We have seen that while, in the matter of choosing our rulers and legislators, our institutions are, in their practical workings, democratic, in form they are by no means so. This cannot long remain so. An empty form is of little value, and ere many years the country will either return to the principles of the olden time--which in the present advanced state of public sentiment is not likely--or else sweep away the form and simplify the whole system. Already the question has begun to be agitated of submitting the presidential vote directly to the people without intervention of electors. But it may well be doubted whether, in the light of the political corruption of to-day, even this be not too great an advance upon the democratic principle for the moral condition of our people. For many years our country has been the victim of a demagoguism, resulting from the working of this very principle, and the question admits of serious discussion whether, instead of abrogating the form, a return to the _spirit_ of the Constitution, while, at the same time, holding strictly amenable those to whom this important choice is intrusted, would not result in a pure and more statesmanlike administration of public affairs. For the elector, being held politically responsible for the conduct of the candidate for whom his vote was cast, and for all the evils resulting from mal-administration, would soon learn that to be faithful is not less important than to be wise, and that his political interest was identified with the well-being of the country. But it is one of the evils of our rapid progress that the past is looked upon with such disfavor as to effectually prevent a return even upon the path of error. In the pride of our civilization the simpler theories of the olden time are despised as unworthy of, if not wholly unfitted for, our present exalted intellectuality. The principle is ignored that reform may sometimes be effected by retracing the steps of years. Hence reform in this particular must either adopt the dangerous experiment of establishing the pure democratic principle, or else devise some third plan which shall charm by its novelty at the same time that it is founded upon some evident and abiding truth.