Committee on the Judiciary of the House, by whom it was reported without amendment, but never was acted upon in that body, and failed to become a law.  This all shows to us that there has been a postponement from generation to generation of a subject of great difficulty that we of to-day are called upon to meet under circumstances of peculiar and additional disadvantage; for while in the convention of 1787 there was a difference arising from interest, from all the infinite variances of prejudice and opinion upon subjects of local, geographical, and pecuniary interests, and making mutual concessions and patriotic considerations necessary at all times, yet they were spared the most dangerous of all feelings under which our country has suffered of late; for, amid all the perturbing causes to interfere with and distract their counsels, partisan animosity was at least unknown.  There was in that day no such thing as political party in the United States:—­

 “Then none were for a party,
  But all were for the State.”

Political parties were formed afterward and have grown in strength since, and to-day the troubles that afflict our country chiefly may be said to arise from the dangerous excess of party feeling in our councils.

But I propose to refer to the condition of the law and the Constitution as we now find it.  The second article of the first section of the Constitution provides for the vesting of the executive power in the President and also for the election of a Vice-President.  First it provides that “each State” shall, through its legislature, appoint the number of electors to which it is entitled, which shall be the number of its Representatives in Congress and its Senators combined.  The power there is to the State to appoint.  The grant is as complete and perfect that the State shall have that power as is another clause of the Constitution giving to “each State” the power to be represented by the Senators in this branch of Congress.  There is given to the electors prescribed duties, which I will read:—­

The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves:  they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each; which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.  The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.