The President and Vice-President of the United States are chosen by officials termed " Electors" in each State, who are, under existing State laws, chosen by the qualified voters thereof by ballot, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year preceding the year in which the Presidential term expires.

The Constitution of the United States prescribes that each State shall "appoint" in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress; but no Senator or Representative or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be an elector. The Constitution requires that the day when electors are chosen shall be the same throughout the United States. At the beginning of our Government most of the electors were chosen by the Legislatures of their respective States, the people having no direct participation in their choice; and one State, South Carolina, continued that practice down to the breaking out of the Civil War. But in all the States now the Presidential electors are, under the direction of State laws, chosen by the people.

The manner in which the chosen electors meet and ballot for a President and Vice-President of the United States, is provided for in Article XII of the Constitution. The same article prescribes the mode in which the Congress shall count the ballots of the electors, and announce the result.

The procedure of the two houses, in case the returns of the election of electors from any State are disputed, is provided in the "Electoral Count" act, passed by the Forty-ninth Congress.

The Constitution defines who is eligible for President of the United States, as follows:

No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of 35 years.

The qualifications for Vice-President are the same.

The "Electoral Count" act directs that the Presidential electors shall meet and give their votes on the second Monday in January next following their election. It fixes the time when Congress shall be in session to count the ballots as the second Wednesday in February succeeding the meeting of the electors.

The Presidential succession is fixed by chapter 4 of the acts of the Forty-ninth Congress, first session. In case of the removal, death, resig-naion or inability of both the President or Vice-President, then the Secretary of State shall act as President until the disability of the President or Vice-President is removed or a President is elected. If there be no Secretary of State, then the Secretary of the Treasury will act; and the remainder of succession is: The Secretary of War, Attorney-General, Postmaster-General, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Interior. The acting President must, upon taking office, convene Congress, if not at the time in session, in extraordinary session, giving twenty days' notice.