A Year With George Washington
January 7, 1789 – Congress sets this day as the date by which states are required to choose electors under the Constitution for the United States’ first-ever presidential election. George Washington, as envisioned, was elected handily.
Every four years in this great country of ours, we are reminded yet again of the prescient wisdom of our founding fathers. The Electoral College, our Constitutionally mandated but arcane system by which we elect the President of the United States, is one such example.
Some believe that we should abolish it in favor of a simple majority rules vote.
Each time, one party suffers an ignominious defeat (it has happened just five times in our 250-year history, there are feverish calls to discard the system in favor of majority rule (pure democracy).
The founders, particularly those who drafted the Constitution, were terrified of instituting democracy as a form of government. So much so that nowhere in any founding document is the word democracy once uttered – not in the Declaration of Independence, nor in the Constitution, nor even in any of the fifty states’ founding documents.
If one takes a weekend to read James Madison’s Notes on The Constitutional Convention, one discovers that the election of the president was one of, if not the most debated question in Philadelphia.
On June 9th, 1787, the delegates voted down a motion that provided the president would be elected by the state governors owing to fears that the president would be beholden only to the state executive and not the people. Nine days later, Alexander Hamilton stunned the delegates with a proposal to have the president serve for life, which was summarily rejected, as it smacked of the monarchy that they had just fought a bloody war to cast off.
A month later, on July 17th, the delegates agreed that the president should be elected by the legislature. And yet, many of the delegates were concerned that if the president were to be elected in this way, it would corrupt the separation of powers, as he would find it much more profitable to curry favor with those most powerful in the legislature rather than serve the needs of the people. They thus rescinded their vote and subsequently agreed that the election of the president should be chosen by state electors.
A week later, on June 24th, the delegates changed their position yet again and reverted to the election of the president being voted on by the legislature, but the fears and objections remained.
Finally, on August 24th, 1787, the delegates formed a body called the Brearly Committee, on which James Madison served, to debate all the various methods for electing the president. They rejected all other schemes and settled on the Electoral College, whereby both the states and the people decided who would lead them. The Electoral College was thus memorialized in the Constitution.
The founders, like us, were flawed human beings. Yet, they were also learned men and were well-acquainted with the history of the world. Each had studied the fall of the great societies of Greece and of Rome and knew that the tyranny of the majority (popular vote) was the root cause of the destruction of both. John Adams, in a letter to John Taylor stated his case well;
“Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious… It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty. When clear Prospects are opened before Vanity, Pride, Avarice or Ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate Phylosophers and the most conscientious Moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves, Nations and large Bodies of Men, never.”
The Electoral College, built with the safeguards of a true republic, may ruffle a few feathers every fifty years or so, but that is a small price to pay to avoid the ultimate fate of Greece or Rome.
Even Alexander Hamilton agreed. In Federal Paper no. 68, writing of the Electoral College, he penned, “I venture somewhat further; and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”
