The Founders Created the Electoral College to Prevent a Foreign-Influenced Candidate From Winning--It

[Judi Lynn]

Published on
Saturday, February 09, 2019
by Common Dreams

The Founders Created the Electoral College to Prevent a Foreign-Influenced Candidate From Winning—It Didn't Stop Trump, so Let's Scrap It
It's time to take another step forward in fine-tuning our republic and abolish the Electoral College.

by Thom Hartmann

America’s Founders and Framers thought they could use the Electoral College to prevent somebody like Donald Trump from ever becoming president. Unfortunately, they were wrong, and now we’re paying the price.

Given how the Electoral College hasn’t protected us from getting a president beholden to a (or multiple) foreign power(s) as president, it’s time to do away with it.

Most people have a pretty limited understanding of the Electoral College, but they know that it works against the democratic notion of the public electing its chief executive. There are organizations and a smattering of political figures who say as much. A recent poll indicates this, too.

What is not as well understood is the history of why it was chosen as the way to select a president.

It’s often said that the Electoral College was brought into being to perpetuate or protect the institution of slavery, and, indeed, during the first half-century of America, it gave the slave states several presidents who wouldn’t have been otherwise elected.

This is because there’s one elector in the College for every member of the House and Senate (and three for the District of Columbia). When the three-fifths compromise was in effect (until just after the Civil War), slave states had more members in the House of Representatives than the size of their voting public “deserved.”

This is why when Madison proposed the Electoral College, the Framers seized on it as a compromise/solution after weeks of drawn-out and often angry debate on how to select a president.

But, according to the Framers of the Constitution themselves, the real reason for the Electoral College was to prevent a foreign power from placing their stooge in the White House.

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/09/founders-created-electoral-college-prevent-foreign-influenced-candidate-winning-it

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

[JayhawkSD]

1. That is most certainly not the reason for the Electoral College.

The reason is that we are a federal republic, an association of states, each of which maintains a measure of self government, and each of which has a voice in federal government which is proportional to its population. That is how our legislature is structured for passing laws, and that is how the electoral college is structured for electing a president. The two things are completely consistent.

An election of the president by means of a national popular vote would be contrary to the fundamental basis of what this nation is.

The idea that the electoral college was for the purpose of supporting slavery and that "slave states had more members in the House of Representatives than the size of their voting public deserved” is utterly absurd. The population of states was not counted in terms of voting population, it was counted in total population, including women and children who didn't vote, and since slaves only counted as 3/5ths, the slave states were under-represented, not over-represented.

The 3/5ths compromise was adopted to cater to the northern, non-slave holding states to assure those states that the slave states would have lower representation that would be the case if slaves were fully counted, and that therefor southern states would present less competition to the northern states.

[czarjak]

2. Why are we the only democracy with an Electoral College?

[JayhawkSD]

3. Several answers.

a) Are you certain such is the case?
b) We are not a democracy. We are a federal republic. Each state within that federal republic is a democracy.
c) How many nations which you consider to be democracies are actually federal republics?
d) How many nations which you consider to be democracies even have a written constitution?

The answer to d), by the way, is zero. The answer to c) is very close to zero (I know of none, but a few probably are).

[dugog55]

4. Slave states

argued that there total population should also include slaves, which at the time were considered nothing more than property, like a horse or cow. Their population was pretty thin without the slaves, so they compromised and let the slaves count as 3/5's of a person. That alone tells you what they thought of them. So, with the slaves in the count, the South actually got more representation than they deserved giving them more political power than they should have had.

Even though the slaves were freed in the late 1860's, they still did not get to vote for over 100 years, and some still have to jump through hoops to be able to vote.

http://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

[JayhawkSD]

5. That's all very true.

But it's irrelevant in terms of the electoral college. The constitution was a document creating a federal republic allocating the manner in which states would divide the power of government. The national popular vote was concept utterly foreign to whole process of what was being done. They were not creating a national democracy, and that is not what we have today. They were creating a federation in which the several states would band together in common cause.

Women also did not vote when the constitution was adopted, but they were counted when determining the population. When determining how much power each state would have, southern states said, "Okay, women don't vote but are counted, so we want slaves counted too, even though they don't vote." That would give slave states more power in the national government.

Northern states said, "No way, slaves aren't people, so they should not count at all." That created the infamous "three fifths compromise" in which each slave would be counted as three fifths of a person. This was done to satisfy the north, because the north wanted slaves to not be counted as persons at all.

That paints a little different picture, doesn't it? The south wanted slaves to be counted as persons, and the north wanted slaves not to be counted as persons.

[yellowcanine]

6. "The south wanted slaves to be counted as persons" - only when it benefited them politically.

But in every other respect they wanted slaves to be counted as property. So it was really a hypocritical stance.

[JayhawkSD]

7. Yeah, I knew that was coming.

But it entirely beside the point that I was making. I was responding to the claim that the south "compromised and let the slaves count as 3/5's of a person." They were countering the north, which did not want them to be counted as persons at all.

Yes, the south was being political in their stance. What was the north being? The north was being just as political and hypocritical as the south, if not more so, because (to repeat) they did not want slaves to be counted as persons at all.

If the north's stance was political then they were saying slaves should not be counted so that the north would be politically advantaged.

If the north's stance was non-political, then they were saying slaves should not be counted because they were not persons.

I am in full agreement with you that the position of southerners considering human beings as property was entirely wrong. You and I agree fully on that. But that is not the issue in terms of what is written in the constitution, nor is it what is at issue in terms of legislative representation or the electoral college. It is a red herring, drug across the trail to drag the discussion away from what is actually being discussed.

[yellowcanine]

8. It was a hyprocritical stance.

The default position in the south was that slaves were property, not persons. I am not defending the north, the principled position for them would have been to say that of course slaves were 100 percent persons and thus could not be property at all. The slaves as property is no red herring, it was the crux of the slavery issue in the Constitution. It is what allowed the Fugitive Slave Act to be upheld and led directly to the Dred Scott decision. It is also why it took a Constitutional amendment to outlaw slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was done under the authority of Lincoln as Commander in Chief. That is why it applied only to the Confederacy.

[JayhawkSD]

9. That you are not defending the north is kind of my point.

You are condemning the south for considering slaves as property, but you are giving the north a pass for not wanting them counted as part of the population. That is a hypocritical stance if one ever existed.

They are not property, they are people, but they should not be counted as part of the population, and you are entirely okay with that position taken by the north because you are entirely wrapped up in criticism of the south.

All of which is entirely beside the point of the original discussion, which is the reason for and purpose of the electoral college, and is the constant red herring that is dragged in to distract from the fact that those who oppose the electoral college for entirely emotional reasons cannot come up with any logical reasons why it should not exist.

[yellowcanine]

10. "the principled position for them (north) would have been to say...slaves were...persons"

"the principled position for them would have been to say that of course slaves were 100 percent persons"

How is that "giving the north a pass for not wanting them counted as part of the population?"

What I am not willing to do is give the south a pass just because they wanted to count slaves as persons for the purpose of calculating representation in Congress. Because of course, that stance is inherently at odds with treating slaves as property for the purpose of being able to own them and trade them.

The north was hypocritical, the south was hypocritical. But it was mostly the south who insisted on treating slaves as property for their own economic gain. Of course people in the north were heavily involved in the slave trade, which was not officially abolished until 1808, so there is plenty of blame to go around.

And to your point about this being "beside the point of the original discussion," of course it is not because the total population was used for both determining representation in Congress AND determining the number of electoral votes granted to each state. Thus the total population calculation may not be the only reason for the electoral college system but it certainly was one reason.

[JayhawkSD]

11. Keep flogging the irrelevant point.

Again, "treating slaves as property for their own economic gain" is totally irrelevant to the discussion of representation in Congress, or method of calculation in electoral college. It is even more irrelevant in a discussion of what form of government exists in the nation - national popular democracy, or a federation of states.

The United States of America is a federation of states. It is not, was not designed to be, and never has been a national popular democracy. The national popular vote carries no weight whatever in any aspect of the governance of this nation, and that is by design of the constitution which was passed by the states of this nation. That is basic to the fundamental nature of the governance of this nation, and how the south treated its slaves is in no way relevant to that fact.

The north wanted slaves excluded form the calculation of representation, while the south wanted them included. That was a political power discussion in its entirety and had nothing whatever to do with the moral position of slavery. It was a power play on both parts. If the north had been operating on moral principle it would have wanted slaves counted. If the south had been operating on moral principle it would have wanted slaves not to be counted. Neither side was operating on moral principle.

Because it was political rather than moral, their positions were reversed from what the moral position would have been. They were seeking to gain the upper hand in terms of political power. Injecting morality into a discussion that took place more than 200 years ago, a discussion in which morality took played no role, is sophistry of the worst sort.

I keep trying to make the point that I began with, that the nation is a federation of states, and that the electoral college is consistent with our form of government and the election of a president by a national popular vote is not, and the issue of "treating slaves as property for economic gain" keeps getting dragged in as a distraction and diversion.