egislative district. These methods have already found effective
application to the choice of Senators and Representatives in Congress,
and now an evil start has been made in the direction of applying them to
the choice by the States of electors of President and Vice-President. If
this is accomplished, we shall then have the three great departments of
the Government in the grasp of the "gerrymander," the legislative and
executive directly and the judiciary indirectly through the power of
appointment.

An election implies a body of electors having prescribed qualifications,
each one of whom has an equal value and influence in determining the
result. So when the Constitution provides that "each State shall
appoint" (elect), "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct,
a number of electors," etc., an unrestricted power was not given to the
legislatures in the selection of the methods to be used. "A republican
form of government" is guaranteed by the Constitution to each State, and
the power given by the same instrument to the legislatures of the States
to prescribe methods for the choice by the State of electors must be
exercised under that limitation. The essential features of such a
government are the right of the people to choose their own officers and
the nearest practicable equality of value in the suffrages given in
determining that choice.

It will not be claimed that the power given to the legislature would
support a law providing that the persons receiving the smallest vote
should be the electors or a law that all the electors should be chosen
by the voters of a single Congressional district. The State is to
choose, and under the pretense of regulating methods the legislature
can neither vest the right of choice elsewhere nor adopt methods not
conformable to republican institutions. It is not my purpose here to
discuss the question whether a choice by the legislature or by the
voters of equal single districts is a choice by the State, but only to
recommend such regulation of this matter by constitutional amendment as
will secure uniformity and prevent that disgraceful partisan jugglery
to which such a liberty of choice, if it exists, offers a temptation.

Nothing just now is more important than to provide every guaranty for
the absolutely fair and free choice by an equal suffrage within the
respective States of all the officers of the National Government,
whether that suffrage is applied directly, as in