Then follows the duty and power of Congress in connection with this subject to determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States.  The next clause provides for the qualifications of the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency.  The next clause gives power to the Congress of the United States to provide for filling the office of President and Vice-President in the event of the death, resignation, or inability of the incumbents to vest the powers and duties of the said office.  The other clause empowers Congress thus to designate a temporary President.  The other clauses simply relate to the compensation of the President and the oath he shall take to perform the duties of the office.  Connected with that delegation of power is to be considered the eighth section of the first article which gives to the Congress of the United States power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.”

It will be observed, so far, that the Constitution has provided the power but has not provided the regulations for carrying that power into effect.  The Supreme Court of the United States sixty-odd years ago defined so well the character of that power and the method of its use that I will quote it from the first volume of Wheaton’s Reports, page 326:

Leaving it to the legislature from time to time to adopt its own means to effectuate, legitimate, and mold and model the exercise of its powers as its own wisdom and public interest should require.

In less than four years, in March 1792, after the first Congress had assembled there was legislation upon this subject, carrying into execution the power vested by this second article of the Constitution in a manner which will leave no doubt of what the men of that day believed was competent and proper.  Here let me advert to that authority which must ever attach to the contemporaneous exposition of historical events.  The men who sat in the Congress of 1792 had many of them been members of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution.  All were its contemporaries and closely were they considering with master-minds the consequences of that work.  Not only may we gather from the manner in which they treated this subject when they legislated upon it in 1792 what were their views of the powers of Congress on the subject of where the power was lodged and what was the proper measure of its exercise, but we can gather equally well from the inchoate and imperfect legislation of 1800 what those men also thought of their power over this subject, because, although differing as to details, there were certain conceded facts as to jurisdiction quite as emphatically expressed as if their propositions had been enacted into law.