In theory, the citizen who happens to be President of the United States should be relatively unimportant to the general public. The writers of the Constitution intentionally devised a system where most of the operations of the federal government were supposed to be enacted at a distance from the whims of the electorate. Deeply distrustful of mob rule, the framers originally gave the People only one avenue to have a voice: direct election of Representatives. Everything else—the judiciary, the Senate, the Presidency—was based essentially on a Philosopher Kings model, albeit quasi-elected Philosopher Kings, with lots of layers of checks and balances intended to prevent popular passions from poisoning the functions of government.
The United States is now 34 days into a bitterly partisan government shutdown. The cultish President is manifestly incapable of leadership, and the Senate is controlled by a party terrified of its own base. Together, they hold the country hostage .
Over the past 230 years, the United States Constitution has been amended only 27 times. (By contrast, the Texas Constitution has been amended nearly 500 times.) But two of those Amendments, the 12th and the 17th—though they seemingly alter the original text only slightly—have created profound consequences to the notion of good governance.
A Little History Lesson
The Legislative Branch
Under the original text of the Constitution, the House of Representatives “shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.” Art. I, Sec. 2. (Emphasis added.) The Senate, by contrast, “shall by composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years.” Art. I, Sec. 3. (Emphasis added.) In other words, the populace directly elected Representatives, while state legislatures appointed Senators. Because each Senator represents more people than each individual Representative, and thus wielded more power, the framers originally wanted to distance the people from the Senators, relying on the worthy men of the individual state legislators to make good decisions.
As either Hamilton or Madison wrote in Federalist Nos. 62 and 63, the Senate was intended to be a wiser body, filled with men of a more advanced age. Senators would naturally be appointed by each State’s Legislature: appointment was thought to be “probably the most congenial with the public opinion.” It also has “the double advantage of favoring a select appointment,”—that is, the appointment of a wise and judicious person—while giving the State a say in who is in the federal government. Distancing the Senate from direct election, and limiting Senators’ terms in office, created a check on a Senate’s natural tendency toward “a tyrannical aristocracy.”
The Executive Branch
The Senate’s forced distance from the populace extended to the process of installing the President of the United States, which, as originally conceived, better resembles corporate governance than democracy.
This method is known as the Electoral College, and it was, and remains to be, a mess.
The Real OG
It’s worth looking at the Electoral College’s original intent, even though we don’t currently use it as originally envisioned. As originally conceived, each State would appoint a number of Electors, “equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.” Art. II, Sec. 1. Thus, each State gets at least three Electors.
So far, so good. But then, things get really convoluted.
As originally conceived, each State’s Electors would meet, and vote for two people for President, essentially saying “this guy could be President, and this guy could be President, too.” At least one of the two people must be an inhabitant of a different State. Then they put that list together, along with the total number of votes for each, and they send it off to the President of the Senate.
In a joint session of Congress, the President of the Senate opens the lists and counts the votes. Whoever had the highest vote total, as long as it represented a majority of all Electors, became President. If two candidates received a majority of votes, but were tied, the House of Representatives would vote for one of them to become President. If no one earned a majority, then the House would consider the top-five vote earners and select a President.
Whoever came in second would become Vice-President. (If there was a tie for Vice-President, there’s a bunch of rigamarole, too.)
Trying to Explain the Electoral System
Hamilton, in Federalist No. 68, attempts to explain the Electoral College. It It wasn’t easy. The drafters believed that the election of the President “should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the situation.” In theory, a small number of these Electors “selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass,” (it should be noted that the framers probably intended Electors to be appointed by the States’ legislatures and not subject to popular vote concerns), “will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.” This withdrawn process was believed to be less apt “to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements.” Additionally, requiring the Electors to be “detached and divided” in their individual states, would theoretically shield them from “heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people.” It would also discourage voting blocs.
Making the Presidency reliant on Electors, rather than the populace, was seen as a positive development. “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.” In other words, he wouldn’t feel the need to play to a base.
This process, it was believed, “affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union.” In the drafters’ minds, “there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.”
The Electoral College as Nominating Mechanism
Apart from assuming that all Electors would indubitably select George Washington as the first President, it appears that the framers probably intended the Electoral College to operate as a nominating mechanism to send well-qualified candidates to the House of Representatives for the Representatives to vote on, and that most elections would be decided by the House. The only way the Electoral College really makes sense is if you look at it as a Board of Directors voting on a CEO, receiving nominees from branch offices. In other words, they did not think that there would be—once Washington left the stage—anyone who loomed quite so large, and therefore it would be rare if all the Electors across the individual states agreed on the same person receiving the majority of votes from the outset.
Like I said. Super convoluted.
But you can see that the original drafters went to great lengths to introduce checks and balances into the selection of the President, and they fully intended for the populace to be as distanced as possible from the selection of who would occupy the Presidency. In conception, the President, while important, should have no more an emotional tie to the populace than the CEO of Walmart or Apple. The President is supposed to run the country well, without worry of kowtowing to some sort of “base.” If Electors decide he deserves another 4 years, then he gets to stay in office. If not, it’s time for a fresh face.
The popular vote seemingly isn’t even a consideration in the text of the Constitution. The drafters intended Electors to make up their own minds and nominate the people who they thought would make worthy Presidents. Indeed, even in modern times, some Electors continue to cast votes on their own volition. In 2004, John Edwards received an electoral vote even though he wasn’t a formal candidate. And in 2016, Colin Powell received three electoral votes, while Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Ron Paul, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one apiece.
The drafters struck a delicate balance.
And one that very quickly went by the way-side.
It is notable that in all the United States’ adventures across the globe, we have never suggested that another country implement a similar system. In fact, we didn’t even run with the original version of it for all that long.
It may have been well-intentioned, but it was doomed to fail the moment a passion for anything other than the good of the country entered the picture. Hamilton himself, though he wrote floridly about all the positive and noble ways the Electoral College recommended itself, contributed to its downfall due to his well-documented quarrels with—and scheming against—various other founding luminaries.
The next post in this series will take up the small, but crucial, changes made to the Constitution—Amendments XII and XVII.
