Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution altered Article II relating to presidential elections. Originally, the U.S. Electoral College would elect both the President and the Vice President in a single election; the person with a majority would become President and the runner-up would become Vice President. The election of 1800, however, demonstrated some problems with the system. The Twelfth Amendment, proposed by Congress on December 9, 1803 and ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures on June 15, 1804, required electors to cast two distinct votes: one for President and another for Vice President.
See Wikisource for the text of the Amendment.
Elections 1789–1804
[[Image:Thomas Jefferson.png|thumb|left|Thomas Jefferson, whose nearly-failed election . At the goading of Alexander Hamilton and others, (who, while opposed to Jefferson, saw him as the proverbial "lesser of two evils" in comparison to Burr) several Federalists did not cast ballots, allowing the Democratic-Republicans in the House to elect Jefferson on the 36th ballot.
Electoral College under Amendment XII
Because of what happened in the 1800 election, the Twelfth Amendment was proposed and adopted. The amendment, which applied to elections beginning in 1804, did not change the composition of the Electoral College. Rather, it amends the process whereby the Electoral College, or in some cases the House of Representatives, chooses the President. Now, under the Twelfth Amendment, for the commencement of Presidential terms to January 20 and permits Congress to direct, through legislation, which officer should act as President if both houses of Congress are deadlocked.
Elections 1804–present
The election of 1804, and every election since, has been conducted under the Twelfth Amendment. Only once since that time has the House of Representatives chosen the President. In 1824, Andrew Jackson received 99 electoral votes, John Quincy Adams (son of John Adams) 84, William H. Crawford 41, and Henry Clay 37. All of the candidates were members of the Democratic-Republican Party (though there were significant political differences between them), and every one fell short of the 131 votes necessary to win.
Since the House could only consider the top three candidates, Clay could not become President. Crawford's poor health following a stroke made his election in the House unlikely. Andrew Jackson fully expected that the House would vote for him, as he had won a plurality of the electoral vote. Instead, the House elected Adams on the first ballot with 13 states, followed by Jackson with seven and Crawford with three. Clay had endorsed Adams for the Presidency; the endorsement carried additional weight because Clay was the Speaker of the House. When Adams later appointed Clay his Secretary of State, many accused the pair of making a "corrupt bargain", and others understood this being a normal alliance in politics, as when presidential candidates name their running mates in order to strengthen their positions. However, some historians have argued that Clay was closer ideologically to Adams than Jackson and that it was natural for Clay supporters to turn to Adams.
After the election of 1824, the Democratic-Republican Party split into the Democratic Party and the Whig Party. In 1836, the Whigs nominated different candidates in different regions in the hopes of splintering the electoral vote and denying Martin Van Buren, the Democratic candidate, a majority in the Electoral College, thereby throwing the election into a Whig-controlled House. While the strategy failed in regards to the President, Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Richard Mentor Johnson received 147 electoral votes, one vote short of a majority; to be followed by Francis P. Granger with 77, John Tyler with 47 and William Smith with 23. In the Senate, however, Johnson won with 33 votes, followed by Granger with 17.
The Twelfth Amendment does not preclude the election of a President and Vice President from the same state; it only prevents an elector from voting for Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates who both inhabit the same state as the elector. Nevertheless, running mates conventionally come from different states to prevent situations wherein electors of the state in question are forced to vote for a candidate from a different party merely on the grounds of residency. The issue arose during the 2000 presidential election contested by George W. Bush (alongside running-mate Dick Cheney) and Al Gore (alongside Joe Lieberman). It was alleged that Cheney and Bush were both inhabitants of Texas, and that the Texas electors could therefore not cast their ballots for both. Bush's residency was unquestioned, as he was governor of Texas at the time. Cheney had lived and was registered to vote in Texas, but a few months before the election moved to Wyoming. A lawsuit alleging that Cheney remained an inhabitant of Texas was brought, but it was dismissed by the District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
References
- Constitution of the United States.
- Ellis, E. S. (1903). Thomas Jefferson: A Character Sketch.
- Office of the Federal Register. (2004). "U. S. Electoral College."