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BY A SINGLE VOTE A PRESIDENT of the United? States was once ? elected by a single vote. On an after noon in February, 1825, an Illinois pi oneer named Daniel G. Cook wrote on a piece of paper the words "John Quincy Adams," and though the Union then con tained eleven million people, that hasty scrawl determined who should be the chief magistrate of those millions. The county now holding Chicago has preserved to our day the mem ory of this young President maker. For months previous to that midwinter afternoon all Washington had resembled the hotel lobbies of a national convention city the night before the se lection of a presidential candidate. As in this in stance victory meant the White Hotise immediately and not a mere chance to reach that desirable man sion, so much the more fiercely did the contest rage round the members of the House of Repre sentatives, upon whom, after the failure of the regular election, the Constitution had cast the choice of an executive. On these members, however, the interest of the E>liticians fell in very unequal measure. When the ouse of Representatives meets to elect a Presi dent, the Congressmen vote, not as individuals, but by States, and therefore the smaller the common wealth the more potent the voice of its legislators. Illinois was still a land where Indians roamed, and its sole representative, carrying in his single voice an electoral efficiency equal to the combined votes of the forty members from New York, received day and night the solicitous attentions of the three statesmen to whom, by the mandate of the Con stitution, the House was confined in its balloting. It was early realized that "The Little Cook," as he was affectionately called along the banks of the Wabash and the Sangamon, might alone decide who should ride as conqueror up Pennsylvania-ave., whether Secretary Crawford, head of the Treasury, or Secretary Adams, premier in the Cabinet, or Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and New Or leans. The latter hero glowered in the Senate chamber, wishing grimly it was only British armed battalions that he had to scatter. The New England brahmin in charge of our diplomatic relatians actually con strained himself during these few months to be civil to his fellow men The poor Secretary of the Treasury, dumb and immovable from a paralytic stroke suffered in the midst of the campaign, listened helplessly to his political lieutenants, who were not to be swerved from the determination to make their chief President even when his statesmanship was reduced to a rubber stamp signature held in his daughter's hand. Indeed, auditors of the Treasury and controllers of the currency allowed the finances to fall into disorder as they harangued society upon the temporary nature of the superior's indisposition; and a few days before the fateful voting the trem bling invalid was borne to the Capitol, that the custodians of the presidential suffrage might see how capable for the weight of a nation's govern ment were the weak shoulders of the paralyzed minister. Ensconced in an inner room, with the lights and draperies carefully arranged, and the accessories of a faded belle's toilet table by no means neglected, the old man appeared to the crowd of spectators looking on from an antechamber not wholly* unlike the vigorous politician who had ruled the Treasury patronage with his eyes fixed on this very day. But all the arts of the attending courtiers could not con ceal from those admitted into the immediate pres ence of the candidate the irretrievable ravages of disease; and when Speaker Clay, after a few words with the palsied chieftain, returned to the chair of the House mournfully shaking his head, it was recog nized that the Crawford ambitions, like their pro prietor, were simply awaiting burial. Henceforth Washington changed its bets according to the bow by which the Speaker saluted the Secretary of State, or the laugh that he gave to a backwoods anecdote of the soldier from Tennessee. But to the thick rows of Governors and envoys who lined the Representatives' hall the decision of those Representatives was still doubtful, even when the moment arrived at which the Senate, for once of less importance than the lower chamber, solemnly withdrew from the joint canvass of the electoral votes, and the brilliant Speaker, reseating himself in the chair vacated by the Vice President, and sub duing with his gavel the excitement of the over flowing galleries, called upon the House to fulfil its constitutional function of electing a chief magistrate. The Adams men indeed proclaimed Clay to be their By a.m.sayre own; but the grizzled warrior of the frontier had stalked confidently forth with his fellow Senators, and now Congressman James Buchanan, himself destined far in the future to an uneasy seat in the residential chair, whispered, as he marshaled the ackson members, that even supposing the Ken tuckian to be a traitor, his whilom followers were not traitors too. Meanwhile, twenty-four boxes of mahogany, cor responding to the States of the Union, had been set in a conspicuous row, and the thousands of specta tors, leaning anxiously from their places, saw all the Congressmen save one advance and make their choice. The one absentee lay upon a bed of death; but as his vote was shared with many colleagues, he was allowed to die in peace. Had he represented a small State, his dying whisper would have been demanded; for, as the States were reached whose power was held by two or three members, waves of excitement fanned the galleries, and even the Craw ford phalanx, sitting in defiant sullenness, evinced signs of interest. "The State of Illinois!" called the clerk, and the very rustle of Daniel Cook's ballot could be heard throughout the great hall. That ballot lay alone in the box devoted to the frontier commonwealth, until the vast audience grew still as the congressional tellers unloosed the lock and passed from hand to hand the scrap of paper on which was scribbled Illinois' decision. Anxious office holders tried in vain to read the tellers' faces, and murmured, "No result"; for Daniel Webster's leonine features were immovable as he conveyed to the Speaker's table the final roll. The Speaker slowly rose. There was a moment of aching suspense, and then Clay's sonorous voice rang far out into the corridors, declaring that thir teen commonwealths of the Union, just a majority of all the States, having cast tlieir votes for John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams was for the next four years President of the Republic. The multitude relaxed in their seats and muttered, "Thirteen States!" Then the vote of each one of the thirteen had been necessary to elect, and Daniel G. Cook, casting the ballot of Illinois with the other twelve, had by his single voice elected a chief magistrate of the Union. Hayes' Narrow Margin piFTY years later the United States had increased its population to forty-five millions, and yet even then a President was elected by a single vote. Once again the eyes of the world were turned toward the Capitol, this time upon the chamber of the Supreme Court, where the true number of Republican and Democratic electoral votes in the election of 1876 was to be announced by the specially created elec toral commission. Of the fourteen commissioners selected by the two houses, seven voted one way and seven the other. The decision therefore rested with Justice Bradley, the one commissioner desig nated by the other fourteen, and when the Justice de clared it to be his determination that the Republican candidate had received one hundred ana eighty four electoral votes, to one hundred and eighty-three cast for the Democratic Tilden, Rutherford B. Hayes took up his residence in the White House by the fortunate double conjunction of a single vote. Andrew Johnson's Trial ?TUESE two Presidents owed their entrance into office to the will of one man; another President of the United States was also saved from ignominious dismissal by a single vote. When the Chief Justice called the Senate to order as a high court of im peachment for the trial of Andrew Johnson, it was expected that every Republican Senator would vote "Guilty! " The two-thirds of the Senate neces sary for the condemnation of a chief magistrate would thus be far exceeded. But as the trial drew to a close, a few Re publicans refused to surrender their con sciences to the frantic partizanship of the impeachment mana gers, and the extrem ists saw only a slight margin over the re quired constitutional vote. Caucuses in the Senate and mass meetings throughout the States attempted to drive the recalci trant Senators back to their party; but only with the result of adding two waverers to the little band of Republicans who had resolved to answer the Chief Justice with a " Not guilty!" When the counsel had finished their arguments, they could predict with reasonable certainty the vote of every Senator save one. The twelve Demo cratic Senators would each vote "No!" and these Democrats would be joined, according to all ap pearances, by six of their Republican colleagues, men of such high character and steadfast will that attempts at coercion would be only ridiculous. There were thus left thirty-six Senators to vote "Guilty!" and every one of the thirty-six must so vote if the impeachment was to be successful. Thirty-five of this number were absolutely certain; but the politicians who expected a new President within a few days suddenly realized with a shock that the remaining Senator of the indispensable thirty-six, young Ross of Kansas, had not expressed an opinion since the trial began. To the indignation and horror of the Republican leaders, Senator Ross presumed to consider himself sitting as a judge, and declined to disclose his judicial decision to the party managers. Forthwith the energy of a mighty national machine was focused on his one head. The most enticing promises and the direst threats fell ceaselessly on the young Kansan. Venerable fathers of the Senate hooked their arms within his and pledged any number of reflections and all manner of important chairman ships if for this once he would agree; immense crowds in Kansas cities burned him in effigy as a foretaste of what would happen if their forebodings should turn true. The great party newspapers of thirty States trumpeted like sky reaching elephants, and even the disfranchised Confederate, occupied solely with repairing his farm buildings and securing seed corn for his fields, heard vaguely that up in Washington the conquering "Yankees" were in tensely worried about a man named Ross. But to neither blandishments nor menaces did the Senator from Kansas return a sign, and the Union awakened the decisive morning not knowing who that night it would look up to as its head. The Senate has never seen such a concourse as gathered within its chamber that day. The diplomats of Europe would not miss the possible opportunity of beholding a chief of state peaceably removed, and in the surrounding galleries tier after tier, up to the thronged doorways, stretched all the fashion of the Capital and almost all the political influence of all the States. On the floor in close pressed files stood the greater magnates. The House of Representatives was there, crushed tight against the walls, and the Cabinet of the President, and Federal Judges, and the victorious leaders in the recent war. The wide semicircle of senatorial arm chairs was completely filled. Not a single absence brake the full roll of the Senate when a resonant ? marshal heralded to the dais the silk gowned Chief Justice, and the concluding session of the court of impeachment began. "Mr. Senator Anthony," said the Chief Justice, rising, "do you find Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors? How say you, Mr. Senator Anthony?" The immense audience hushed itself into the silence that accompanies a historic event, and every neck was strained toward the left side of the Senate, as Anthony rose with dignity and in a clear voice announced the judgment that all men knew beforehand would be his. Slowly and with the same formula the head of the Supreme Court passed alphabetically down the list of the Senate, and no surprise broke the prophe sied schedule of the senatorial decisions. On the Republican and the Democratic sides Senators rose and solemnly declared what had been expected, with an extra tension in the stillness as the white haired jurist faced to the left to address the revolting "conscience Republicans." Their consciences did not fail them in the supreme moment; with a dis tinct emphasis each of the little group answered "Not guilty!" Men who had charged across battle fields began to breathe nervously. The Chief Justice was in the N's. He was questioning the Senators whose names began with P. He was getting through