegate--a sort of political
attorney--is new and is entirely at variance with the design of the
founders of the republic, to which, of course, the Constitution was
adapted. It was supposed, assumed as a matter of course, by them that
there would always be a body of men of high character and intelligence,
who would have sufficient leisure to perform the functions of
legislators, governors, and other officers, for a small compensation,
and that the people at large would freely commit their affairs to these
gentlemen, choosing, of course, those whose general political views were
most in accordance with their own. So it was at the time of the war of
Independence, and at that of the formation of the Constitution. Of such
a pol