In the election of the president and vice-president of the United States, the framers of the National Constitution provided for so-called electoral colleges. Each State chooses a number of presidential electors equal to the number of its members in the National House of Repre sentatives, plus its two senators. The plan of the Constitution was that these electors should actually exercise a choice as to who should be president. However, almost since the beginning of the Government, candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency have been nominated by the great political parties of the country in advance of the choice of electors. These political parties also nominate within each State their candidates for presidential electors. The candidates of any party for electors are definitely pledged in advance to vote for the candi dates nominated by that party for president and vice-president. For this reason, everybody knows who will be president immediately after the November election at which the electors themselves are chosen. In this respect, unwritten law, developed by usage, has altered the operation of the written text of the Constitution. In recognition of the fact that presidential electors are merely a device for casting a certain number of votes allotted to the State, at least one-third of the States now provide for a direct vote for candidates for president and vice-president, and omit from their ballots the names of candidates for presidential electors.
The great political parties nominate candidates in national nominating conventions, which usually meet in June or July preceding the November election for the choice of presidential electors. These conventions are composed of delegates chosen either by primary elections or by party conventions in the States.
In the Democratic convention each State is represented by a number of delegates equal to twice the number of the State's combined representation in the Senate and House of Repre sentatives of the United States. In the national Republican con vention the representation of the States in the two houses of Congress is taken as a basis, but reductions are made in the number of delegates from States having small Republican votes.
The States may, however, properly be regarded as units in the machinery for nominating party candidates. And in the nomina tion of presidential candidates, a populous Slate wields a large influence—an influence greatly magnified if the State is both populous and politically doubtful.
Two methods are provided for amending the Constitution of the United States. An amendment may be proposed by two-thirds of the members of both houses of Congress, and goes into effect when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, or by conventions in three-fourths of the States, as Congress shall determine. Congress is required by the Constitution to call
a convention for proposing amendments, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States. No such convention has ever been called and until 1933 Congress always provided for the ratification of Federal amendments by State legislatures rather than by conventions called for this purpose.
In 1933, Congress chose the alternate method of ratification by State legislatures and submitted the question of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment to State conventions.
Adopted later in the year, this proposal became the Twenty first Amendment.
The States as governmental units still have a decisive influence with respect to any change in the National Constitution. In other respects, so far as they influence the organization and Govern ment of the nation, they have tended to become merely units for national election purposes. The State has to a large extent lost its political individuality as a unit in the Government of the nation. The decreased political importance of the State as a unit in national affairs is due mainly to the development of rapid means of travel and of communication. The constant shifting of population from one State to another has prevented the newer States from developing the solidarity possessed by the original thirteen.
The very increase in the number of States has reduced the importance of each as a unit in the National Government.
Not only this, but, since the establishment of the Federal system, national politics has dominated. The ambitious political leader looks to advancement from State to national office. Nomi nations for the presidency are the most conspicuous prizes in the political organization. The popular election of United States senators by each State under the Seventeenth Amendment has itself tended to reduce emphasis upon the state as a political unit, and to treat it as merely an electoral area in the organization of the National Government. While the States still determine affirmatively who shall vote in State and national elections, the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments forbid discrimination on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude or sex, and the United States Supreme Court has held that the .Fourteenth Amendment forbids State legislation with respect to like dis criminations in party primaries. Of all the States, Maine alone still adheres to a date for State elections different from that for national elections. As soon as national and State elections came generally to be held upon the same day, we had a full establish ment of the dominance of national politics.