64. The Beginnings of the Committee System.1

The heads of departments are head clerks. Instead of being the ministry, the organs of the executive power, and imparting a kind of momentum to the operation of the laws, they are precluded of late even from communicating with the House, by reports. In other countries, they may speak as well as act. We allow them to do neither. We forbid even the use of a speaking-trumpet; or, more properly, as the Constitution has ordained that they shall be dumb, we forbid them to explain themselves by signs. Two evils, obvious to you, result from all this. The efficiency of the government is reduced to its minimum the proneness of a popular body to usurpation is already advancing to its maximum; committees already are the ministers; and while the House indulges a jealousy of encroachment on its functions, which are properly deliberative, it does not perceive that these are impaired and nullified by the monopoly as well as the perversion of information, by these very committees. . . .

The committee of ways and means has not, I am told, written a page these two years. It collects the scraps and fritters of facts at the Treasury, draws crude hasty results tinctured with localities. These are not supported by any formed plan of co-operation with the members, and the report calls forth the pride of all the motion-makers. Every subject is suggested in debate, every popular ground of apprehension is invaded. There is nothing to enlighten the House or to guide the public opinion.

1 Fisher Ames to Hamilton, January 26, 1797. Works of Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton ed.), VI, 201-02.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ORIGIN OF THE TWELFTH AMENDMENT

WHEN the electoral vote for President was counted in February, 1801, it was found that an equal number of votes had been cast for the Republican candidates, Jefferson and Burr. Each had been supported by a majority of the whole number of electors, but it was impossible to designate "the person having the highest number of votes." The election then devolved upon the House of Representatives, which was preponderantly Federalist. In their hatred for Jefferson, certain of the Federalists intrigued to defeat the obvious will of their opponents by bringing Burr into the presidency. When the balloting began, Jefferson received the votes of eight States and Burr of six: the votes of two States were equally divided and so not counted. As the Constitution required a majority of all the States to elect, there was no choice. The result was the same on thirty-five successive ballots. On the thirty-sixth ballot, February 17, Jefferson received the votes of ten States and Burr of four States. The votes of Delaware and South Carolina were blank, because the Federalists abstained from voting. How this result was brought about is described by Bayard of Delaware in his letter to Hamilton. It was this Jefferson-Burr contest which gave impetus to the movement to amend the Constitution so as to prevent a recurrence of such a crisis. The effect of the Twelfth Amendment upon the relative influence of large and small States in choosing a President, and upon the office of Vice-President, was accurately forecast in the debates from which the following extracts are taken.

65. The Election of 1801.

(a) Bayard to Hamilton.1

Washington, January 7th, 1801.

I assure you, sir, there appears to be a strong inclination in a majority of the federal party to support Mr. Burr. The current has already acquired considerable force, and manifestly increasing. The vote which the representation of a State enables me to give would decide the question in favor of Mr. Jefferson. At present I am by no means decided as to the object of preference. If the federal party should take up Mr. Burr, I ought certainly to be impressed with the most undoubt1 Works of Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton ed.), VI, 506–07.

ing conviction before I separated myself from them. With respect to the personal qualities of the competitors, I should fear as much from the sincerity of Mr. Jefferson (if he is sincere), as from the want of probity in Mr. Burr. There would be really cause to fear that the government would not survive the course of moral and political experiments to which it would be subjected in the hands of Mr. Jefferson. But there is another view of the subject which gives me some inclination in favor of Burr. I consider the State ambition of Virginia as the source of present party. The faction who govern that State, aim to govern the United States. Virginia will never be satisfied but when this state of things exists. If Burr should be the President, they will not govern, and his acceptance of the office, which would disappoint their views, which depend upon Jefferson, would, I apprehend, immediately create a schism in the party which would soon rise into open opposition.

I cannot deny, however, that there are strong considerations, which give a preference to Mr. Jefferson. The subject admits of many doubtful views, and before I resolve on the part I shall take, I shall wait the approach of the crisis which may probably bring with it circumstances decisive of the event. The federal party meet on Friday, for the purpose of forming a resolution as to their line of conduct. I have not the least doubt of their agreeing to support Burr. . . .

(b) Bayard to Hamilton.1

Washington, 8th March, 1801.

In the origin of the business I had contrived to lay hold of all the doubtful votes in the House, which enabled me, according to views which presented themselves, to protract or terminate the controversy.

This arrangement was easily made, from the opinion readily adopted from the consideration, that representing a small State without resources which could supply the means of selfprotection, I should not dare to proceed to any length which would jeopardize the constitution or the safety of any State. 1 Works of Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton ed.), VI, 522-24.

When the experiment was fully made, and acknowledged upon all hands to have completely ascertained that Burr was resolved not to commit himself, and that nothing remained but to appoint a President by law, or leave the government without one, I came out with the most explicit and determined declaration of voting for Jefferson. You cannot well imagine the clamor and vehement invective to which I was subjected for some days. We had several caucuses. All acknowledged that nothing but desperate measures remained, which several were disposed to adopt, and but few were willing openly to disapprove. We broke up each time in confusion and discord, and the manner of the last ballot was arranged but a few minutes before the ballot was given. Our former harmony, however, has since been restored.

The public declarations of my intention to vote for Jefferson, to which I have alluded, were made without a general consultation, knowing that it would be an easier task to close the breach which I foresaw, when it was the result of an act done without concurrence, than if it had proceeded from one against a decision of the party. Had it not been for a single gentleman from Connecticut, the eastern States would finally have voted in blank, in the same manner as done by South Carolina and Delaware; but, because he refused, the rest of the delegation refused; and because Connecticut insisted on continuing the ballot for Burr, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, refused to depart from their former vote.

The means existed of electing Burr, but this required his co-operation. By deceiving one man (a great blockhead), and tempting two (not incorruptible), he might have secured a majority of the States. . . .

66. Debate in the Senate on the Proposed Amendment.1

Mr. White of Delaware:- The United States are now divided, and will probably continue so, into two great political parties; whenever, under this amendment, a Presidential election shall come round, and the four rival candidates be pro

1 December 2, 1803. Annals of Congress, 8 Cong., 1 Sess., 141-84 passim.

one

posed, two of them only will be voted for as President of these two must be the man; the chances in favor of each will be equal. Will not this increased probability of success afford more than double the inducement to those candidates, and their friends, to tamper with the Electors, to exercise intrigue, bribery, and corruption, as in an election upon the present plan, where the whole four would be voted for alike, where the chances against each are as three to one, and it is totally uncertain which of the gentlemen may succeed to the high office? And there must, indeed, be a great scarcity of character in the United States, when, in so extensive and populous a country, four citizens cannot be found, either of them worthy even of the Chief Magistracy of the nation. But, Mr. President, I have never yet seen the great inconvenience that has been so much clamored about, and that will be provided against in future by substituting this amendment. There was, indeed, a time when it became necessary for the House of Representatives to elect, by ballot, a President of the United States from the two highest in vote, and they were engaged here some days, as I have been told, in a very good-humored way, in the exercise of that constitutional right. . . . I will not undertake to say that there was no danger apprehended on that occasion. I know many of the friends of the Constitution had their fears; the experiment however proved them groundless; but what was the danger apprehended pending the election in the House of Representatives? Was it that they might choose Colonel Burr or Mr. Jefferson President? Not at all; they had, notwithstanding what had been said on this subject by the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Wright) a clear constitutional right to choose either of them, as much so as the Electors in the several States had to vote for them in the first instance; the particular man was a consideration of but secondary importance to the country; the only ground of alarm was, lest the House should separate without making any choice, and the Government be without a head, the consequences of which no man could well calculate. The present attempt . . . is taking advantage of a casualty to alter the Constitution that astonished everyone