_Breakdown of the Electoral Plan._--It was at first expected that the electors of the different states, composed of leading citizens presumably well acquainted with the qualifications of the candidates for the chief magistracy, would meet at the state capitals, discuss among themselves the strength and weaknesses of the several candidates, and then exercising their full judgment, cast their votes for the fittest. But the scheme quickly broke down in practice, and instead of a real choice by small bodies of men, we have a system which amounts to direct election by the masses of the voters, though the form of indirect election is still followed. As soon as political parties were thoroughly organized, the electors, who were intended to be men "capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the Presidential office," were reduced to the position of party puppets who no longer exercised their own judgment in choosing the President but merely registered, like automata, the will of their party. As Ex-President Harrison once remarked, an elector who should fail to vote for the nominee of his party would be the object of execration and in times of very high excitement might be the subject of a lynching.[61] So closely do the electors obey the will of their party that we always know at the close of election day, on Tuesday after the first Monday in November, when the electors themselves are chosen, who will be the next President, though in fact the electors do not meet in their respective states until the following January, formally to register the choice of the people. [61] "This Country of Ours," p. 77. =Choosing Presidential Electors.=--In the beginning the presidential electors of each state were chosen by the legislature, either by joint ballot of the two houses sitting together, or by concurrent vote. In the course of time, however, popular election of electors was introduced, South Carolina (1868) being the last state to choose its electors by the legislature. _Choice by General Ticket._--When the system of popular choice of electors was adopted, two different methods were followed: choice by districts, and choice on general ticket from the state at large; but by 1832 all the states except Maryland had adopted the general ticket method, and now there is no state which follows the district method. Representatives in Congress, as we have seen, are elected by districts, and hence the delegation in Congress from a particular state is often divided between Democrats and Republicans. But not so with Presidential electors; usually the party in the majority in the state, however small the majority, chooses all the electors. Thus when the Democratic party carried New York by a majority of hardly more than 1,000 votes in 1884, the entire electoral vote was counted for Cleveland.[62]