to receive a majority of the popular vote; Adams in 1824 (elected by the House of Representatives), Polk in 1844, Taylor in 1848, Buchanan in 1856, Lincoln in 1860, Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 1880, Cleveland in 1884, Harrison in 1888.  This has suggested more or less vague speculation as to the advisableness of changing the method of electing the president.  It has been suggested that it would be well to abolish the electoral college, and resort to a direct popular vote, without reference to state lines.  Such a method would be open to one serious objection.  In a closely contested election on the present method the result may remain doubtful for three or four days, while a narrow majority of a few hundred votes in some great state is being ascertained by careful counting.  It was so in 1884.  This period of doubt is sure to be a period of intense and dangerous excitement.  In an election without reference to states, the result would more often be doubtful, and it would be sometimes necessary to count every vote in every little out-of-the-way corner of the country before the question could be settled.  The occasions for dispute would be multiplied a hundred fold, with most demoralizing effect.  Our present method is doubtless clumsy, but the solidity of the electoral colleges is a safeguard, and as all parties understand the system it is in the long run as fair for one as for another.

[Footnote 14:  All have been contested, except Monroe’s re-election in 1820, when there was no opposing candidate.]

[Sidenote:  Nomination of candidates by congressional caucus (1800-24).] The Constitution says nothing about the method of nominating candidates for the presidency, neither has it been made the subject of legislation.  It has been determined by convenience.  It was not necessary to nominate Washington, and the candidacies of Adams and Jefferson were also matters of general understanding.  In 1800 the Republican and Federalist members of Congress respectively held secret meetings or caucuses, chiefly for the purpose of agreeing upon candidates for the vice-presidency and making some plans for the canvass.  It became customary to nominate candidates in such congressional caucuses, but there was much hostile comment upon the system as undemocratic.  Sometimes the “favourite son” of a state was nominated by the legislature, but as the means of travel improved, the nominating convention came to be preferred.  In 1824 there were four candidates for the presidency,—­Adams, Jackson, Clay, and Crawford.  Adams was nominated by the legislatures of most of the New England states; Clay by the legislature of Kentucky, followed by the legislatures of Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and Louisiana; Crawford by the legislature of Virginia; and Jackson by a mass convention of the people of Blount County in Tennessee, followed by local conventions in many other states.  The congressional caucus met and nominated Crawford, but this endorsement did not help him,[15] and this method was no longer tried.  In 1832 for the first time the candidates were all nominated in national conventions.