Daily National Intelligencer

TO THE EDITORS.

New-York, December 24

Gentlemen--I am no professed constitution mender; and would rather suffer a little inconvenience from the Constitution, as it now is, than to be perpetually altering it. But, as Congress are debating on the subject of altering the mode of electing President, (doubtless on account of the serious evils attending the existing laws on that subject) I take the liberty of sending you a plan which I have heard suggested, and which appears to me far preferable, and more equitable, than even Mr. Pickens' proposition.

1. The number of electors to which a state is to be entitled to be regulated as at present.

2. At the general elections for Congress in each state, next anterior to the time when the new President is to be appointed, all citizens entitled to vote for Congress are to vote directly by ballot for President and Vice President of the United States.

3. The Candidates for President or Vice-President, who have the greatest number of votes, (not a majority of all the votes) throughout the state, to be entitled to the whole number of votes to which that state is entitled. For instance; in New-York, if a particular candidate has a majority over any other candidate, of one vote only, he is to be entitled to 29 votes.

4. The votes are to be canvassed by the same authority in each state that canvasses the votes for Congress.

5. The certificate of the votes to be sent to Washington, the same as at present; and the candidate selected by a majority of all the states, to be declared by the same authority, as at present.

6. If the votes of any state are equally divided between two candidates, so that one has not more votes than the other, the votes of that state to be lost.

This plan I have never heard suggested to any person but who conceded that, upon the whole, it was preferable to any yet suggested.

There is but one objection to it, which applies with equal force to all the other plans, viz. that as the general elections in the states are held at different periods, the result of the elections in some of them might be ascertained before all the States had voted, and thus a door be opened to intrigue--it being esteemed a fundamental point by the framers of the Constitution, that the elections for President should be simultaneous throughout the United States.

I answer, if this objection is got over in one plan, it ought in another; and that I would rather Congress should direct general elections for President throughout the United States simultaneously, than lose the benefit of this plan.

I have not time to detail the superior benefits of this amendment. If you approve of it, you will, I hope, make some remarks upon it.

Yours,

A CITIZEN.

[We publish with readiness our correspondent's letter. Our remarks he must excuse. Mr. Pickens' proposition is on the tapis now; and, that failing, we despair of the success of any other.]-Editors of the National Intelligencer.