by
At
the
Constitutional Convention in 1787 the
framers
established a federal government with sufficient power to ensure
ordered liberty, but with a host of limitations on its power. Since
history had proven that democracies all eventually failed they
decided on a republican form for this new nation. Power
was divided between the federal government and the states, and
federal power was divided among three branches that would each check
encroachments by the others. They set up a bicameral legislature, one
for the populace and one for the states as individual entities. To
further diffuse federal power and eventually drafted a Bill of Rights
to expressly guarantee civil liberties against government intrusion.
Later
in the convention, a committee formed to work out various details
including the mode of election of the president, including final
recommendations for the electors, a group of people apportioned among
the states in the same numbers as their representatives in Congress,
but chosen by each state "in such manner as its Legislature may
direct." Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 68 laid out what
he believed were the key advantages to the Electoral College. The
electors come directly from the people and them alone for that
purpose only, and for that time only. This avoided a party-run
legislature, or a permanent body that could be influenced by foreign
interests before each election. Hamilton explained the election was
to take place among all the states, so no corruption in any state
could taint "the great body of the people" in their
selection. The choice was to be made by a majority of the Electoral
College, as majority rule is critical to the principles of republican
government. Hamilton also argued that since no federal officeholder
could be an elector, none of the electors would be beholden to any
presidential candidate. This
would alleviate the
fears if the president were chosen by a small group of men or
factions,
as well as concerns for the independence of the president if he were
elected by the Congress.
This
was monumental because once
the Electoral College had been decided on, several delegates,
including
James
Madison, openly recognized its ability to protect the election
process from cabal, corruption, and faction. In The
Federalist Papers,
James Madison explained his views on the selection of the president
and the Constitution. In Federalist No. 39, Madison argued the
Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and
population-based government. Congress would have two houses: the
state-based Senate and the population-based House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, the president would be elected by a mixture of the two
modes.
The
framers understood that
direct
democracies cannot effectively protect personal rights and have
always been characterized by conflict. One
of the strongest arguments in favor of the Constitution is the fact
that it establishes a government capable of controlling the violence
and damage caused by factions. Madison
defined
a faction as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a
majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by
some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights
of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the
community." Factions
are
groups of people who gather together to protect and promote their
special economic interests and political opinions. Given the nature
of man, factions are inevitable. As long as men hold different
opinions, have different amounts of wealth, and own different amount
of property, they will continue to fraternize with people who are
most similar to them. The causes of factions are thus part of the
nature of man and we must deal with their effects and accept their
existence. The government created by the Constitution controls the
damage caused by such factions.
The
framers established a representative form of government, a government
in which the many elect the few who govern. Democracies cannot
possibly control factious conflicts. This is because the strongest
and largest faction dominates, and there is no way to protect weak
factions against the actions of an obnoxious individual or a strong
majority. Democratic forms of government are also vulnerable to mass
prejudice, the so-called tyranny of the majority and the deadly power
of their opinion.
“The
Electoral College is a very carefully considered structure the
Framers of the Constitution set up to balance the competing interests
of large and small states,” writes Hans von Spakovsky, a former
member of the Federal Election Commission. “It prevents candidates
from wining an election by focusing only on high-population urban
centers, the large coastal cities, while ignoring smaller states and
the more rural areas of the country — the places that progressives
and media elites consider flyover country.” Were
it not for the Electoral College, presidential candidates could act
as if many Americans don’t even exist. They could simply campaign
in a small handful of states with big populations and ignore everyone
else. Who would care what the people in Iowa think? Or Wyoming? Or
any number of other states with smaller populations? The people in
“flyover country” don’t get enough attention as it is, but
without the Electoral College, they’d be completely at the mercy of
the majority.
The
Founders of this nation understood that democracy was important, but if you didn't
filter it through a republican system you would eventually end up
with a tyranny of the majority. The Founders recognized that the
nation needed some procedural safeguards to protect its longer term
interests from its short-term heated arguments of the day. Calls for removal of the Electoral College by those who the college was set up to protect us from should be demonized as it would be the beginning of the end of this great republic. Perhaps
such self-discipline accounts for the fact that ours is still the
oldest active constitution in the world.It is the work of combined genius.
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