The Electoral College

The Founders feared that direct election of the Republic’s Chief Magistrate from a group of candidates—who probably would be unknown to most voters—was fraught with potentially evil consequences. Before they could consider how to elect a President, however, they had much more difficult issues to resolve—issues involving representation, direct or indirect voting, and the structure of the new legislature itself.

The Great Compromise

The Constitutional Convention came close to foundering because the Founders could not agree on:

• Whether the Legislative Branch would be unicameral or bicameral.
• How States would be represented in the Legislative Branch.
• Whether the delegates could only consider modifications to the Articles of Confederation or could draft a new governing document.

The Articles of Confederation basically made the national government so weak and beholden to the states that it could not govern in any way. Madison and his supporters (including George Washington) were committed to establishing a strong, truly national government by removing any direct influence on its actions by  individual States.

This was completely unacceptable to small states, such as New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, The New Jersey Plan offered by William Paterson included a unicameral legislature where each State had one vote, period.

The large states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) rallied to the Virginia Plan, proposed in the Convention by Edmund Randolph but authored or heavily edited by James Madison. Madison proposed a bicameral legislature whose membership, in both houses, would be proportional based on the populations of the States. Madison also proposed that the Congress would have to power to veto state laws—he wanted this power to avoid a tyranny of the majority and to prevent the domination of the national legislature by private or sectional factions.

Both the Virginia and the New Jersey plans included an Executive and a Judicial Branch, which were not included in the Articles of Confederation.

Just when it seemed that the smaller states would abandon the Convention, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth offered what has become known as The Great Compromise. When Madison signaled his acceptance, the Compromise was adopted:

• States would be equally represented in the upper legislative chamber (Senate) regardless of State population.
  • Senators would serve six-years so that their terms would be greater than that of the State legislators who elected them to office.
• Representatives in the lower chamber (The House of Representatives) would be apportioned by State population.
  • Representatives would be elected directly by the voters in their States within districts established by the States.
  • Enslaved males would be counted within the State population using the now-infamous ³⁄₅ Rule.

Election of the Chief Magistrate remained a very thorny problem

For the first time, voting in by the Electors of each State was broadcast across the major television media organizations in December, 2020. Why? Certainly not for reasons cited by the Founders who drafted our Constitution in 1787.

Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers: No. 68, explained the reasoning and debate leading to the use of Electors to indirectly elect the U.S. President:

It was desirable that the sense of the people [emphasis added] should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to [persons] chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

…A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder…

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption…They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment…No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors…

Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice. [emphasis added]

In Other Words

The Founders accepted that voters in each State were best informed of the character, integrity, and capabilities of those who from amongst them they would elect to serve their interests in the new government, once they determined how Representatives and Senators would be selected. But they feared that the direct election of the Republic’s Chief Magistrate from a group of candidates—who probably would be unknown to them—was fraught with potentially evil consequences:

• State legislatures would select a weak leader who would sacrifice the national interests for those of his state or a faction of states.
• New York argued for direct election by those in the states who were enfranchised.
• Southern states were concerned that their interests would be compromised since their apportionments were affected by the number of enslaved, non-voting males in their populations.
• George Mason worried that “[t]he extent of the Country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the Candidates.”

Consider This…And This…

1. First, no other nation known to the Founders elected its Head of State.
2. Each of the Founders was recently involved, in combat or as leaders in their States or the Continental Congress, in the Revolution to expel their former Monarch and the powerful Colonial governors whom he appointed and who were accountable only to him.
3. Few among the Founders desired for the establishment of political parties and most were concerned about how such parties would accrue and use, or abuse, political power.
4. Although they had set the structure of the new government—a government not yet ratified by the States—no one was certain how that government would actually function on a daily basis.
5. No national election had been held; there was no means to “vet” candidates for national office as we have today.
6. Newspapers of the day functioned similarly to today’s individual blogs and social media—content was developed and published by individuals based on their own perspectives and biases.
7. States defined the suffrage: not all free men held the franchise.

The Founders referred this matter to a “Grand Committee on Postponed Questions”, voted their approval of the Committee’s recommendations, affixed their signatures to the new proposed Constitution, and left Philadelphia.

Note: The advent of political parties created new problems regarding the election of a President and Vice President. These were resolved by the adoption of the 12th Amendment in 1804.