MERE ASSERTION AND REPETITION DO NOT EQUAL TRUTH. Sound decisions are based upon knowledge.
America began
as a backwater province of the British Empire.
But, after “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” the Colonies became
“free and independent states.” And then
they struggled to make the transition from a monarchy to a republic.
The Articles
of Confederation were inadequate in war, and there was no improvement in peace. The Constitution was written to address those
shortcomings. But, unbeknownst to some,
the transition from the Articles to the Constitution continues.
At the time of
the Convention, there was no way to reduce “the different qualifications in the
different States to one uniform rule.”
(James Madison, The Federalist
Papers, No. 52) It was an obstacle
that affected options regarding a matter voted upon over thirty times. How to choose the Executive was, said James
Wilson, “the most difficult of all on which we have to decide.” And the decision that was made created a
misunderstood, misrepresented, and misused institution.
The Electoral
College has two functions. They are
popular choice and national security. And
there can be no doubt about the first. For as Madison said at the Convention,
the Executive “is now to be elected by the people.” And as Alexander Hamilton later
noted, “The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the
people…” (The Electoral College by Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., 3 & 19 and
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers,
No. 69 respectively) Nor is the second a
mystery.
“Nothing was
more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to
cabal,intrigue, and corruption.
These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally
have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but
chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our
councils. How could they better gratify
this, than by raising a creature of their own to the Chief Magistracy of the
Union?” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 68)
“With all the
infirmities incident to a popular election, corrected by the particular mode of
conducting it, as directed under the present system, I think we may fairly
calculate,” said James Madison in the House, “that the instances will be very
rare in which an unworthy man will receive that mark of the public confidence
which is required to designate the President of the United States.”
“The original intention” is clear, as are the dangers when it is thwarted due to a hangover.
“The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptional part
of the Confederation…. Its operation
contradicts that fundamental maxim of
republican government, which requires that the sense
of the majority should prevail…. It may
happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the
people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be
persuaded…to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one
third.” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 22; emphasis
added)
In 2000 and 2016, there was a political
discontinuity—a misalignment of means and ends, a condition where
a minority rules the majority. Thus, the
exceptional part of the Confederation contradicted that fundamental maxim of
republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should
prevail.
The problem that could not be resolved at
the Convention has been removed. Now
there is a uniform standard because of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth,
and Twenty-sixth Amendments. A seed led
to conception and a long pregnancy to birth.
The
much maligned Electoral College is an idea whose time has come. Dust off the 1787 DeLorean and the National
Popular Vote* can jumpstart the flux capacitor.
Then the Electoral College can perform the two functions for which it
was designed—popular choice and
national security.
“One advantage of Electors is,” according
to Madison, “although generally the mere mouths of their constituents, they may
be intentionally left sometimes to their own judgment, guided by further
information that may be acquired by them: and finally, what is of material
importance, they will be able, when ascertaining, which may not be till a late
hour, that the first choice of their constituents is utterly hopeless, to
substitute in the electoral vote the name known to be their second
choice.” (LW, 180-181)
The focus on popular choice must not obscure the necessity of national security. The Electoral College is the final check on fraud, an institution that can suppress “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils...by raising a creature of their own to the Chief Magistracy of the Union.”
(c)2018 Marvin D. Jones. All rights reserved.
