We have too many legislators and too much legislation; too little about important matters, and too much about unimportant matters. Lengthen the term of office so that the man can turn his attention to something else when he gets in besides looking after his re-election. There is another defect we must remedy in our Constitution, in my judgment, and that is as to the mode of electing a President. I believe it of the greatest importance that the Executive should be entirely independent of the legislative and judicial departments of the country. I do not believe that Congress should have the right to create a vacancy which it can fill. I do not believe that the Senate of the United States, or the lower house of Congress, by a simple objection, should have the right to deprive any State of its electoral vote. Our Constitution now provides that the electors chosen in each State shall meet in their respective States upon a certain day and there cast their votes for President and Vice-President of the United States. They shall properly certify to the votes which are cast, and shall transmit lists of them, together with the proper certificates, to the Vice-President of the United States. And it is then declared that upon a certain day in the presence of both houses of Congress, the Vice-President shall open the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. It does not exactly say who shall count these votes. It does not in so many words say the Vice-President shall do it, or may do it, or that both houses of Congress shall do it, or may do it, or that either house can prevent a count of the votes. It leaves us in the dark, and, to a certain degree, in blindness. I believe there is a way, and a very easy way, out of the entire trouble, and it is this: I do not care whether the electors first meet in their respective States or not, but I want the Constitution so amended that the electors of all the States shall meet on a certain day in the city of Washington, and count the votes themselves; to allow that body to be the judge of who are electors, to allow it to choose a chairman, and to allow the person so chosen to declare who is the President, and who is the Vice-President of the United States. The Executive is then entirely free and independent of the legislative department of Government. The Executive is then entirely free from the judicial department, and I tell you, it is a public calamity to have the ermine of the Supreme Court of the United States touched or stained by a political suspicion. In my judgment, this country can never stand such a strain again as it has now. Now, my friends, all these questions are upon us and they have to be settled. We cannot go on as we have been going. We cannot afford to live as we have lived--one section running against the other. We cannot go along that way. It must be settled, either peaceably or there must again be a resort to the boisterous sword of civil war.