Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 32 CHAPTER III. THE FRAHERS OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION WERE OPPOSED TO THE ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT BY A POPULAR VOTE PliOCEEDINGS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION IN REFER- ENCE TO THE BEST MEANS OF CHOOSING THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE GOVERNMENT. A MERICANS profess and doubtless really enter- ./A. tain a deep veneration and profound respect for the opinions of their forefathers who established the American Union. These feelings are entertained in common with the friends of republican government in Europe. With the lapse of time many of the incidents which gave a particular direction to their acts have passed from the public mind, and with them the special and exceptional reasons which often decided them to do that which abstractly considered their better judgment condemned. This may be said to be true in regard to the plan which was adopted for providing a chief executive head for the Government. It was a subject of long and anxious discussion, and in the Convention which formed the Constitution there was, in regard to details especially, much diversity of opinion. By consulting the meagre records of the debates which have been preserved, we discover that the plan finally agreed upon was not in accordance with the wishes or the judgment ofeven a respectable minority of that distinguished body of statesmen. They were driven to its adoption by the force of circumstances which they could not control; but the act may be almost said to have been done under protest. When we consider the times and the general state of popular opinion throughout the civilised world at the moment when this Convention assembled to frame a Constitution for a people without a king or a hereditary aristocracy, or a tradition which could serve as a rallying point for those whose judgment ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.