or of
Congress and elsewhere that I should be wanting to my duty were I to
withhold another expression of my deep solicitude on the subject. Our
system fortunately contemplates a recurrence to first principles,
differing in this respect from all that have preceded it, and securing
it, I trust, equally against the decay and the commotions which have
marked the progress of other governments. Our fellow-citizens, too, who
in proportion to their love of liberty keep a steady eye upon the means
of sustaining it, do not require to be reminded of the duty they owe to
themselves to remedy all essential defects in so vital a part of their
system. While they are sensible that every evil attendant upon its
operation is not necessarily indicative of a bad organization, but may
proceed from temporary causes, yet the habitual presence, or even a
single instance, of evils which can be clearly traced to an organic
defect will not, I trust, be overlooked through a too scrupulous
veneration for the work of their ancestors. The Constitution was an
experiment committed to the virtue and intelligence of the great mass of
our countrymen, in whose ranks the framers of it themselves were to
perform the part of patriotic observation and scrutiny, and if they have
passed from the stage of existence with an increased confidence in its
general adaptation to our condition we should learn from authority so
high the duty of fortifying the points in it which time proves to be
exposed rather than be deterred from approaching them by the suggestions
of fear or the dictates of misplaced reverence.

A provision which does not secure to the people a direct choice of their
Chief Magistrate, but has a tendency to defeat their will, presented to
my mind such an inconsistency with the general spirit of our
institutions that I was induced to suggest for your consideration the
substitute which appeared to me at the same time the most likely to
correct the evil and to meet the views of our constituents. The most
mature reflection since has added strength to the belief that the best
interests of our country require the speedy adoption of some plan
calculated to effect this end. A contingency which sometimes places it
in the power of a single member of the House of Representatives to
decide an election of so high and solemn a character is unjust to the
people, and becomes when it occurs a source of embarrassment to the
individuals thus brought into power and a caus