However much
we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the
administration of the Government, there can be but little doubt in the
minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of
our system that one of its most important securities consists in the
separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that
each is held responsible to the great source of authority, which is
acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally
expressed. My reflection and experience satisfy me that the framers of
the Constitution, although they were anxious to mark this feature as a
settled and fixed principle in the structure of the Government, did not
adopt all the precautions that were necessary to secure its practical
observance, and that we can not be said to have carried into complete
effect their intentions until the evils which arise from this organic
defect are remedied.
Considering the great extent of our Confederacy, the rapid increase of
its population, and the diversity of their interests and pursuits, it
can not be disguised that the contingency by which one branch of the
Legislature is to form itself into an electoral college can not become
one of ordinary occurrence without producing incalculable mischief.
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