If you’re going to defend this terrible holdover, defend it for the single reason, the monstrous reason, some delegates demanded it and others acquiesced.
It is documented in the original words of the founders as recorded by those who were there.
Matt Christiansen writes and records prolifically. I find him entertaining as hell. He is less an historian than a conservative provocateur, but he does represent much of today’s conservative thought. Here he defends the electoral college:
Pure democracy is not universally good. It lends itself to mob rule. It lends itself to tyranny of the majority. It rejects compromise and can silence minority interests. The Constitutional framers wrote critically of pure democracy. James Madison wrote:
In a pure democracy, a common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, [and] (sic) the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.
I don’t know why conservatives pick on poor James Madison to misrepresent so flagrantly, but they have been doing that since the late 1800s. Madison was not arguing in favor of a non-representative electoral system of choosing the President. In fact, he argued during the Constitutional Convention in favor of proportional representation at every level of the new republic. He was even against a Senate that would be based on the same number of votes for every state.
He was specifically opposed to an electoral system that was weighted against the majority of voters.
Although Mr. Christiansen does not say so, he is quoting from what we now know as The Federalist Papers, Madison’s Federalist 10. Madison is not arguing against a democratic republic in which all voters are represented equally. He is not arguing in favor of the electoral college as it exists now. He is arguing against the notion that government by legislature should be abandoned altogether in favor of town-hall type gatherings of all citizens who show up.
You know: pure democracy.
Seems a little impractical for a national government. But it was sometimes offered as the ideal governmental model. So he argued against a system of direct votes by all voters on all laws. That was because … how did that go? …
… have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.
Madison was in favor of representative government rather than direct government by assembly of whatever citizens showed up to vote on everything. Instead, he wanted citizens to elect representatives.
He was against factionalism. He was afraid of different economic interests ganging up on each other: textile firms opposing little craftsman type shops, or agricultural landowners being attacked by manufacturers. And he was especially afraid of religious persecution: Baptists outlawing Presbyterians, that sort of thing. For myself, I would have been okay with a national religion, as long as it was Methodist. After the last General Conference, I’m not even really sure about that.
That’s why he argued for a Bill of Rights.
Matt Christiansen does not concentrate only on James Madison. He brings in Alexander Hamilton. So did Hamilton really oppose proportional representation? Let’s check it out, shall we?
Mr. Hamilton was speaking to the New York Ratifying Convention in 1788. They were talking about how many representatives there ought to be. Hamilton said it did not matter as long as citizens were represented equally.
Some poor slob had mindlessly parroted that old saw about abolishing legislatures and letting all citizens vote all the time, all year around, on everything. That’s why good old Alexander Hamilton used that exact term pure democracy as he pretty much destroyed the fellow’s argument.
Here is how he began:
It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this.
And that is where Mr. Christiansen picks it up.
Alexander Hamilton said:
The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.
Yup he did say that. He just didn’t say it the way you say he said it, Mr. Christiansen.
In a similar vein, John Adams is quoted in a pessimistic warning about the fate of past democracies. Problem is Adams was not speaking about how to choose a President.
You get the idea.
So why do conservatives conflate “pure democracy” with proportional representation in a democratic republic, as if they were the same thing?
It is tempting to regard it as a clever sleight of hand. When arguments for safeguarding liberty, as in the Bill of Rights, are presented as arguments against representative government, or when a case for proportional representation is distorted into an argument against it, it may seem reasonable to ascribe it to simple dishonesty.
It is not always so simple. Matt Christiansen’s polemic against representative government closely aligns with what many of us were taught in American classrooms through the 1950s and 60s. It can be traced back to the dominant scholastic culture after the Civil War. Research takes a long time to filter into textbooks, and misinformation can take a long, long time to bleach out.
That original historical research by a small group of historians at Columbia University was led by Professor William Archibald Dunning. Plainly put, it seems to have been the patriotic trend in those times to interpret American history a little differently than reality. Let’s all pull together, let’s put the brutality of slavery behind us, let’s regard divisive ideas like equality as vengeance against the conquered South.
Above all, let’s look at the original debates as something a little more noble than they might have been.
Not all conservatives are so sensitive today. The former governor of Maine, Paul LePage, had a few words about a proposal that we move away from the electoral college.
Minorities are gonna well, actually what would happen if they do what they say they’re going to do, white people will not have anything to say.
It’s only going to be the minorities that will elect.
Well that’s … refreshingly blunt.
It’s a racial fear that goes with every advance in basic rights.
And LePage does have a sort of permutation of the original constitutional debate that Matt Christiansen overlooks. That oversight is understandable. Textbooks that were used to instruct my generation, and some that came after, sort of skipped over it.
There were notes taken during the original Constitutional Convention in 1787. Madison himself kept a careful account. During the debate on how to elect the President, there was only one mention of small states vs large states. Elbridge Gerry raised the point briefly. That’s the Elbridge Gerry for whom gerrymandering was later named. His point about small states was ignored and the issue was never mentioned again.
There was debate, to be sure, about how to choose a President. Slaveholders did not want a national leader making decisions that might end slavery.
So they had demands. One was that there be an system of electors chosen by states. Another was that each state be given two votes in addition to proportional representation.
The third was the killer. They wanted the number of slaves counted in while deciding how many votes each state would have. So, if half the population of a state was owned by the other half, that state would suddenly have twice as many electors as they otherwise would get. They eventually compromised that down, counting only 3/5 of the slaves.
Slavery was pretty much the only issue in how to choose a President. Nothing about the tyranny of the majority. Nothing about mob rule. Nothing about factionalism. Very little about small states and large.
It was about how to preserve slavery.
James Madison was explicit. He finally went along with what we now call the Electoral College. He said the racist element of protecting slavery was the only way he could see to get slaveholders to agree to the establishment of a national government.
Matt Christiansen and other conservatives do raise an additional point. They challenge the integrity of those who do not like the electoral college. We are just sore losers.
You lost the game, so you complain about the rules. And that’s mostly why I’m annoyed. I don’t buy these complaints as principled. I don’t think they’d be happening if their candidate won. I think these are sour grapes.
And we can see his point. Questions about voting rights have always been motivated by politics.
Those college kids who traveled the South in the 1960s registering people to vote, and who ended up buried up in earthen dams, the youngsters advocating for voting rights who were used to decorate trees, those whose bodies eventually were found in swamps in bayou country, those who were never found at all, were all just risking their lives for political advantage. Their struggle for equality should be forgotten by the rest of us, and would be except for politics.
I think we can do better. We don’t need to challenge the integrity of those who still think the electoral system was invented to prevent mob rule, or the tyranny of the majority, or to protect small states.
Some are trapped by the same educational moray in which many of us were taught.
They are guilty only of ignorance.
Others are entranced by what we now know to be original Constitutional intent.
White people will not have anything to say. It’s only going to be the minorities that will elect.
– More –
You lost the game, so you complain about the rules.
As if that made the objections any less valid. By this argument, losing candidates in apartheid South Africa should not have “complained about the rules” but just tried harder to win in a system that disenfranchised 80% of the potential voters.
And yes, the analogy is valid. There’s a difference of degree, but both are systems for entrenching minority rule. And given Republicans’ intensifying efforts to supplement the Electoral College with laws disenfranchising groups likely to vote against them, the difference of degree may be more a matter of time.
If you don’t have majority rule, then you have minority rule. How is that better?
Numbing their base with slogans has paid off.
As they spout, “Mob rule”, we need to be more emphatic with, “Demand Democracy”.
Fits on a bumper sticker.
Con-servatives love to assume they know more about history than others. Just ask one.
The reason this chapter in history is distorted, and NEEDS to be distorted by the Right, is because the Republican Party, and their owners, are openly antagonistic towards voter rights and fair representation.
They have been at war with democracy. Call it a coup if you like, but it’s been their cold civil war for decades.
“I don’t buy these complaints as principled. I don’t think they’d be happening if their candidate won.”
I don’t buy these defenses of the electoral college as principled. I don’t think they’d be happening if their candidate lost. See how easy that is?
It is necessary to appeal to rules or tradition or authority to get your way when you don’t have a convincing moral argument on your side. It’s no surprise, then, that conservatives are so inconsistent in how they justify their positions. One moment, we are to read the Constitution textually; the next, according to original intent. Madison, then Jefferson. Centuries-old traditions, then modern traditions. Jesus, then Rand. Whatever serves their interests best at any given time is what they use, yet they still consider themselves principled.
If we were to abolish the electoral college, it would require a constitutional amendment, as even Justice Ginsburg acknowledges, thereby making this nothing more than a hypothetical exercise.
That said, many of our founders understood the dangers of a nation run as a direct democracy. Further, as Hamilton noted in Federalist #68, the electoral college was “excellent” in its purpose and design in balancing small and large state concerns. It allowed for and appropriately balanced the necessary rule by the consent of the governed without having to worry about the tyranny of the majority.
Further, think what the ramifications would be for presidential elections if we were to somehow abolish the electoral college. Democrats would only campaign to shore up their bases in large population centers on the West coast and Northeast, while Republicans would spend their time only in cities in the South and Midwest. Large swaths of the populace would be ignored by either of both parties.
Overall, the electoral college has served our nation well. I think we would be opening Pandora’s box if we were to actually abolish it. As Madison and other founders noted regarding human history, democracies tend to kill themselves off through suicide.
“…it would require a constitutional amendment…”
There is a workaround: the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
“…many of our founders understood the dangers of a nation run as a direct democracy.”
Direct democracy refers to a system in which the people vote on each issue. Allowing the head of the executive branch to be chosen by popular vote is not the same. In any case, as Congress is already a non-democratic institution, it is not like changing how the president is elected would turn us into an actual (*gasp*) democracy.
“…as Hamilton noted in Federalist #68, the electoral college was “excellent” in its purpose and design…”
Never mind the role of slavery in its purpose and design!
More importantly, today’s electoral system is not the same as the one envisioned and set up by the founders. People were originally to vote for the electors, who would in turn vote for the president according to their own best judgment. It was also not intended for states to adopt the “winner-take-all” electoral strategy. Both of these are significant changes that totally undermine the original purpose and design. And if one purpose was to stop the worst sorts of people from becoming president, clearly it failed us in the 2016 election.
“think what the ramifications would be”
Yes, there are negative consequences. There are also negative consequences to the current system. We here believe that the consequences of the current system are worse. Electoral vote allocation is not even population-proportionate, so it amounts to an even more egregious political handicap for small states *in addition to* their disproportionate power in the Senate.
“…the electoral college has served our nation well.”
With only 2 recent instances of it affecting an election’s outcome (only 5 total) and both instances giving us a bad president, this claim is more than a little contentious.
“…democracies tend to kill themselves off through suicide.”
Let’s not pretend that our choice is simply between the electoral college of the US and unstructured democracy, between success and failure.
Ryan, here are some considerations from a conservative perspective regarding the National Vote Interstate Compact for your perusal: https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/02/27/effort-to-abandon-electoral-college-gains-steam-heres-what-it-would-ruin-for-america/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWm1KalpERXpZVGt3TW1GaSIsInQiOiJPd3pjQWE2dncyR3hRcEp5U09DcmV4QTJRSG4yd1hOWWJvYmhFK0hNYUlhcWFORGJMM1B2clwvbDk0c3RJa0FDU2MxcHhWNW1NUlRHSFJhWmtveXErUDArb0ZcL2pBK09sTFFMamRvNDBneFlhRVhiYVVHSzZRNGwzc3JyVkVpVGVXIn0%3D
From the article regarding this compact, “It would be the first time states potentially outsource their Electoral College votes to the will of the nation as a whole, rather than having elections determined by their own voters. The result of this, ironically, could be very undemocratic. For instance, if the people of Colorado vote overwhelmingly for a Democrat, yet the total popular vote of the nation goes Republican, all of the state’s votes would go to the Republican, essentially overturning the will of the people in Colorado.”
And yes, I acknowledge the role of slavery in its creation as accommodations to this evil were made in order to govern our nascent nation. Regardless, as Alexander Hamilton himself noted, this was one of the topics in the constitutional convention that was least contentious, despite abolitionists being present.
It truly was about representation of small states versus large states. Madison (VA – big state) originally proposed proportional representation in both the house and senate. Small states such as Delaware hated this idea. Paterson offered the New Jersey plan that said each state would get one vote. Big states hated this idea. Sherman offered the Connecticut compromise that we currently have with equal representation in the senate and proportional representation in the house. Of course, this was when compromise was still possible in our governing bodies.
And actually, if I am not mistaken, it was the state legislators that would vote for the electors, based on the votes of the people back then.
Your argument is subjective regarding “both incidents giving us a bad president”. While I held my nose and voted for Bush twice, I did not vote for Trump. Regardless, their was a significant number of voters that saw fit to re-elect Bush as there may yet be for Trump. Simply because you and I may disagree with whom is elected president does not necessarily make that person unfit or “bad”.
Last, based on history and many scholars far more educated on the topic than I am, I think electing the most powerful single person in the world to be our chief executive by a simply popular democratic vote would be very dangerous in the long run. You pooh pooh it, however, our often uniformed and ignorant populace tends to be swayed by trends and celebrity rather than cold reason and rule of constitutional law often times. Trusting to direct elections is how we end up with ignorant, corrupt, or grossly unqualified people like AOC or Tom De Lay in office.
“…essentially overturning the will of the people in Colorado.”
The will of the people of Colorado is expressed through their actual votes. Their will is not “overturned.”
“The result of this, ironically, could be very undemocratic.”
Since the president is the president of the entire country, the national popular vote *is* the democratic way of electing him. A winner-take-all, population-disproportionate system of electors who are not chosen by voters is absolutely *not* democratic — not even at the state level. Honestly, this sounds completely disingenuous.
“And actually, if I am not mistaken, it was the state legislators that would vote for the electors, based on the votes of the people back then.”
Further research on my part reveals that original practices were mixed, but it doesn’t really affect my point, which you ignored. We no longer adhere to the original design and purpose of the electoral college.
“Simply because you and I may disagree with whom is elected president does not necessarily make that person unfit or “bad”.”
Conversely, just because someone is elected does not mean that he is fit or good. But no one here is arguing that a president is bad because he disagrees with him. I disagreed with Romney and McCain, but I don’t think that they would have been disasters like Trump.
If I have to explain why Trump is objectively–*objectively*–a bad leader, president, and person, then I am not talking to a reasonable person.
“based on history and many scholars far more educated on the topic than I am, I think electing the most powerful single person in the world to be our chief executive by a simply popular democratic vote would be very dangerous in the long run.”
As I and others have pointed out, the electoral college has only made a difference 5 times — and not once did it save us from some menace. This means that the winner has almost always been the winner of the popular vote anyway, so your concern does not appear to be warranted.
Also, again, the president is not the entirety of the government. If we keep the Senate as it is, small states have quite enough of a political handicap to “balance” things out.
“Trusting to direct elections is how we end up with ignorant, corrupt, or grossly unqualified people like AOC or Tom De Lay in office.”
Why not eliminate all direct elections, then? If they are such a danger, perhaps we should abandon democracy altogether.
Mike,
None of us are convinced you’d be making your argument if Gore and Hillary had won with fewer votes.
It appears as if you had written your reply without reading the article. I’m not saying it was a canned response, but I can’t find one statement you are refuting or analyzing.
Did you see the discussion of “pure democracy” aka, direct democracy? This is a deflection. Winning the popular vote is the foundation of representative democracy. None of the founders claimed elections won by popular vote constitute “suicide” by any stretch. This is also deflection. Your points had already been refuted and you offered no rebuttal.
Further, as Hamilton noted in Federalist #68, the electoral college was “excellent” in its purpose and design in balancing small and large state concerns.
This is false. Nowhere in Federalist #68 did Hamilton mention presidential elections by electors were for “balancing small and large state concerns”. That imbalance was established in the Senate.
I suppose such deflections and falsehoods are necessary to provide the platform for the following opinion:
Overall, the electoral college has served our nation well.
Only if you are admitting a war based on lies that spawned ISIS, the Great Recession of 2008, and a crooked liar like Putin’s Puppet declaring the press is the “enemy of the people” are serving our nation well. The majority disagrees.
Ironically Pandora’s box has been opened by the electoral college.
Representative democracy and consent of the governed have been failed. It enables tyranny of the minority. As Jerry asked, “How is that better?” We understand why this question will be ignored.
The most important “ramification” of electing a president by popular vote is it reflects consent of the governed. This is the founding ideal in our Declaration of Independence. Tyranny of the minority is the antithesis of consent of the governed.
Hamilton’s outdated enthusiasm for an electoral college was a classic case of “paving the road to hell with good intentions”.
In 2016 Time explained:
Consider what Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper Number 68. The Electors were supposed to stop a candidate with “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” from becoming President. The Electors were supposed to be “men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”
They were to “possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations” as the selection of the President, and they were supposed to “afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.” They were even supposed to prevent “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.”
Hamilton was talking about demagogues.
Trump is that demagogue. How’s that been workin’ out?
It isn’t that the Electoral College has served us well. It is that the Electoral College has not served us at all. In the vast majority of presidential elections, the electoral college winner has been the person who also won the popular vote.
In other words, the Electoral College was useless!
The question comes down to, “Should the president who ideally represents us all equally be elected by the people equally, or should people who live in less populated areas of the country have more say in who is elected than people who live in more densely populated areas?”
Indeed, even with all their strange framing and twisted reasoning, there is no denying that real world result of our system. But arguing against equal representation just doesn’t sound as good, so they prefer to not acknowledge it.
Arguing against equal representation, like arguing for racism, needs to be wrapped in arguing for “original intent”.
The coded message is the same: “White people will not have anything to say. It’s only going to be the minorities that will elect.”
I wouldn’t reduce it to bigotry when there are many other factors also at work. I have no doubt that Republicans would still support the electoral college if minorities favored them and that current non-white Republicans support it too. The ever-growing “liberal menace”–anti-Christianity, anti-heterosexuality, anti-masculinity, anti-gun, anti-USA, pro-taxation, pro-spending, pro-deviance, pro-baby murder, etc.–is too great a threat for petty values like equal representation to get in the way.