WAM-20161115. Screenshot.
The Founders intended to place a brake on popular opinion alone by the choice of electors who might deliberate on the choice of a chief executive. This is merely one example of the numerous checks and balances throughout the Constitution that imprint it everywhere as a compact between states and as a representative democracy rather than a pure democracy based on population alone.
It also is true that with the rise of formal political parties, unforeseen by the Founders, the Electoral College ceased to function in one of its intended purposes, that of deliberation and choice apart from the popular vote by states.
However, stating that the Electoral College was a demand of Southern states and that the "infamous deal" of the three-fifths clause was part of this bargain to maintain Southern supremacy was in error. The three-fifths clause was offered not by a Southerner but by James Wilson of Pennsylvania and related primarily to taxation — that is, determining taxes to be paid to the federal government by the states based on population as a measure of wealth. In fact, reviewing the history of this clause and how the formula was arrived at demonstrates this. Counting slaves as three-fifths in fact decreased the representation of Southern states in the House of Representatives. Further, the Electoral College is a reflection of the constitutional compromise where one house of the legislative body is elected by population while the Senate represents the states in their equality.
Again, this compromise originated in the insistence by small states, regardless of region, to be equally represented. Had this been otherwise, would the New England states, whose population at the time was already less than the state of New York, have agreed to such a formula? Maryland, poised between North and South and whose role in the Constitution was frequently key, was one of the authors of this compromise, just as she was the originator of the non-establishment clause that guaranteed separation of church and state.
The states represent different interests, both regional and economic, and the Electoral College is an attempt to guarantee a national basis for the selection of a chief executive. The Constitution never could have been ratified without this essential compromise, and the difficulty of amending it is just another brake to be sure hasty and ill-considered changes are hard to achieve.
Whenever the popular and the Electoral College votes diverge, as they apparently do in this latest election, there is a focus on this "undemocratic" institution. But consider in this latest election how the very smallest change in votes in a few key states — such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — would have tipped the election the other way.
In a nation of this size, the percentage of difference between the two candidates is really miniscule; regardless of the fact that, mathematically, such a difference — about ½ of 1 percent in this instance — represents about 500,000 votes. Perhaps those disgruntled by the result of the election should reflect on their candidate's seeming inability to achieve a fuller turnout of their supporters or other flaws rather than immediately resorting to an attack on our political institutions.
It is quite possible for the states to require their electors to reflect their individual state's popular vote, but to abolish the system for a pure popular vote removes a protection for minority rights which is found repeatedly throughout the Constitution as we have it.
Would we truly want large regional majorities from the two coasts to alone choose our president? The system of checks and balances left to us by the Founders is the surest guarantee of protecting minority rights that we have. Elections come and go and parties rise and fall, but the Constitution survives. Let us remember that.
J. Craig Scherf of Duluth, MN - Historical researcher.
