mount law. "The pendulum of history
swings in centuries," and a single term of the great office weighed
little in view of the perils that surely awaited a failure to secure
peaceful adjustment.

I may be pardoned for adding that in the retrospect of a life,
no longer a short one, I have no regrets that my humble voice
and vote were given for peaceable and lawful adjustment of a perilous
controversy, that cast its dark shadow across our national pathway
--such a one, as, please God, our country may never witness again.

Unquestionably the least satisfactory of the devices of our Federal
Constitution is that for the election of President and Vice-President
through the instrumentality of colleges of electors chosen by
the several States. Upon this subject notes of warning have
been many times sounded by eminent statesmen of the past. In view
of the hazardous complications through which we have happily passed,
and of those which may possibly beset our future pathway as a
nation, it would indeed be the part of wisdom, if by Constitutional
amendment a less complicated and cumbrous instrumentality could be
devised for ascertaining and making effective the popular will
in the selection of President and Vice-President of the United
States.

One of the apprehensions of the framers of the Constitution was
that of executive usurpation of functions lawfully pertaining to
the co-ordinate department of the Government. This was measurably
guarded against by the provision requiring appointment to high
office to be by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
While the President by the exercise of the veto power possesses
a negative upon legislation, the Senate by virtue of the provision
quoted has an equally effective negative upon executive appointments
to important office.

To the President is confided primarily the treaty-making power.
Treaties are the law of the land, and their observance in spirit
as well as letter touches the national honor. Upon this often
depends the issue of peace or war. Before becoming effective their
ratification by a two-thirds vote of the Senate is indispensable.
From these and other safeguards strikingly appear what are known
as "the checks and balances" of the Constitution.

An important function of the Senate yet to be mentioned is that of
sitting as a high court of impeachment. The President, Vice-President,
and other high officials are amenable to its jurisdiction. The
initial ste