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governed it are identical with those that operate today; of course, each new Congress draws up its own by-laws at the beginning of its biennial session, and the 91st would have done this, so that certain of the housekeeping techniques might have been altered but not the basic voting principles.
    In 1824 Andrew Jackson had nearly won the Presidency outright. He led by a large margin in both the popular and electoral votes, but since four candidates had fought the election, he failed to gain an outright majority of the electoral votes. Again the House had to choose a President. This time only one ballot was required, but it was a beauty. John Quincy Adams seems to have made a deal with Henry Clay, who had wound up in fourth place, whereby Clay would throw his votes to Adams in return for the post of Secretary of State. That was how it worked out, and Jackson, robbed of an election which should have been his, fulminated, “Was there ever witnessed such a bare-faced corruption in any country before?”
    When our Constitution was framed, most of the delegates appeared to agree with the estimate of George Mason of Virginia, who predicted that “19 times in 20” the final choice of the President would be made in Congress. But the results of House election have been so turbulent and untrustworthy thatfew today would recommend that we retain the procedure.
    A bizarre weakness of the plan is that with the House electing the President and the Senate the Vice-President—in its case, choosing from the top two candidates—the two could come from different parties, which in our system could create much havoc.
    It was against this background that I contemplated the possibility that the 1968 election might be thrown into the House. By mid-October there was strong likelihood that this would happen; certain polls and responsible newspapers even suggested that Wallace was going to finish in second place and Humphrey a poor third. As I have explained, I intended to do all I could to settle the issue in the Electoral College, but I saw good reason why my effort would fail. Therefore, the possibility of a House election was to be taken seriously.
    I hope that at this point the reader will study carefully Appendix D and construct for himself a list of the possibilities that could have emerged on election day, to produce an inconclusive result. The simplest contingency involves Illinois and Missouri:

    If Nixon had lost these two states, which he could have done with a swing of only 67,481 votes in Illinois and 10,245 inMissouri, he would have had not 302 * electoral votes but 38 fewer, or 264, which would have been insufficient for him to be elected. In other words, we came very close to a House election.
    Since it is traditional for the incoming Congress to hold the election, it would have been the political division of the 1969 House that would have determined whether Nixon or Humphrey would be President, so its composition must be kept in mind throughout the discussion that follows (see table on this page – this page ).
    Since 26 states are required to elect a President, and since the 21 regular Democratic states plus the 5 southern states that went for Wallace but which have Democratic majorities would add up to that number, it might at first glance seem likely that Humphrey would have won. However, this implies several assumptions that are not necessarily valid.
    Assumption 1.
That the five Wallace states would vote Democratic. It is true that Wallace controlled no House members by having them as announced members of his party and running on his ticket; but he did control their sympathies, and there might have been enormous profits either to them personally or to their states if they voted Republican in order to deprive Humphrey of a victory. On the other hand, these southern states appreciate the advantages that accrue to them when a Democrat is in the White House and they would not lightly throw away that leverage. I doubt that one can