ts practical
observance, and that we can not be said to have carried into complete
effect their intentions until the evils which arise from this organic
defect are remedied.

Considering the great extent of our Confederacy, the rapid increase of
its population, and the diversity of their interests and pursuits, it
can not be disguised that the contingency by which one branch of the
Legislature is to form itself into an electoral college can not become
one of ordinary occurrence without producing incalculable mischief. What
was intended as the medicine of the Constitution in extreme cases can
not be frequently used without changing its character and sooner or
later producing incurable disorder.

Every election by the House of Representatives is calculated to
lessen the force of that security which is derived from the distinct and
separate character of the legislative and executive functions, and while
it exposes each to temptations adverse to their efficiency as organs
of the Constitution and laws, its tendency will be to unite both in
resisting the will of the people, and thus give a direction to the
Government antirepublican and dangerous. All history tells us that
a free people should be watchful of delegated power, and should never
acquiesce in a practice which will diminish their control over it.
This obligation, so universal in its application to all the principles
of a republic, is peculiarly so in ours, where the formation of parties
founded on sectional interests is so much fostered by the extent of
our territory. These interests, represented by candidates for the
Presidency, are constantly prone, in the zeal of party and selfish
objects, to generate influences unmindful of the general good and
forgetful of the restraints which the great body of the people would
enforce if they were in no contingency to lose the right of expressing
their will. The experience of our country from the formation of the
Government to the present day demonstrates that the people can not too
soon adopt some stronger safeguard for their right to elect the highest
officers known to the Constitution than is contained in that sacred
instrument as it now stands.

It is my duty to call the particular attention of Congress to the
present condition of the District of Columbia. From whatever cause the
great depression has arisen which now exists in the pecuniary concerns
of this District, it is proper that its situation should be fully
unde