The framers of the Constitution believed that they had contrived
a method of electing the President and Vice-President which would
preserve the choice from partizan taint. Each State should choose
a number of electors "equal to the whole number of Senators and
Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the
Congress." These electors were to form an independent body, to
meet in their respective States and "ballot for two persons," and
send the result of their balloting to the Capitol, where the
President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and the
House of Representatives, opened the certificates and counted the
votes. The one receiving the greatest number of votes was to be
declared elected President, the one receiving the next highest
number of votes, Vice-President. George Washington was the only
President elected by such an autonomous group. The election of
John Adams was bitterly contested, and the voters knew, when they
were casting their ballots in 1796, whether they were voting for
a Federalist or a Jeffersonian. From that day forward this
greatest of political prizes has been awarded through partizan
competition. In 1804 the method of selecting the Vice-President
was changed by the twelfth constitutional amendment. The electors
since that time ballot for President and Vice-President. Whatever
may be the legal privileges of the members of the Electoral
College, they are considered, by the voters, as agents of the
party upon whose tickets their names appear, and to abuse this
relationship would universally be deemed an act of perfidy.

The Constitution permits the legislatures of the States to
determine how the electors shall be chosen. In the earlier
period, the legislatures elected them; later they were elected by