WASHINGTON, D.C., _July 18, 1868_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
Experience has fully demonstrated the wisdom of the framers of the
Federal Constitution. Under all circumstances the result of their
labors was as near an approximation to perfection as was compatible
with the fallibility of man. Such being the estimation in which the
Constitution is and has ever been held by our countrymen, it is not
surprising that any proposition for its alteration or amendment should
be received with reluctance and distrust. While this sentiment deserves
commendation and encouragement as a useful preventive of unnecessary
attempt to change its provisions, it must be conceded that time has
developed imperfections and omissions in the Constitution, the
reformation of which has been demanded by the best interests of the
country. Some of these have been remedied in the manner provided in
the Constitution itself. There are others which, although heretofore
brought to the attention of the people, have never been so presented
as to enable the popular judgment to determine whether they should
be corrected by means of additional amendments. My object in this
communication is to suggest certain defects in the Constitution which
seem to me to require correction, and to recommend that the judgment
of the people be taken on the amendments proposed.
The first of the defects to which I desire to direct attention is in
that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of
President and Vice-President through the intervention of electors, and
not by an immediate vote of the people. The importance of so amending
this clause as to secure to the people the election of President and
Vice-President by their direct votes was urged with great earnestness
and ability by President Jackson in his first annual message, and the
recommendation was repeated in five of his subsequent communications to
Congress, extending through the eight years of his Administration. In
his message of 1829 he said:
To the people belongs the right of electing their Chief Magistrate; it
was never designed that their choice should in any case be defeated,
either by the intervention of electoral colleges or by the agency
confided, under certain contingencies, to the House of Representatives.
He then proceeded to state the objections to an election of President
by the House of Representatives, the most important of which was that
the choice of a clear majority of the people might be easily defeated.
He then closed the argument with the following communication:
I would therefore recommend such an amendment of the Constitution as
may remove all intermediate agency in the election of the President and
Vice-President. The mode may be so regulated as to preserve to each
State its present relative weight in the election, and a failure in the
first attempt may be provided for by confining the second to a choice
between the two highest candidates. In connection with such an amendment
it would seem advisable to limit the service of the Chief Magistrate to
a single term of either four or six years. If, however, it should not be
adopted, it is worthy of consideration whether a provision disqualifying
for office the Representatives in Congress on whom such an election may
have devolved would not be proper.
Although this recommendation was repeated with undiminished
earnestness in several of his succeeding messages, yet the proposed
amendment was never adopted and submitted to the people by Congress. The
danger of a defeat of the people's choice in an election by the House of
Representatives remains unprovided for in the Constitution, and would
be greatly increased if the House of Representatives should assume the
power arbitrarily to reject the votes of a State which might not be
cast in conformity with the wishes of the majority in that body.
But if President Jackson failed to secure the amendment to the
Constitution which he urged so persistently, his arguments contributed
largely to the formation of party organizations, which have effectually
avoided the contingency of an election by the House of Representatives.
These organizations, first by a resort to the caucus system of
nominating candidates, and afterwards to State and national conventions,
have been successful in so limiting the number of candidates as to
escape the danger of an election by the House of Representatives.
It is clear, however, that in thus limiting the number of candidates
the true object and spirit of the Constitution have been evaded and
defeated. It is an essential feature in our republican system of
government that every citizen possessing the constitutional
qualifications has a right to become a candidate for the office of
President and Vice-President, and that every qualified elector has a
right to cast his vote for any citizen whom he may regard as worthy of
these offices. But under the party organizations which have prevailed
for years these asserted rights of the people have been as effectually
cut off and destroyed as if the Constitution itself had inhibited their
exercise.
The danger of a defeat of the popular choice in an election by the House
of Representatives is no greater than in an election made nominally by
the people themselves, when by the laws of party organizations and by
the constitutional provisions requiring the people to vote for electors
instead of for the President or Vice-President it is made impracticable
for any citizen to be a candidate except through the process of a party
nomination, and for any voter to cast his suffrage for any other person
than one thus brought forward through the manipulations of a nominating
convention. It is thus apparent that by means of party organizations
that provision of the Constitution which requires the election of
President and Vice-President to be made through the electoral colleges
has been made instrumental and potential in defeating the great object
of conferring the choice of these officers upon the people. It may be
conceded that party organizations are inseparable from republican
government, and that when formed and managed in subordination to the
Constitution they may be valuable safeguards of popular liberty; but
when they are perverted to purposes of bad ambition they are liable
to become the dangerous instruments of overthrowing the Constitution
itself. Strongly impressed with the truth of these views, I feel
called upon by an imperative sense of duty to revive substantially the
recommendation so often and so earnestly made by President Jackson,
and to urge that the amendment to the Constitution herewith presented,
or some similar proposition, may be submitted to the people for their
ratification or rejection.
Recent events have shown the necessity of an amendment to the
Constitution distinctly defining the persons who shall discharge the
duties of President of the United States in the event of a vacancy in
that office by the death, resignation, or removal of both the President
and Vice-President. It is clear that this should be fixed by the
Constitution, and not be left to repealable enactments of doubtful
constitutionality. It occurs to me that in the event of a vacancy in the
office of President by the death, resignation, disability, or removal of
both the President and Vice-President the duties of the office should
devolve upon an officer of the executive department of the Government,
rather than one connected with the legislative or judicial departments.
The objections to designating either the President _pro tempore_ of
the Senate or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, especially
in the event of a vacancy produced by removal, are so obvious and so
unanswerable that they need not be stated in detail. It is enough
to state that they are both interested in producing a vacancy, and,
according to the provisions of the Constitution, are members of the
tribunal by whose decree a vacancy may be produced.
Under such circumstances the impropriety of designating either
of these officers to succeed the President so removed is palpable.
The framers of the Constitution, when they referred to Congress the
settlement of the succession to the office of President in the event of
a vacancy in the offices of both President and Vice-President, did not,
in my opinion, contemplate the designation of any other than an officer
of the executive department, on whom, in such a contingency, the powers
and duties of the President should devolve. Until recently the
contingency has been remote, and serious attention has not been called
to the manifest incongruity between the provisions of the Constitution
on this subject and the act of Congress of 1792. Having, however, been
brought almost face to face with this important question, it seems an
eminently proper time for us to make the legislation conform to the
language, intent, and theory of the Constitution, and thus place the
executive department beyond the reach of usurpation, and remove from the
legislative and judicial departments every temptation to combine for the
absorption of all the powers of government.
It has occurred to me that in the event of such a vacancy the duties of
President would devolve most appropriately upon some one of the heads of
the several Executive Departments, and under this conviction I present
for your consideration an amendment to the Constitution on this subject,
with the recommendation that it be submitted to the people for their
action.
Experience seems to have established the necessity of an amendment
of that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of
Senators to Congress by the legislatures of the several States. It would
be more consistent with the genius of our form of government if the
Senators were chosen directly by the people of the several States.
The objections to the election of Senators by the legislatures are
so palpable that I deem it unnecessary to do more than submit the
proposition for such an amendment, with the recommendation that it
be opened to the people for their judgment.
It is strongly impressed on my mind that the tenure of office by
the judiciary of the United States during good behavior for life is
incompatible with the spirit of republican government, and in this
opinion I am fully sustained by the evidence of popular judgment upon
this subject in the different States of the Union.
I therefore deem it my duty to recommend an amendment to the
Constitution by which the terms of the judicial officers would be
limited to a period of years, and I herewith present it in the hope that
Congress will submit it to the people for their decision.
The foregoing views have long been entertained by me. In 1845, in the
House of Representatives, and afterwards, in 1860, in the Senate of the
United States, I submitted substantially the same propositions as those
to which the attention of Congress is herein invited. Time, observation,
and experience have confirmed these convictions; and, as a matter of
public duty and a deep sense of my constitutional obligation "to
recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as I deem
necessary and expedient," I submit the accompanying propositions, and
urge their adoption and submission to the judgment of the people.