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Election by National Legislature reinstated
by Kat Howarth (KatHowarth)
Cite as: Kat Howarth, ‘Election by National Legislature reinstated’ in N. P. Cole, Grace Mallon and Kat Howarth, The Creation of the Electoral College, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 82.
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
Although the idea of an electoral college had been agreed only three days previously, here a move back to election by the Legislature was passed with only four delegations voting against it. Though there was debate on the motion and objections by Gerry and others, this switch suggests that at this point in the Convention the delegates were still extremely undecided between various possibilities for the election of the Executive. There was still no one plan which had convinced the assembled delegates, which allowed for this about face shortly after it seemed like an electoral college had triumphed.
The basis for this motion was concern amongst some of the delegates that those who would volunteer or be chosen as electors would not be capable of undertaking the task and responsibility of choosing a candidate for President.
Approved for publication
None