HOWTHE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
CAME TO BE
As they do every four years, pundits and newscasters again are explainingwhywe choose a president in the peculiarwaywe do. By now, our customary amnesia has set in. Millions of Americans voted for president onNov. 3, but it is the 538 electors in the 50 states and the District of Columbia who will decide the race when they cast their ballots on Dec. 14. The contemporary mantra “one man, one vote” doesn’t apply. Here is why.
At the ConstitutionalConvention of 1787, therewas limited sympathy among the Founders for allowing the average citizen to vote for president.
GeorgeMason, a Virginia delegate, considered a president elected by popular vote to be a recipe for disaster. He believed “itwould be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief magistrate to the people as itwould to refer a trial of colors to a blind man,” according to notes from the convention.
Instead, the delegates created what came to be called the Electoral College — a college without students, faculty or a campus. A group of elites, it meets only once, in discrete groups, and then vanishes.
ButMason didn’t like that electoral approach either, calling the Electoral College “a mere deception.” Decades later, Thomas Jeffersonwould refer to it as “the most dangerous blot in our constitution system, and one which some unlucky chance will some day hit, and give us a pope and antipope.”
Jefferson’s reaction reflected his own experience with it. In the drawnout election of 1800, with no candidate receiving amajority in the Electoral College, the decision fell to theHouse of Representatives, where after numerous roll calls, Jeffersonwon out over running mate Aaron Burr.
Therewas a similar outcry over the Electoral College after the election of 2016 when Hillary Clintonwon the popular vote, but Donald Trumpwon the electors’ votes and the White House.
But let’s give those who wrote the Constitution a chance to explain their decision-making.
The Tribune’s archives don’t go back that far, but JamesMadison, a Virginia delegate, knew hewas witnessing history in the making and recorded it in detail.
“I chose a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members onmy right and left hand,” Madison recalled. “In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted … what was read fromthe Chair or spoken by the members.”
Thanks toMadison’s journal, readers can share the sense of urgency delegates brought to the Statehouse in Philadelphia.
The economywas in free fall. In response to a debt crisis, state governments had printed money by the basketful, thereby debasing the currency. Massachusetts’ debtorswere in armed rebellion. The Articles of Confederationwere failing to provide the central governance our fledgling nation needed to survive.
On the fifth day of the convention, delegate Edmund Randolph, Virginia’s governor, stepped forth to propose solutions that included a strong national government. “He… commented on the difficulty of the crisis and the necessity of preventing the fulfillment of the prophecies of the American downfall,” Madison noted.
Subsequent sessions sawendless wrangling over dealing with the crisis. Amid the squabbling, one thingwas clear: The British and the Spanish were poised to pick up the pieces should the American experiment fail.
As our nationwas then constituted, the office of president didn’t exist. The convention had to create it.
As Great Britain’sHouse of Commons determines the prime minister, somewondered: Why not have our House of Representatives choose the president?
A Pennsylvania delegatewas adamant that, if Congresswere to have any role, it shouldn’t be theHouse, the larger branch.
The delegate, GouverneurMorris, “said the Senatewas preferred because fewer could then, say to the President, ‘You owe your appointment to us,’ ” Madison noted.
LutherMartin ofMarylandwanted aminimalist central government: Its function should be to preserve the state governments, not to govern anyone directly.
“Thiswas the substance of a speech whichwas continued more than three hours,” Madison wrote. “Hewas too much exhausted, he said, to finish his remarks and reminded the house that he should tomorrowresume them.”
It’s hardly surprising that the convention decided to postpone a decision on the presidency until other questionswere resolved.
On the contentious issue of counting slaves, for example, Southern delegates insisted they be included in the census thatwould determine how many seats a statewould have in the House of Representatives. But some Northerners thought slavery morally repugnant.
“He neverwould concur in upholding domestic slavery. Itwas a nefarious institution,” Madison reportedMorris saying.
“Religion and humanity” didn’t factor into this question, said John Rutledge of South Carolina.
Rutledge and other Southern delegates threatened to leave the convention, but both sides gave up ground. The South agreed that a smaller fraction of its slaveswould count. The North agreed to not interferewith the slave trade for the immediate future. Race relations are still haunted by this compromise.
The convention handed off the presidency issue to a committee on unfinished business, which made its recommendations early in September, the final month of the convention.
“This subject has greatly divided theHouse, and will also divide the people out of doors. It is in truth the most difficult of all on whichwe have had to decide,” said JamesWilson, of Pennsylvania.
He liked the idea of electors meeting in the capitals of their states, a proposal floated months earlier.
If electors get to decide who becomes president, they should all meet together, Richard Spaight, ofNorth Carolina said. Spaight proposed “that the electors meet at the seat of the general government.”
Morris tookWilson’s side, according toMadison’s notes: “As the electorswould vote at the same time and throughout theU.S. at so great a distance fromeach other, the great evil cabalwas avoided. Itwould be impossible, also, to corrupt them.”
The convention agreed, and thus it came to pass that our presidents ultimately are chosen by an Electoral College whose members meet in their respective state capitals to vote. The transitory nature of the college insulates it fromthe horse-trading endemic to legislative bodies.
Each state then sends its results to the Senate president. If the results are inconclusive, theHouse of Representatives is on hand to conduct a vote before the system can be gamed.
Each state’s number of electors is equal to the total of its senators and representatives. The Constitutional Convention left the manner of the electors’ selection up to the states.
Shortly after theU.S. Constitution was adopted, the French abolished their monarchy. Since then, France has had a republic, an empire, a restored monarchy, a second republic, a second empire and three more republics.
Our Constitution, with its muchmaligned Electoral College, is still with us.
Benjamin Franklin had a hunch about that on Sept. 17, 1787, when the Constitutionwas signed. He casually pointed to a painting of the sun on the back of the chair GeorgeWashington sat in while presiding over the convention.
“I have said he, often and often in the course of this session, … looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether itwas rising or setting,” Madisonwrote, referring to Franklin’s remarks.
“But now, at length, I have the happiness to knowthat it is a rising and not a setting sun.”