evidence: Senators were originally chosen by state legislatures, but that process began to break down in the 1850s. "Intimidation and bribery marked some of the states’ selection of senators," with forty-five deadlocks in twenty states between 1891 and 1905. In 1899, in fact, "problems in electing a senator in Delaware were so acute that the state legislature did not send a senator to Washington for four years." In order to "remove control of government from the influence of special interests and corrupt state legislators," reform came with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913, which provided for the direct popular election of Senators.