The Charlotte Journal

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.

Correspondence of the Baltimore Patriot.

Annapolis, Oct. 13, 1836.

Several of the Electors left town this morning for Baltimore, and others are expected to go off to-morrow. There will not, I understand, be a full meeting again until the 16th of November, when something definite will be done. A portion of the members will remain here until that time, adjourning from day to day, to keep up the College.

Various speculations are afloat here as to the proper course to be pursued in the event of the ultimate refusal of the factious minority to form a quorum of the College. Some think that the twenty-two have the right to make the Senate without the concurrence of the others. Others suppose that the College has the inherent right to protect its own existence, and that the duty of those who have attended for the performance of their constitutional duty, is to issue writs of election to fill the vacancies of those who have refused to act. The most prevailing and best supported opinion, however, seems to be that in the event of failure on the part of the College to elect a Senate, by reason of the non-attendance of the constitutional quorum, or from any other cause, the old Senate holds over until a new one supersedes it. The adherents of the last course argue that the constitution intended to convey all the powers necessary for its own preservation—that there is no express limitation to the term of the Senate other than the appointment of a superseding Senate—that the constitution stipulates that it shall not be altered or abolished in any other manner than that which it self points out: That this provision of the constitution will be annulled if its alteration or abolition be permitted in the manner recommended by the factious minority of electors, and finally, that great principle of salus reipublicae justifies that position, for the purpose of preventing the destruction of the constitution in a violent, lawless and revolutionary manner. What is to be the result of the crisis it is beyond my wit to prophecy. All that I can say is, and every Maryland patriot will join heartily in the ejaculation—'God send the good old State of Maryland a safe deliverance from all her troubles.'