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A President for life?
by Dr Nicholas Cole (npcole)
Cite as: Dr Nicholas Cole, ‘A President for life?’ in N. P. Cole, Grace Mallon and Kat Howarth, The Creation of the Electoral College, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 71.
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
Having removed the bar on re-election, the convention then considered a proposal at the other extreme, the appointment of a chief magistrate 'during good behaviour'---that is to say for as long as the holder of the office wished to remain, assuming he was not removed under the provisions for impeachment. Again, the desire to grant the magistrate 'independence' was the principle behind such a proposal. The phrase 'during good behaviour' was one principally associated at the time with judicial appointments.
This proposal failed, as did a subsequent one to re-open the question of the length of term without specifying any particular answer.
Approved for publication
None