42 MARYLAND.

wenty-five votes of the one state, and the-
twenty eight of the other, all tell in the gene-
ral election, and each of those large states are
considered as having the scales in their own.
hand. Maryland, which by the same method
of choosing electors, would be equal to about
half the weight of Virginia in the election, has
had in fact seldom more than one twentieth part
of her weight in the election, in consequence of
persevering in the district system. It remains
to be determined by Maryland statesmen, whe-
ther, with a knowledge derived from the late
vote of congress, that the larger states will not
abandon the advantage ground on which they
stand, it would be wise in this state to continue
to adhere to a mode of choosing electors, which
so materially detracts from her real political
consequence, or whether a sense of their own
interest will not induce, however reluctantly, a
change, by which her federal numbers will tell
for their full value, and by which, instead of re-
maining one of the last states, or the very last,
as she has repeatedly been, in political weight, in
a choice of the executive, she will take her sta-
tion amongst the larger states,as her population
entitles her to do.

Facts afford the best illustration of this sub-
ject. Compare the political weight of the state
of Maryland, actually operating in the contests
for choosing the executive of the nation hereto-
fore, with the weight of the small state of Dela-
ware, which elects electors by legislative