tion. In 1800 the electors acted simply as automata recording
the victory of their party, and so it has been ever since. In our own
time presidents and vice-presidents are nominated, not without elaborate
intrigue, by special conventions quite unknown to the Constitution; the
people cast their votes for the two or three pairs of candidates thus
presented, and the electoral college simply registers the results. The
system is thus fully exposed to all the dangers which our forefathers
dreaded from the frequent election of a chief magistrate by the people.
Owing to the great good-sense and good-nature of the American people,
the system does not work so badly as might be expected. It has, indeed,
worked immeasurably better than any one would have ventured to predict.
It is nevertheless open to grave objections. It compels a change of
administration at stated astronomical periods, whether any change of
policy is called for or not; it stirs up the whole country every fourth
year with a furious excitement that is often largely factitious; and
twice within the century, in 1801 and again in 1877, it has brought us
to the verge of the most foolish and hopeless species of civil war, in
view of that thoroughly monarchical kind of accident, a disputed
succession.[8]

[Sidenote: The convention supposed itself to be copying from the British
Constitution.]

The most curious and instructive point concerning the peculiar executive
devised for the United States by the Federal Convention is the fact that
the delegates proceeded upon a thoroughly false theory of what they were
doing. As already observed, in this part of its discussions the
convention had not the clearly outlined chart of local interests to
steer by. It indulged in general speculations and looked about for
precedents; and there was one precedent which American statesmen then
always had before their eyes, whether they were distinctly aware of it
or not. In creating an executive department, the members of the
convention were really trying to copy the only constitution of which
they had any direct experience, and which most of them agreed in
thinking the most efficient working constitution in existence,--as
indeed it was. They were trying to copy the British Constitution,
modifying it to suit their republican ideas: but curiously enough, what
they copied in creating the office of president was not the real English
executive or prime minister, but the fictitious English executi