It was during these years that the “thirteen colonies” became the “thirteen states.”
The writing of the U.S. constitution was a group effort. Approximately 55 delegates from the thirteen colonies gathered in Philadelphia from May to September in 1787. A broad spectrum of different political philosophies was represented in the intense exchanges of views. They debated and discussed the various details of a national government: one of the most complex political projects ever undertaken.
One of the many topics considered was the process by which the new country would choose its presidents.
The simple and obvious choice of direct popular election was quickly rejected and had few supporters. Such a system would mean that the votes of individuals who lived in smaller states would have little or no impact on selecting presidents. A candidate would need to win only a few of the larger states — far less than half of the states — in order to win the election.
If not a direct election, then how? One proposal was to let either the House of Representatives, or the Senate, or both elect the president. Another proposal was to let the thirteen state legislatures choose the president, as historian Sean Wilentz writes:
How, then, would the president be elected, if not directly by the people at large? Some delegates had proposed that Congress have the privilege, a serious proposal that died out of concern the executive branch would be too subservient to the legislative. Other delegates floated making the state governors the electors. Still others favored the state legislatures.
The method finally chosen, and the method which has been in effect for over 230 years, is the famous Electoral College.
Why was this process chosen? What were its real or perceived benefits?
One advantage of the Electoral College is that the formula bridged the gap between the large states and the small states, as Wilentz reports:
Instead of election by direct popular vote, each state would name electors (chosen however each state legislature approved), who would actually do the electing. The number of each state’s electoral votes would be the same as its combined representation in the House and the Senate.By including the number of senators, two from each state, the formula leaned to making the apportionment fairer to the smaller states. Including the number of House members leaned in favor of the larger states.
Although the Electoral College was a step toward justice, ensuring that all thirteen states would have a meaningful role in selecting the president, not everyone was happy with the idea. Slave owners opposed the Electoral College.
In the initial vote over having electors select the president, the only states voting “nay” were North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia — the three most ardently proslavery states in the convention.
Why did the pro-slavery states oppose the Electoral College? At first, some people thought that the Electoral College would actually promote slavery, because the slave-owning states had more representatives in Congress. But upon closer examination, it was clear that the Electoral College would ultimately undermine slavery.
Sean Wilentz continues:
When it first took shape at the convention, the Electoral College would not have significantly helped the slaveowning states. Under the initial apportionment of the House approved by the framers, the slaveholding states would have held 39 out of 92 electoral votes, or about 42 percent. Based on the 1790 census, about 41 percent of the nation’s total white population lived in those same states, a minuscule difference. Moreover, the convention did not arrive at the formula of combining each state’s House and Senate numbers until very late in its proceedings, and there is no evidence to suggest that slavery had anything to do with it.
Here’s where it gets complicated: some media reports alleged “that the slaveholding states” had “extra electoral votes” and “unfairly handed Thomas Jefferson the presidency in 1800-01.” But such reports “ignore anti-Jefferson manipulation of the electoral vote in heavily pro-Jefferson Pennsylvania that offset the Southerners’ electoral advantage. Take away that manipulation, and Jefferson would have won with or without the extra Southern votes.”
Whether or not the machinations of the election of 1800 are understood in their intricate detail, it became clear that the Electoral College favored the abolitionist cause. The fears of the slaveholders were realized: the Electoral College supported justice and supported the end of slavery.
The Electoral College helped anti-slavery President John Quincy Adams obtain the presidency. For this reason, pro-slavery President Andrew Jackson bitterly fought against the Electoral College.
The early president most helped by the Constitution’s rejection of direct popular election was John Quincy Adams, later an antislavery hero, who won the White House in 1824-25 despite losing both the popular and electoral votes to Andrew Jackson. (The House decided that election.) As president, the slaveholder Jackson became one of American history’s most prominent critics of the Electoral College, which he blasted for disallowing the people “to express their own will.” The Electoral College system made no difference in deciding the presidency during the 36 years before the Civil War.
While the Electoral College was an obstacle to the rabidly pro-slavery Andrew Jackson, the Electoral College proved a congenial route for Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.
