votes than the man he is running against. It is this compelling feature of the direct election plan which no other plan can guarantee that I had recommended to me. We will have a chance to discuss that.

Senator ERVIN. I would just like to observe on that point that Alexis de Tocqueville said if our system is ever destroyed, it would be destroyed by the majority of the people of our country.

Senator BAYH. I would hate to go to my constituents in Indiana and say that I do not trust a majority of them to elect a U.S. Senator, because I think that they have done pretty well in the last two elections. I think they have done pretty well in North Carolina, too, and I think if they can elect a man like my friend from North Carolina, they can elect the President of the United States.

Senator ERVIN. If all the people of the United States had the same intelligence as my constituents in North Carolina, I would not be afraid.

Senator BAYH. Speaking of constituents, we have one of yours here today and you will have an opportunity to examine his thoughts. Our first witness is Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey, an elector from the Second Congressional District. If there is no objection, a biographical summary of Dr. Lloyd Whitfield Bailey will be put in the record at this time.

(Dr. Bailey's biographical sketch follows:)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH-LLOYD WHITFIELD BAILEY

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 24, 1928.
Parents: Clarence Whitfield and Olive Magnusson Bailey.
Moved to my father's native state of North Carolina in 1929.
Was graduated from Rocky Mountain High School in 1945.
B.S. degree-Wake Forest College 1949.

M.D. Degree-Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia 1953.
Internship at Jefferson Medical College Hospital 1953–1954.

School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas-JanuaryMarch 1955.

Flight Surgeon, United States Air Force, 12th Air Rescue Group-1955-1957stationed in Germany.

Married to Ann Witherspoon Lewis of San Antonio, Texas in July 1955; 3 children.

Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania-basic science course in ophthalmology-1957-1958.

Residency at Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-1958-1960. Entered practice of ophthalmology in 1960 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Member of: First Baptist Church, The John Birch Society-Former Chapter Leader, Rotary Club, Kappa Alpha Order, Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, Edgecomb-Nash County Medical Society, Medical Society of the State of North Carolina, American Medical Association, Member of Committee on Eye Care and Eye Banks of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina, American Association of Ophthalmology, North Carolina Society of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology.

Senator BAYH. Dr. Bailey, we are looking forward to your testimony.

While Dr. Bailey is making his way up here, Senator Thurmond suggested he would like to ask some questions of Senator Ervin.

Of course we will be glad to have any questions you might care to ask, Senator Thurmond.

Senator THURMOND. Your plan, the plan you are advocating, Senator Ervin, is known as the proportional plan.

Senator ERVIN. That is correct.

Senator THURMOND. In other words, you split the electoral vote in the same proportion as the popular vote. That is the same plan I advocated in 1956. Senator Daniel of Texas, and I, and Senator Mundt were advocating the district plan, and we passed it in the Senate by a majority vote. We did not get two-thirds, except at that time the bill allowed- was amended to put in both-to let each State decide whether it wanted the district plan or the proportional plan. So the Senate by a majority vote has approved those two plans, so to speak. Now, I believe I joined you in this proportional plan and also stated I was going to join on the district plan, because I think either one would be a great improvement over what we have now.

Senator ERVIN. I would like to state at this point that the distinguished Senator from South Carolina and a number of other Senators have cosponsored Senate Joint Resolution 2 which embodies the proportional plan.

Senator THURMOND. In my judgment this would be a much sounder plan than having a direct popular vote. I think it is more in accord with the Constitution, it is more in accord with our Republic, because we do have a Republic, not a democracy, and it acts somewhat as a buffer between, you might say, the people and the Federal Government, and I think it would be much sounder.

I am not sure that you went into detail, or did you, in your statement, in telling the advantages of this plan, because I think there is no chance in the world to get through a popular vote plan. In the first place, I do not think the Senate is going to pass it. In the second place, I do not think the States would ratify it.

Senator ERVIN. I think the Senate would come nearer passing that direct election plan than the States.

Senator THURMOND. The States, I would agree with you there. Senator ERVIN. The State legislatures or State constitutional conventions that would take the popular election plan in preference to the plan set out in Senate Joint Resolution 2, in my opinion, to use a North Carolina expression, ought to be barred from the scene. Thirty-six of them would lose their power. Take the State of Nevada. It now has two Senators and one Congressman. It gives three electoral votes. Assuming that the people of Nevada vote on the same basis as people in the other areas of the country, they would lose the benefit of at least two of those electoral votes. Their voice in the election of President and Vice President of the United States would be reduced to 331/3 percent of what it is now at least.

Senator THURMOND. Is it inconceivable to feel the States would not ratify this even though the Senate should vote for it?

Senator ERVIN. Yes, I made the distinction between the Congress and the States, because I have observed that a lot of people come up from the various States to seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate and get smitten by this thing we call Potomac fever. The greatest symptom is that they come to the conclusion that the people who sent them up here do not have the sense to run their own affairs and all affairs ought to be run from Washington which would be the effect of the amendment.

Senator BAYH. I suggest to my friend from North Carolina that neither the Senator from Indiana nor the distinguished Senator from Montana, Mr. Mansfield, is oblivious to the desires of his constituents and both of us are supporters of direct election.

Senator ERVIN. I will eliminate from my observation the Senator from Indiana and the majority leader, although the majority leader, by virtue of his office, is required to support proposals emanating from the White House which he as an individual Senator might not be so much inclined to support because he has a twofold obligation: one is majority leader and the other a Senator from Montana. He is one of the greatest folks I ever saw.

Senator THURMOND. The original idea when the President was elected was the recognition of the States in that process. If we had a direct election by the people, does that not eliminate the States and the power of the States in this federated system of government which we have?

Senator ERVIN. Yes, sir, I think that is perhaps the most serious objection of the plan. We have a federal system of government. The history of the world shows this if it shows nothing else, that in a big country, the country the size of ours, where the powers of government are centralized, in a central government, liberty perishes, there is no question about that. That was the reason the federal system of gov ernment placed some restraint on centralized government, direct election of President and Vice President would be a great step towards the destruction of the federal system of government. You can argue, and it is argued, that the President and Vice President are officials of all the people. You can say the same thing about the Senate and House of Representatives. They make laws for all the people. You can justify by the same process of reasoning the continued destruction of the federal system in letting all people of the Nation vote for Senators of all the States and representatives of all the States because they are Federal legislators.

Senator THURMOND. Most of the countries in Europe today are smaller really than the State of Texas in size, and that is a different situation from what we have in this country. We have Texas as just one of 50 States. It is the biggest state, other than Alaska now, but at any rate, with this great country, with diverse interests, and with the system of government that was conceived by our forefathers that would provide the greatest amount of freedom to the greatest number of people for the greatest length of time, it would be inconceivable now to let a bare majority run the country. It is inconsistent with the various provisions of the Constitution where you have time and time again provisions where majority cannot control, where it takes twothirds.

Senator ERVIN. If the Constitution shows any purpose on the part of the Founding Fathers, it was the purpose to diffuse the powers of the Federal Government, in other words to separate them.

As James Madison said so well, where you concentrate all of the powers of government in one man, one body of men, or one government, whether they are elected or hereditary or whatever you call them, he says there you have the very essence of tyranny.

Senator THURMOND. That is the thing that those who conceived of this Constitution are trying to get around, to prevent tyranny. They did not allow a majority rule, and they provided checks and balances.

If we are going to elect the head of this Nation just by a majority alone, not recognizing the small States, then we can see what could happen. It would destroy the federal system as we know it today under which this country had become the greatest nation on the face of

the earth.

I am very bitterly opposed to the direct vote of the people. I am convinced that the people in each State ought to have a say in these matters and then the State could control the situation. I think that we have to recognize these States, otherwise we are destroying our federal system of government as we know it today.

I would like to ask you this question: Has not the direct election of the chief executive in other countries produced a multitude of splinter parties making ultimate government exceptionally difficult such as in France, Germany, and Italy?

Senator ERVIN. Yes, I do not think there is any question about that. Senator THURMOND. And could not that same situation result and probably would it not result?

Senator ERVIN. The danger of it would be vastly increased.
Senator THURMOND. Vastly increased.

Thank you very much, Senator. We are delighted to have you with us.

Senator ERVIN. The opponents of Senate joint resolution 1, like the opponents of Senate joint resolution 2 recognize that is a danger. Both of them have a 40 percent provision that the President get at least 40 percent of the electoral votes in one case and 40 percent of the popular votes in the other case.

Senator BAYH. I think, if I may interrupt, that since we are all very anxious to hear Dr. Bailey that we continue this colloquy later on. Dr. Bailey believes we ought to keep the present system and, contrary to many of us, he believes the elector should have the freedom to choose. I would like to suggest, in light of the fact that we have gotten into a rather thorough discussion of the popular vote proposal, that this opportunity to discuss all proposals is fundamental and indispensable to any constitutional change. That is why our forefathers required twothirds of both Houses of Congress and three-fourths of our legislatures. It is not a change that should be taken lightly.

I have said, repeatedly, that in my judgment there is no law devised by man that is perfect, and I have not held out Senate joint resolution 1 as a plan that is perfect. But I think, as we go ahead with our deliberations, it is indispensable that this committee should weigh the imperfections of each proposal and then weigh them against the present proposal, which the three of us here, I think, believe has a number of apparent weaknesses.

I suggest that when we talk about what our constitutional fathers hoped to achieve and then try to impart to them infinite wisdom, we really are not looking at what happened at the Constitutional Convention and what has happened since. The "infinite wisdom" of our constitutional fathers was so great that the ink on that great document was hardly dry when we had to pass the 12th Amendment to the Con

stitution, which was designed to clarify and correct an imperfection that existed in the presidential election provisions of the Constitution itself. In the debates of the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, contrary to the popular view, our constitutional fathers did not see the electoral college as the institution for making the determination. Rather, they viewed this as a nominating process that would subsequently leave the final determination to the House of Representatives, where each State would have one vote regardless of its size.

Now, if we are going to be consistent and suggest that our constitutional fathers were right in their original design, then we had better go behind their thinking. We had better read this document and say, "Well, then, we also agree that they were right in believing this would be a nominating process which would subsequently lead to a determination made by the House of Representatives," which almost everybody in the House of Representatives today thinks is one of the aspects of the present system that most needs to be changed.

As I said earlier, before my friend from South Carolina came in, one of the aspects that concerns me most about S.J. Res. 2, the proportional plan, and the district plan as well, is the fact that both permit the decision to be made by even less than a majority. In fact, on three occasions the present system, because of the disproportionate allocation of electoral votes, has elected a minority President. And in both the district plan and the proportional system this dangerous possibility is present. A man could be elected who had fewer votes than his opponent.

If my colleagues can devise a way in which either of these plans will get rid of this one basic imperfection, then you are going a long way toward convincing me that these plans have considerable merit. This is the one thing that has most concerned me.

Senator ERVIN. I believe one of those minority Presidents was Woodrow Wilson who was elected in 1912 because he had three parties to run against.

Senator BAYH. Perhaps I should be more specific and change my words to say nonplurality, because Woodrow Wilson had more votes than any of the three men he was running against but not a majority. Senator ERVIN. He was a minority President.

Senator BAYH. So was Richard Nixon and so was Jack Kennedy. Senator ERVIN. Yes; but Abraham Lincoln was a minority President, and Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln were pretty good Presidents. Benjamin Harrison was elected by a minority, and also I do not agree with the Senator-Samuel J. Tilden was a majority President because Samuel J. Tilden got both the majority vote and the majority of the electoral vote, and to be perfectly frank it was stolen from him.

Senator BAYH. It surely was.

Senator ERVIN. By chicanery.

Senator BAYH. To clarify my meaning because I used the term "minority" in its accepted popular sense, what the plan that my distinguished friend from North Carolina recommends, and the district plan as referred to by my friend from South Carolina, is the election of a President who has fewer votes than the man he is running against; not even a plurality President, because traditional to most elections in