Sir, let us contemplate the dreadful evils which the English nation have suffered from the cause of investing executive power in a man hostile to the national opinion, and avoid them. They suffered, because their exclusion bill was abortive. Election is our exclusion bill. Its efficacy depends upon its being exercised by a majority. It is only a minority which can render election insufficient to exclude monarchical principles from executive power. It is against minority that election is intended to operate, because minority is the author of monarchy and aristocracy.
Shall we, sir, be so injudicious as to make election destroy the principle of election by adhering to a mode of exercising it, now seen to be capable of bestowing upon a minority the choice of a Vice President? Shall we make election, invented to exclude monarchy, a handmaid for its introduction? Or shall we, if we do not see monarchy at this day assailing our republican system, conclude that it never will; although we know that this system has but two foes, of whom monarchy is one? No, sir, let us rather draw instruction from the prophetic observations of a member of the English House of Commons, whilst the bill for excluding James II. was depending, who said:
“I hear a lion in the lobby roar, Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door, And keep him there! Or shall we let him in, To try if we can get him out again!”
Instead of shutting the door, the English left it open; tyranny got in; and the evils produced by its expulsion, to that nation, may possibly have been equal to those which submission would have produced.
The question was called for loudly at half-past nine, and put--the yeas and nays being taken, were:
YEAS.--Messrs. Anderson, Bailey, Baldwin, Bradley, Breckenridge, Brown, Cocke, Condit, Ellery, Franklin, Jackson, Logan, Maclay, Nicholas, Potter, Israel Smith, John Smith, Samuel Smith, Stone, Taylor, Worthington, and Wright--22.
NAYS.--Messrs. Adams, Butler, Dayton, Hillhouse, Olcott, Pickering, Plumer, Tracy, Wells, and White--10.
Upon the PRESIDENT declaring the question carried by two-thirds--
Mr. TRACY said he denied that the question was fairly decided. He took it to be the intention of the constitution, that there should be two-thirds of the whole number of Senators elected, which would make the number necessary to its passage 23.