Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Georgia fli Statesman. TERMS,—S3 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE,] BY BURRITT & MEACIIAM. THE GEORGIA STATESMAN Is published weekly at the Scat of Govern ment, opposite the State-House Square, at Three Dollars per ann. in advance, or Four Dollars if not paid in six months. N. B. Sales of land and negroes, by Ad ministrators, Executors, or Guardians, are required by law, to be held on the first Tues day in the month, between the hours of ten in the forenoon, and three in the afternoon, at the court house of the county in which the property is situate. Notice of these sales must be given in a public Gazette SIXTY days previous to the day of sale. Notice of the sale of personal property must be given in like manner, FORTY days previous to the day of salt. Notice to the debtors and creditors of an estate must be published for FORTY days. Notice that application will be made to the Court of Ordinary for leave to sell land, must be published for NINE MONTHS. All L etterS must ue POST PAID. In senate of the U. States January 19, 1826. Air. Benton, from tlie Select Com mittee, to which was referred the several Resolutions proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Reported, in part • That, in considering these various propositions, the Committee could not be insensible to an objection, of ten repeated, against the expediency of making any alterations in the fun damental principles of our Govern ment. Giving to this objection its due weight, and admitting the im policy of making sudden and hasty changes, the Committee would yet deem it an unwise surrender of an undoubted right, in the existing gen eration, to refuse to make any reform in the Federal Constitution, which time and experience has proved to be necessary. _ Founded in the rights of man, this right to improve our social condition has been acknowledged and guaranteed in the Constitution itself: and that it was not intended to be a barren privilege, nor its ex ercise construed into a mark of ir reverence towards our ancestors, was sufficiently shown by the Con stitution itself, in the double means which it provided for effecting its own amendment. By these means, the right of amendment is secured to the Congress and the States, con jointly, and to the States themselves independent of Congress. This double capacity to receive amend ment, was considered by its ablest supporters, about the time of its adoption, as one, of the best features in the Constitution. The privilege secured to the States to demand from Congress the convocation of a national convention, and to originate and perfect amendments, indepen dent of the will of any branch of the Federal Government, was particu larly relied upon, and carefully point ed out as the proper resort of the States, whenever Congress should neglect or refuse to propose the amendments which the people de sired. A reference to the proceed ings of the ratifying conventions, will show the stress which was laid by the friends of the Constitution, on this double capacity of that in strument, to receive amendment; and the further fact, that, but for the existence of this capacity, and a belief in the greater facility of pro curing subsequent, than previous amendments, that constitution, which is now deemed, hv some, too perfect to he touched, would never have ob tained the ratification of a sufficient numbor of States to put it into op eration Equally rejecting, on one hand, that attachment to old institutions, which rejects every idea of improve ment, and, on the other, that spirit of innovation which would leave nothing stable in the Constitution, the Committee have carefully con sidered the several poprositions of amendment referred to them by tlie order of the Senate, and after corn paring them with the existing pro visions of the Constitution, qji same points, they have come to the conclusion, that the plan of that in strument has failed in the execution, in that most difficult part of all elec tive Governments—the choice of the Chief Magistrates ; and that it is no less a right than a duty, in the existing generation, to provide another plan, more capable of a steady, equal and uniform operation. Besides a want of uniformity under the present plan, to such a degree as to exhibit three different modes of election in operation at once, and a want of stability so great as to ad mit all these to be changed when ever the State Legislatures please, the Commute would indicate two great leading features in which the intention of the Constitution has wholly failed ; the institution of EfECTORS ; and thr ultimate election by states in the House of Represen tatives. Considering that the effects of these failures, the want of uni formity, and the instability of the present modes of election, have nearly left us without Constitutional rules for the choice of the two first officers of the Federal Government; and believing that an amendment w hich would combine the advanta ges of uniformity, stability and equali ty, would he acceptable to the peo ple, and favorable to the cause of liberty, the Committe have resolved to propose: First. That a uniform mode of election, by districts, shall he estab lished. Secondly. That the institution of electors shall he abolished, and the President and Vice-President here after elected by a direct vote of the people. Thirdly. That a second election to he conducted in the same manner as the first, shall take place between the persons having the two highest numbers for the same office, when no one has received a majority of the whole number of votes first given. The details of this plan of election are given at length, in the resolution herewith submitted ; and, in bringing forward a plan so essentially differing from that ot the present Constitution, the Committee believe it to be their duty to the Senate, to submit, at the same time, a brief exposition of the reasons which have influenced their determination. The first feature which presents itself in the Committee’s plan of elec tion, is the uniformity of the system which is proposed to he substituted for the discordant and varying modes of election, which now prevail in different States, and even in the same State, at different times. To enumerate these various modes, is a task alike impracticable and unprofit able ; for they change with a sudden ness which defies classification : To point out the evils of such discord ant and mutable pratices,is unneces sary; for the whole continent has just seen and deprecated their pernicious effects : To argue in favor of some uniform mode of election, is deemed superfluous; for its necessity is uni versally admitted; the demand for uniformity is heard in all directions; and public expectation must suffer a deep disappointment, if earnest and persevering exertions are not made at the present session to accomplish an object of such pervading inter est. The plan of uniformity, which has received the approbation of the Con; mittee, is that of the district system. It is believed to he the plan which, in an addition to perfect uniformity, will give to every State, and to the several sections of the State, arid, as far as possible, to every individual citizen of the whole Union, their le gitimate share and due weight in the election ot the chief officers of their country. The formation of the dis tricts, the qualifications of the vo ters and the manner of conducting the elections, being left to the State Legislatures, these important powers are placed in the safe ami unexcep tionable hands which have a right to hold them. The time of holding the elections, being necessary to the uni formity of the system, is fixed in the plan of amendment. The number of the districts is made to depend upon the same principle which now determines the number of electors ; and, by assigning to each district one vote for President, and one for Vice- President, the relative weight of the States, in this important election, re mains precisely as fixed in the pre sent Constitution. The uniformity of this system of election is perfect, and, therefore, one of the main ob jects of amendment will be accom- plished by its adoption. That it is the best system which can he adopt ed, is confidently believed. No other plan could be proposed, but that of choosing electors by general ticket or Legislative ballot; the first ot which enables the majority to im press the minority into their service, puts it into the power of a few to govern the election, and enables the populous States to consolidate their vote, and to overwhelm the small ones ; the second takes the election almost entirely out of the hands of the people, leaves it to a pre-exist ing body, elected for a different pur pose, and enables the dominant party in the Legislature, to bestow the vote of the State according to their own sense of public duty or private inter est. Both these systems are liable to the gravest objections, and arc justly condemned by the public voice; even some ot the States which retain them, make a plea of the necessity which compels them to counteract the same system in some other State; while the district system, which the Committee recommend, possesses not only the advantage of being in itself tlie best, but of being, also, the one which is now in force in a ma jority of the States, and lim one which many others would adopt, if all others could be made to do so at the same time. It is, besides, the mode of election in which, either, electors may be used, or a direct vote •riven bv the people : while the gen Ha? tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, parcere subjects et debellnre supeibos. Virgil. MILLEDGEVILLE, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1826. eral ticket and the Legislative ballot necesssarily exclude the direct vote - , and require the agency of those in termediate electors, which it is a part of the object of (his report lo prove to be both useless and dangerous to the rights of the people. The second leading feature in tlie [Committee’s plan of amendment, is the substitution of a direct vote, for the indirect one in which tho people now give in the elect ion of President and Vice-President. It is in this part of the Constitution, that the inten tion of this instrument has most com pletely failed. Every advantage ex pected to have been derived from the institution of electors has failed in practice and a multitude of evils not foreseen, have sprung up in place of the anticipated good. It was the intention of the Constitution that these electors should he an indepen dent body of men, chos n by the people liom among themselves, on accoant of their superior disc rn ment, virtue and information; and that this select body should he left to make the election according to their own will, without the slightest control from the body of the people. That this intention has failed of its object in every election, is a fact of such universal notoriety that no one can dispute it. That it ought to have failed, is equally incontestable; for such independence in the electors was wholly incompatible with the safety of the people. That it was, in fact, a chimerical and impractica ble idea in any community, except among a people sui k in that apathy which precedes the death of liberty, is a proposition too clear to need il lustration. The failure, then, was as it ought to have been, and was obliged to be, complete from the very first institution of electors. In the first election, held under (lie Con stitution, the people looked beyond these agents, fixed upon their own candidates for President and Vice- President, and took pledges from the electoral candidates to obey their will. In every subsequent election, the same thing has been done Elec tors therefore, have not answered the design of their institution. They are not the independent body and superior characters which they were intended to bo. They are not left to the exercise of their own judg ment ; on the contrary, they give their vote, or bind-themselves to give it, according to the will of their con stituents. They have degenerated into mere agents, in a case which re quires no agency, and where the agent must be useless; if he is faith ful, and dangerous, if he is not. In stead of being chosen for the noble qualities set iorth in the “Federal ist,” candidates for electors are now most usually selected for their devo tion to a party, their popular man ners, and a supposed talent at elec tioneering, which the framers of the Constitution would have been asham ed to possess. In the election by general ticket, the candidates are pre sented to the pcopU in masses equal to the whole number of votes which tlie State has a right to give. The ticket, hearing their immos, is com posed by some unseen and irrespon sible power, printed and sent forth to the people to be voted for by many who know them not, hut who arc required to yield implicit confidence both in the ticket itself, and the un seen body which prepared it. Dis cipline and management most usually ensures success to this ticket; and thus a string of electors become pos sessed of the votes of a State, with out being sufficiently known to most of the voters to merit their confi dence in the smallest particular; and often less known to them than the presidential candidates themselves. When chosen by Legislative ballot, these titular electors are still further removed from all knowledge and control of tho people, and act a part still more subdued to the purposes of a party. Even in the district mode of election, where electors arc at least dangerous, they are still suffi ciently so, to merit rejection from a scrvice which every individual voter is competent to perform in his own person. In the first place, wherever the evil of the general ticket is avoid ed, another evil, of an opposite char acter, is encountered, in the multi tude of electoral candidates which offer themselves on the part of the same person; those who offer first, are frequently the most unfit in the district; but, having put forth their names, they consider themselves as vested with a sort o f preemption right to the place, and refuse to surrender their self-created pretensions. The spirit of intrigue and artifice takes advantage of this state of things, and, working upon the unity and obstinancy of various candidates, contrives to perplex,distract, divide and disgust the people with their ir reconcilable pretentions. At last, when reduced to the proper number, and one for each presidential candid* ate is fairly put before the people, it may happen that the confidence of many voters will he destroyed in the candidate of their own party, by in skluous or hold attacks upon the in tegrity of his intentions. But sup posing this danger to ho avoided, and a faithful candidate believed to ho found, his sincerity placed above suspicion, and himself fairly pitted against a rival candidate in (lie op posite ranks; even then he does an injury to tho purity of the election, by bringing his own exertions, and the weight of his own character, good or had, to mix in the presiden tial canvass, and to influence its re sult. If elected, the people who voted for bun, have no power to control him. He may give or sell hi vote to the adverse candidate, in violation of all the pledges which had been taken from him. The crime is easily committed, for he votes by ballot ■ detection difficult, because he does not sign it; prevention is im possihe, tor he cannot he coerced; the injury irreparable, for the vote cannot be vacated; legal punishment is unknown, and would be inadequate; and thus, the defrauded voters, after all their rare and toil, remain with out redress for the past, or security for the future. That these mischiefs have not yet happened, is no answer to an objection that they may hap pen. 'Phi* infancy and consequent purity of the Republic, is not the age to expect them. They belong to that riper period, to w hich the in creasing wealth and population of the country is rapidly carrying us— to an age, not far distant, in which the lust of power in our own citizens, and the criminal designs of foreign nations, will give hundreds of offices and millions of money for as many votes ns would turn the scale in a presidential election. Then why preserve an institution which no lon ger answers the purpose for which it was rreated, and whose tendency to inflict irreparable mischief, is not counterbalanced by the slightest ca pacity to do good ! An institution which must impose upon tho people a string of unknown candidates at the commencement of the canvass, or distract their attention by a mul titude of pretenders, which necessa rily brings extraneous influences to govern the election ; and, alter it is over, subjects the whole body of the voters to he defrauded of their rights. Upon v.hat principle of human action can the people ho required to incur the hazards of an irresponsible and uncontrolable agency, in a case which requires no agent 1 Why have re course to an agent whose treachery may ruin, and whose fidelity cannot aid you 1 Why employ another to do a thing which every citizen can do as easily for himseTv? In the general ticket and Legislative modes of elec tion, the body of electors may be made lo act a part. They become, in such cases, mdispcnsabl • machine ry, to enable the dominant party to effect their views,; but, in the dis trict system, they are even incapa ble of Heins; used for this purpose ; and, if kept up. can he seen in no other light than as the reserved in struments of future and contingent mischief. That the qualified voters of the States ought to possess the real, as well as the nominal right, to elect the President and Vice-President of the United States, is a proposi ion deduciblc from the rights ot man, the nature of the Federal Govern ment, and the proper distribution ot all its powers. The nature of this Government is free and representa tive. It is a Government of the peo ple, managing their own affairs in iheir own way, through the agency of their own servants. It rests upon election, in opposition to heredi tary succession ; and unless the people make these elections, the pe culiar feature which distinguishes this Government from a limited mon archy, must rapidly disappear. In the distribution of the powers of the Federal Government, the faculty ot election was the only one which ap propriately fell to the mass of the people. It is the only one which they can exercise. All others arc necessarily assigned to a lew select hands. The people in mass, cannot command armies and fleets, preside over public affairs at home, and treat with foreign nations abroad: these powers must be left to the executive office. They cannot assemble in a body and enact laws ; this power of Legislation must be left to represen tatives. Still less can they sit in mass upon the rights ot persons and property, administer justice, and ex pound the laws; all this must be con fided to a small number of judges, placed, by the tenure of their office, far above the immediate control and intluerrfe of the people. Vi hat part, then, remains for the body of the pcoph/to act in the adminstration of the Is^deralGovernment 1 Elections; and but elections remains for them ; and in the original distribu tion of power, this part was the one assigned to them. Representatives in Congress were to be chosen by them : in the election of Senators, they were to have an indirect vote; and in that of President and Vice- President, they were to choose, through their immediate representa tives, such os they believed to he most capable of making a good choice for them. Thus, the power of electing the executive and Le gislative members of (he Federal Gove rmnent, was the only attribute of sovereignty left in the hands of (lie people, by the Federal Consti tution; and if this attribute is lost or destroyed in the most important election of all, that of the chief ma gistrates, then tin.* appelation of •overeign, with hich the people are so often greeted, becomes a title of derision, nly srr\ ing to remind them ot what they ought to he, and of what they arc uot. That this great privilege of ( lec tion was intended to he a real, and not a barren power in the hands of the people, was asserted and admit ted by the ablest advocates of the Constitution,at the time of its adop tion. The jealous friends of liberty were alarmed at the first appearance oft hat instrument, at seeing the accu mulation of almost kingly power, which it placed in the hands of the President. They saiv him vested with authority to nominate the offi cers of the army and to command them ; to nominate and command the officers oftbe navy ; to nominate and dismiss, at pleasure, nil the col lectors and disbursers of the public revenue ;»to nominate the judges who administer the laws, and the ambassadors who treat with foreign powers ; to exercise, by his qualified veto a direct part in legislation, and, by liis character, station, and vast patronage, to possess a great influ ence over both branches of the Fed eral legislature : And from this ac cumulation of all efficient power in the hands of the first Magistrate,' they saw, or thought the* saw ground of real apprehension for the safety of the public liberty. But they were answered, that all these apprehensions were with out foundation ; that there was one single consideration, which would show them to he groundless; and that consideration was this : that the Pro.-i lent himselt was to he noth ing more than the creature of the people, elected by the best and wis est among th m-elves ; such as they themselves would agree could make a better choice than themselves ; and that, thus issuing from t lie bos om of the people dependent upon them for his first election, and sub sequent re-appointment, he would, in fact, he nothing but an instrument in their hands, by means of which, they could direct all this formidable array of power to the protection ol their own liberties, and to the aug mentation of their own happiness. By this answer, enough were sooth ed into acquiescence, to permit the C listitnfion, by lean majorities, in several States, to get info operation. And now, if by any vicious practice, which shall grow up under this Con stitution. the people shall lose the power of electing the President and Vice-President, then they lose the only attribute of sovereignty which, as a body, they arc capable ot exercis ing in the administration of the Fed eral Government ; they lose the attri bute, and the only one, which was as signed to them in the first distribution of power in the organization of this Government ; the identical one which they were flattered into the. belief of possessing, when they con sented to the establishment of the Constitution; and the one which cannot he lost, without rendering the remaining privilege of voting indi rectly for Senators, and direct!}' for Representatives, ot too little consc cpionee to be worth preserving. The laws operate upon the peo ple : therefore,the theory of our gov ernment requires, that the mass op erated upon by the laws, should elect those who make the laws. The same principle applies, with still greater force, to officer who ex.■cub's who, ruling tlit in. by iirmv, :l f I bost of revenue ofiiccfs, their appointments front himself, i o se cure to the people the influence over this eminent officer, which the theory of our Government admits, and which their own safety demands, it is indispensable that they should lie brought, as nearly as possible, in to the presence of each other. No intervening bodies should stand be tween them. The President should be nothing but an emanation of their | will. His powers are two great to he independent of the People, with out danger to their liberties. To I them be should, therefore, look for 'all his honors—the brilliant distinc- [OR IF NOT PAID IN SIX MONTHS. [NO. X.—VOL. I. tion of a first election, and the crown ing reward of a second one. Holding it to he a proposition demon strated, that, in this confederation of republics, the choice of the chief magistrates should he left to the whole body of the qualified voters ; it is not lo he dissembled, that sever al objections, and some of them spe cious, and even plausible, have been urged against it. That there should he objections to this plan of election, founded in conviction and urged with sincerity, could not he unexpected by the Committee. They very well know that there docs exist, always lias existed, and forever will exist, in every free government, two very opposite classes of politicians ; one dreading that the people will over turn the Government; and the oth er dreading that (he Government will seize upon the liberties of the peo ple : the firsl* class having the fear of second of monarchy, constantly before their oyc«. That the apprehensions of each arc very sincerely felt, is readily admitted: hut on which side lies the ground for apprehension, is not to he decided by argument, hut by reference to the historical fact, that of the hundred republics which have flourished in the other hemisphere, in the course of the thirty centu ries, not one is now surviving. All have slided into the kingly system, while not a single kingdom has ta ken and retained the republican form. Convinced of the impossibility of removing apprehensions which have their foundation in nature, it is yet* due to the cause of popular rights and of free governments, to answer the objections which have been urg ed against the election of our Presi dent and Vice-President by a direct vote of the people. Analysing these several objections, for the purpose of exposing their futility, they are found to resolve themselves in to several distinct classes ; the first, of which springs from the supposed corruption, ignorance, and violence of the American people. The com mittee would remark* that ill a peri od oft wo thousand years, t lie friend ■ of the hereditary principle have got no further than to vary phrases upon those three ideas. The address ot the Roman Senate to Octavius, be seeching him to accept the Imperial dignity, and that of the French Con-, servativc Senate to the First Consul, begging of him the same favor, are eac.ii composed of nothing hut diver sifications of these three ideas, sup ported by an infinity of examples drawn from the conduct of elective Governments. Neither these ideas themselves, nor the examples which support them, have any analogy or applicability to the state ol tho people, the nature of the gov ernment, or the condition of the country in which we live. The charge of ignorance can have no foun dation among a people with whom the talent of reading and writing is nearly universal; whose intelligence is kept up to the progress of the ago, by the multiplication and diffusion of Newspapers ; whose daily oc cupations, as citizens. is a daily im provement of their mental faculties ; .villi whom t lie institution of schools and colleges is a maxim of primary policy, and the education of their children considered as an endow ment more precious than the richest inheritance. Upon such a people the imputation of ignorance is an unfounded aspersion, and will be an aspersion still more unfounded in its application to (heir posterity. But the imputation is not only unfounded, but is even contradictory in the mouths of those who utter it ; for even these admit that the people are sufficiently intelligent to choose elec tors, and that these electors are hound to vote as the people direct them. Here, then, the theory of the popular election is admitted— and to deny the practice while ad mitting the theory, to refuse a vote to the people in person, and to allow it to them in the person of an elec tor involves a contradiction which defeats the objection, and exposes the elector to the suspicion of being wanted for a purpose which has not bcen red. After all, admit ting of the people may «I )0n r and more " i- ci ij^^^advanuige gridljpr disint condition, and their sJnWrtT desire, growing out of their obvious interest, to get the best man for President. The mass of the people always go for their country ; politicians, too of ten for themselves and their party ; and it is believed rhat there is Ic.-s danger to be apprehended from the honest the people, than from the des, g ns of amb “ tious politicians, i (Conchohd in our next