This decision remained until the very end of August, when the whole question was reopened by a motion of Rutledge that the two houses of Congress, in electing the president, should proceed by "joint ballot." The object of this motion was to prevent either house from exerting a negative on the choice of the other. It was carried in spite of the opposition of some of the smaller states, which might hope to exercise a greater relative influence upon the choice of presidents, if the Senate were to vote separately. At this point the fears of Gouverneur Morris, that an election by Congress would result in boundless intrigue, were revived; and in a powerful speech he persuaded the convention to return to the device of the electoral college, which might be made equal in number and similar in composition to the two houses of Congress sitting together. It need not be required of the electors, after all, that they should make a long journey to the seat of the federal government. They might meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, one of whom must be an inhabitant of a different state. By this provision it was hoped to diminish the chances for extreme sectional partiality. A list of these votes might be sent under seal to the presiding officer of the Senate, to be counted. Should no candidate turn out to have a majority of the votes, the Senate might choose a president from the five highest candidates on the list. The candidate having the next highest number of votes might be declared vice-president, and preserve the visible continuity of the government in case of the death of the president during his term of office. By these changes the method of electing the president, as finally decided upon, was nearly completed. But Mason, Randolph, Gerry, King, and Wilson were not satisfied with the provision that the Senate might choose the president in case of a failure of choice on the part of the electoral college: they preferred to give this power to the House of Representatives. It was thought that the Senate would be likely to prove an aristocratic body, somewhat removed from the people in its sympathies, and there was a dread of intrusting to it too many important functions. Mason thought that the sway of an aristocracy would be worse than an absolute monarchy; and if the Senate might every now and then elect the president, there would be a risk that the dignity of his office might degenerate, until he should become a mere creature of the Senate. On the other hand, the small states, in order to have an equal voice with the large ones, in such an emergency as the failure of choice by the electoral college, wished to keep the eventual choice in the hands of the Senate. Among the delegates from the small states, only Langdon and Dickinson at first supported the change, and only New Hampshire voted for it. At length Sherman proposed a compromise, which was carried. It was agreed that the eventual choice should be given to the House of