President the Vice-President, without referring the decision to the Senate, in case the next highest should have less than a majority of votes. As the regulation stands, a very obscure man, with very few votes, may arrive at that appointment.
Mr. SHERMAN said the object of this clause of the report of the committee was, to get rid of the ineligibility which was attached to the mode of election by the legislature, and to render the executive independent of the legislature. As the choice of the President was to be made out of the five highest, obscure characters were sufficiently guarded against in that case; and he had no objection to requiring the Vice-President to be chosen in like manner, where the choice was not decided by a majority in the first instance.
Mr. MADISON was apprehensive that, by requiring both the President and Vice-President to be chosen out of the five highest candidates, the attention of the electors would be turned too much to making candidates, instead of giving their votes in order to a definitive choice. Should this turn be given to the business, the election would, in fact, be consigned to the Senate altogether. It would have the effect, at the same time, he observed, of giving the nomination of the candidates to the largest states.
Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS concurred in, and enforced, the remarks of Mr. Madison.
Mr. RANDOLPH and Mr. PINCKNEY wished for a particular explanation, and discussion, of the reasons for changing the mode of electing the executive.
Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS said, he would give the reasons of the committee, and his own. The first was, the danger of intrigue and faction, if the appointment should be made by the legislature. The next was, the inconvenience of an ineligibility required by that mode, in order to lessen its evils. The third was, the difficulty of establishing a court of impeachments, other than the Senate, which would not be so proper for the trial, nor the other branch, for the impeachment of the President, if appointed by the legislature. In the fourth place, nobody had appeared to be satisfied with an appointment by the legislature. In the fifth place, many were anxious even for an immediate choice by the people. And finally, the sixth reason was, the indispensable necessity of making the executive independent of the legislature. As the electors would vote at the same time throughout the United States, and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided. It would be impossible, also, to corrupt them. A conclusive reason for making the Senate, instead of the Supreme Court, the judge of impeachments, was, that the latter was to try the President, after the trial of the impeachment.
Col. MASON confessed that the plan of the committee had removed some capital objections, particularly the danger of cabal and corruption. It was liable, however, to this strong objection, that, nineteen times in twenty, the President would be chosen by the Senate, an improper body for the purpose.
