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Independence via ineligibility
by Dr Nicholas Cole (npcole)
Cite as: Dr Nicholas Cole, ‘Independence via ineligibility’ in N. P. Cole, Grace Mallon and Kat Howarth, The Creation of the Electoral College, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 64.
The Creation of the Electoral College
(To read a specific commentary item, please click on its link.)
- The choice of the president in the national legislature
- Election by the people and the merits of election by Congress
- The 'chimerical' nature of election by the people
- The first idea of an electoral college
- A role for state legislatures
- Independence via ineligibility
- An accountable executive
- Concerns of the Committee of the Whole
- An equal voice for all states?
- A democratic magistrate
- The merits of popular election debated
- The problem of forbidding re-election
- A President for life?
- A summary of the difficulties presented by the creation of the executive
- The electoral college proposed for a second time
- The electoral college agreed to
- Election by National Legislature reinstated
- An element of chance
- Alternative modes of election
- The President to be chosen by the State Governors
- Madison's comment on various modes of election
- Committee of detail report
- The idea of an electoral college reintroduced
- The electoral college as a tool for the Separation of Powers
- Limitations of the Electoral College
- Ineligibility and the Electoral College
- Qualifications for Electors
- A role for the House of Representatives instead
- The final iteration of the electoral college
Commentary
If the executive magistrate were to be chosen by the legislatures, and especially for the term of seven years that had been agreed at this moment, then an alternative way to ensure that the magistrate did not become a creature of the legislative branch was simply to forbid re-election.
The concern of this proposal, again, seems to have been to ensure that the executive magistrate did feel true independence from the legislature --- and would, in fact, reflect a proper separation of powers by being a truly independent branch of government.
This proposal was clearly at odds with those arguing for a more accountable executive, whether that meant accountable to the national legislature or to the states. Democratic accountability, in the sense of a direct relationship with the people, does not appear to have exercised members of the Convention much at all at this stage.
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Approved for publication
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