Read Online Presidential Lottery by James A. Michener - Free Book Online Page A

between Burr and Jefferson.
    “I will recommend that our General Assembly, when it convenes, lead the nation in a call to Congress for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College.”
    At this point an assistant whispered to me, “He’s got guts. Telling us we’re no good and asking us to go out of business. But he’s right.”
    As president of the College, I was required to say a few words setting the stage for what we were about to do, and when I rose to speak, the farcical nature of the day was forgotten and its gravity became real indeed. I said, “In recent years I have worked in many foreign countries, and as Ijoin with you here today to perform an important ritual, I think of my many friends abroad who would give much of what they own if only they could participate in a free election such as this, if only they could choose their leaders. As a member of the party that lost the election in November, I think it especially noteworthy that we can meet here under the protection of the majority party, with their governor to greet us amicably, with their employees to help us run our election. I have hundreds of friends abroad who would treasure the opportunity to contest an election, lose, and then be treated graciously by the victors. This is more remarkable than we might think.”
    I then explained briefly why there would be so much careful ritual of recorded votes and oaths and certifications and attested copies and repeated signatures. “In 1876 the states were not so careful. Their records were sloppy and inaccurate and in due time were challenged, so that for four months the nation did not know who its President was to be. Tilden had apparently won in both the popular and the electoral vote, but the records of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina were contested, and finally all were thrown to Hayes, who won primarily because men like us had not done their job properly.” We resolved that we would do ours in strict conformance to the law.
    And then unfolded the pageantry of recording the vote six times, in most meticulous detail, so as to avoid a repetition of 1876. One of the six copies would go directly to the President of the Senate, two copies to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for filing, two copies to theAdministrator of General Services in Washington. The sixth copy had an interesting significance:
    RESOLVED , That one Elector of this College be appointed by the President to take in charge one of the packages containing one list of the Electors originally elected, one certificate of the election filling vacancies in the Electoral College, if any, and one certificate of the votes cast for the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States, and forward the same by Registered Mail through the Postmaster at the City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to the Honorable Michael H. Sheridan, United States District Court, Scranton, Chief Judge of the District Court of the United States for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
    It had been found to be a good idea for one set of the records to be turned over to a judge who presumably could be trusted.
    When the scratching of the pens had ended, when Emma Guffey Miller’s powerful voice echoed across the gilded chamber, “When are we going to eat?” and when our work had been legally sealed into bundles for transmittal to the proper authorities, I banged the gavel and announced that Pennsylvania’s Electoral College was adjourned,
sine die
, and as I left the rostrum I uttered a quiet prayer of thanks that this day had passed so uneventfully, when it could have been so destructive.
    We had not yet left the capitol before a newsman advised us that in North Carolina the Republican elector, Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey, of Rocky Mount—who had said that he was proudof his membership in the right-wing John Birch Society—had arbitrarily refused to vote for Nixon and had voted for Wallace instead. Even without the pressures of