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Show HOW CONCRESS ELECTS. Supposing No Candidate fur President Ceta a Majority. There is a popular impression, thai in the event of the presidential election elec-tion being thrown into the house of representatives, which would follow if no candidate should have a majority of the electoral college, that the present pres-ent house, with its 160 llemocratic majority, ma-jority, more or less, will have the deciding de-ciding of the question of who shall be president for the next four years. That is a mistake. The matter was fully discussed in Washington at the time of the passage of the new apportionment law. It was doeided by the highest legal authority that, under the law as it stood, the house elected conjointly with the presidential electors should have the deciding who was elected in case of no choice by the electoral college. col-lege. So. if the Farmers' Alliance movement prevents any candidate from getting a majority of the electoral college the Itepublicans will still have a chance to win if they can elect a majority of the next congress. Hut don't both houses of congress meet in February, 1898, and open and count the vote and declare the result? Yes; but if no candidate has a majority major-ity of all the votes cast, no one will be elected; consequently, the election will devolve on the house of representatives not on the house that will then bo In session, but on the one succeeding it But the new president is supposed to take his seat on March 4. 18lJ8. The congress elected will not meet until the December following. Who will be president in the meantime? The law provides for the succession. The secretary of state would act until congress could decide tho matter. Mr. Blaine as acting president would not be compelled to call congress together right after March 4. If the succeeding succeed-ing house should bo Democratic he might continue to act until the commencement com-mencement of tho regular session b December following. |
