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A role for the House of Representatives instead
by Kat Howarth (KatHowarth)
Cite as: Kat Howarth, ‘A role for the House of Representatives instead’ in N. P. Cole, Grace Mallon and Kat Howarth, The Creation of the Electoral College, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 80.
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
Though the Senate was originally set to make the choice of President if the votes of the Electors were tied, this was switched to the House of Representatives on a motion from Sherman. The House was considered to be more democratic and less 'aristocratic' (as stated by Mason), and therefore this choice suggests that there was a recognition that the election of the President should be as much tied to the will of 'We the People' as possible, whilst still respecting the concerns of some amongst the delegates that the people as a whole would be under-informed and easily swayed.
Approved for publication
None