came to be framed that was the point upon which they met and upon which they parted, less able to agree than upon almost all others combined.  A glance at the history of the convention that met at Philadelphia on the fourteenth of May, 1787, but did not organize until the twenty-fifth day of the same month, will show that three days after the convention assembled two plans of a Constitution were presented, respectively, by Mr. Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, and Mr. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina.  The first proposed the election of the executive by the legislature, as the two houses were then termed, for a term of seven years, with ineligibility for re-election.  The other proposed an election, but left the power to elect or the term of office in blank.  Both of these features in the schemes proposed came up early for consideration, and, as I have said before, as the grave and able minds of that day approached this subject they were unable to agree, and accordingly, from time to time, the question was postponed and no advance whatever made in the settlement of the question.  Indeed, so vital and wide was the difference that each attempt made during the course of the five months in which that convention was assembled only seemed to result in renewed failure.  So it stood until the fourth day of September had arrived.  The labors of the convention by that time had resulted in the framing of a Constitution, wise and good and fairly balanced, calculated to preserve power sufficient in the government, and yet leaving that individual freedom and liberty essential for the protection of the States and their citizens.  Then it was that this question, so long postponed, came up for consideration and had to be decided.  As it was decided then, it appears in the Constitution as submitted to the States in 1787; but an amendment of the second article was proposed in 1804, which, meeting the approval of the States, became part of the Constitution.

I must be pardoned if I repeat something of what has preceded in this debate, by way of citation from the Constitution of the United States, in order that we may find there our warrant for the present measure.  There were difficulties of which these fathers of our government were thoroughly conscious.  The very difficulties that surround the question to-day are suggested in the debates of 1800, in which the history of double returns is foretold by Mr. Pinckney in his objections to the measure then before the Senate.  The very title of that act, “A Bill Prescribing a Mode of Deciding Disputed Elections of President and Vice-President of the United States,” will show the difficulties which they then perceived and of which they felt the future was to be so full.  They made the attempt in 1800 to meet those difficulties.  They did not succeed.  Again and again the question came before them.  In 1824 a second attempt was made at legislation.  It met the approval of the Senate.  It seemed to meet the approval of the