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Due to the number of people in recent years who have called for the abolition of the electoral college I was very interested in what Hamilton would say on the subject in Federalist No. 68. Imagine my surprise then when that paper opened with this:
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.
Even the opponents of the Constitution in 1788 felt that the electoral college system was praiseworthy. Of course, the electoral college today does not operate as the founders envisioned it back then. They planned a system where the people would choose members of the college to represent them in selecting the best person to become our president (and vice-president). Today the average citizen does not know the name of a single member representing them in the electoral college – we vote for a President and electors who have pledged to vote for the people’s choice (usually on a winner-take-all basis within each state) are assigned to officially cast the votes in the electoral college. no longer do the members of the electoral college deliberate on which presidential candidate will be the best for the nation – they simply vote blindly for the choice of the people if the people choose the same person they have pledged to vote for. In other words, we have already gutted the electoral college system and turned that element of our republic into a democracy while maintaining the weighted balancing between states that the founders sought.
Here is a description of what we have gutted from the process:
The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Perhaps instead of calling for the abolition of the electoral college we should be calling for the reinstatement of the electoral college.
13 replies on “Federalist No. 68”
Good observations. But let’s be realistic. The most strident populists during the constitutional debates failed to get everything they wanted. But time appears to be slowly giving it to them anyway, in one form or another. They have long had direct elector of senators. They clamor for direct election of presidents. I think that it is likely that they will eventually get that too.
As we become more a democracy and less a republic, we will take on more of the hellish hues of mob rule.
If we’re talking about realistic then you are absolutely right. If we are talking about what should we do from here the answer is that we need to do everything we can to stem the tide of simple democracy and we should never stop pushing for the republic embodied in the Constitution wherever we can.
What bothers me is that the considerations that PUBLIUS articulates for president are so absent in our political process. The public should have the same standards that are outlined for the electorate but the last election was a case in which there was very little examination of the sort that PUBLIUS describes.
I have been discussing this at Politico and I posted the following in response to a Mexican immigrant who described the “natural born citizen requirment” as ” a comma out of place”. Since my response incorporated Federalist Papers 64 and 68, I decided to also post it here:
The founding fathers made the natural born citizenship requirement for a reason,. it s essential that the president be of the character who will uphold preserve and defend and protect the principles upon which this country is founded. That is why PUBLIUS emphasized “a creature of our own”-. PUBLIUS felt that natural born citizenship is important measure for the security of our constitution .
PUBLIUS discusses the qualities needed in a president in Federalist Paper #64
· As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well as the State legislatures who appoint the senators, will in general be composed of the most enlightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to presume that their attention and their votes will be directed to those men only who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue, and in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence. The Constitution manifests very particular attention to this object. By excluding men under thirty-five from the first office, and those under thirty from the second, it confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment, and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism, which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle. If the observation be well founded, that wise kings will always be served by able ministers, it is fair to argue, that as an assembly of select electors possess, in a greater degree than kings, the means of extensive and accurate information relative to men and characters, so will their appointments bear at least equal marks of discretion and discernment. The inference which naturally results from these considerations is this, that the President and senators so chosen will always be of the number of those who best understand our national interests, whether considered in relation to the several States or to foreign nations, who are best able to promote those interests, and whose reputation for integrity inspires and merits confidence. With such men the power of making treaties may be safely lodged
In Federalist Paper #68 , Publius warns against the “desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils”. the requirement for natural born citizenship is a measure to protect that United States Constitution from a threat against our constitution from within. It is not a matter of “a comma that is out of line”. I hope you will reconsider your thoughts on this matter and understand that it was placed in the constitution as a matter of constitutional security. Your daughter can excel in many different feilds in this country.
You have much more faith in the general public than I do or than our founding fathers did. I think that they understood how small the likelihood was that the average voter would have the time, the interest, and the information necessary to make such an important and complex decision. They understood that the people would be much better able to make a more local decision such as who in their district might be most qualified to represent them in the decision-making process.
You clearly recognize that this was lacking in the last election, but I fail to recognize that it has ever been the case that the public has made a truly well-informed decision in national elections during my lifetime. Some years they have had better options and/or made better choices than others, but I don’t think the public has had a solid understanding about what their constitutional responsibility is, what the president’s constitutional responsibility is, or how this nation is supposed to function under the constitution for at least half a century now.
The electoral college is the senators and reps we elect casting their vote for president as their state has voted. They represent their constituants and should vote the same way.
Eliminating the Electoral college for something else will take away part of what makes the election of the president an election by voice of the people.
If you dont like it, keep your senator and reps in check, review things and write them!
That is absolutely not true. Senators and Representatives are specifically forbidden to be part of the electoral college:
The intention was not to ratify the vote of the people – the intention was that the people would not even vote for a president directly – they were to vote for a person who could study, deliberate and make an informed choice on their behalf.
If you think I want to replace the electoral college you completely misread me.
Regardless of how the Founders envisioned the election of the Chief Executive, they could not foresee everything. I believe that even Madison underestimated how strongly Americans would come to expect and demand more direct involvement in selection of their public officials.
Things worked much as anticipated for the first half a century. But the election of 1828 saw a significant change in the way the public viewed the election of the President. Until that time, our presidents were basically chosen by a pretty select group.
In 1828, the two main ‘parties’ discovered new power by appealing directly to the people. Andrew Jackson believed strongly that the people should have a greater say in the presidential election. Although he kept with the tradition established by Washington by refusing to personally campaign openly, both his supporters and those of President J.Q. Adams took public campaigning to an entirely new level.
Jackson (back for a rematch after losing after the 1824 election was decided by the House of Representatives) expressed his confidence in the people to choose for themselves. Americans appreciated this expression of trust and swept Jackson into office.
Americans’ attitudes about presidential elections have continued to evolve since that time. Candidates eventually began campaigning only from the porches of their own homes. Eventually they dropped all pretense of personal campaign restraint.
While most voters today understand that they are voting only to determine which candidate carries their state, most very definitely think they are voting for an individual candidate when they mark the ballot. They can’t imagine why they should trust some unknown elector with representing them in a decision they have come to view as intensely personal.
This is simply a piece of a larger trend where voters have little regard for checks and balances or anything resembling restraint. “Can’t afford” is a phrase that many voters cannot imagine connecting to government. (For that matter, many cannot imagine connecting it to their personal finances either.) Large swaths of the voting public do not see any logical limit to the appropriate scope of government, as long as the immediate point is to do something of which they approve. Politicians and courts increasingly go along with this view.
What SHOULD we do about this? Actually teach the Constitution every single year of K-12. Encourage provident living by individuals and governments. Unfortunately, many only learn to respect fire after they have been burned.
It sounds like Jackson realized that it would be easier to fool the entire population since they could not get a close look at the candidates than it was to fool a small body of electors.
What we need to teach is not simply the Constitution, but the principle of representative government and how it can improve the political process – then we might eventually hope that people might choose to return to that form of government.
I didn’t sy I had faith in the general public nor did I intend that the electoral college system should be replaced. I was lamenting that our own citizens fail to examins the candidates that they elect. Perhaps I should say that I wish the media could use the guidelines for the electoral college as a standard of reporting the elction process. I know this is not the case- All I am intending is to lament that Americans and our media do not set our standards higher. I consider it a priviledge to live in the United States. I wish we could give the system the attention it deserves wgich is the same attention PUBLIUS describes.
That is an intriguing idea to have the media use the guidelines for the electoral college as a standard of reporting the election process. I wonder if that would have any meaningful effect on our voting patterns.
The press strains to find issues. But the issues of every election, every year, to national office, US Pres., US Sen. and US Rep. are the issues that they must swear to uphold:
What is your six-point program to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
The people are not to be wise so much as the government is to be servant to them.
The danger is not in the people’s trust being temporarily mistaken, rather the threat to liberty is in the tyranny of government’s unchecked power over a long duration. The governors of a free people are to be held accountable by frequent elections.
Public trust can be awarded in an election for judicious policy considerations (issues). But it can also be by trust in a character (popularity), or impatience (throw the ins out).
Now it happens that political parties are not sinecures of the King in rotten boroughs of twelve voters electing an MP with equal weight as a burgeoning port city like Liverpool (or more than a continent of three millions).
American parties as they operate now are not the same animal condemned in the Federalist Papers; presidential electors selected in a slate by a political party are consistent with the principles of the Constitution.
I don’t have a six point program. Mine is a one point program – protect and defend the Constitution. Until we can consistently do that we have no foundation upon which to build anything useful.
I don’t see how a slate of electors that have already pledged themselves to a specific candidate can be considered consistent with the model of the founders of selecting electors who would deliberate among various candidates and vote on which they thought best qualified to serve the nation. The whole system has evolved into something different than the founders planned. The people no longer vote for who they thing will make the best choice, they vote for who they think will be the best choice.
The question never was “are the people wise?” The question was always “how can we reduce the choices to a level where the people can make an informed choice?”