POLI 309                                                                                                                             10/16/06

PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION: WHAT THE FRAMERS DID AND WHY?

            Article III of the Constitution was the last major component of the document that the framers worked on (during the last few weeks of the convention). While it is clear that most delegates wanted to create a national executive that would be constitutionally independent of Congress, they had great difficulty in agreeing on a design for the office and its powers — in particular, the term of office, mode of selection, and eligibility for re-election. Prior to the last weeks of the convention, the delegates had made — and then overturned, reinstated and overturned again — a number of decisions concerning these matters.

            Recall that, by this time, other fundamental aspects of the proposed constitution had been definitively agreed to, particularly the following:

(1)there would be a new national government with an expanded set of delegated powers to be exercised directly (through a national executive and court system);

(2)at the same time, state governments would remain in existence, independently exercising a broad array of powers;

(3)the Connecticut (or “Great’) compromise between the large and small states established a bicameral Congress with a popularly elected House of Representatives in which states had representation in proportion to their population (as specified by the apportionment clause [Article I, Section 2, paragraph 2]) and a Senate in which each state was equally represented by two Senators selected by its legislature;

(4)no national suffrage requirements were established and state laws would determine who would be eligible to vote in elections, including elections for the federal House of Representatives (with the proviso that each state had to provide for a House electorate at least as inclusive as that eligible to vote for [the more popular branch of] the state legislature]).

Also recall that in 1787, state constitutions typically provided for only a weak executive (i.e., Governor, though this term was not yet in general use), usually elected by the state legislature for a very short term. (The very recently adopted New York constitution was an important exception to this generalization.)

            The whole question of Article II and presidential selection was turned over to a Committee [“of Eleven”] on Postponed Matters, which ultimately produced a draft of Article II and proposed the “Electoral College” [the term does not actually appear in the Constitution] system for electing the President. The Committee’s proposal was accepted by the Convention with one amendment and placed in the Constitution.

                                                                                                                                           OVER =>

ASSIGNMENT FOR OCTOBER 18

Note. These are questions to think about — nothing to hand in.

1.         Do the reading assignments in Edwards on Ross, plus Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist 68 [on course web page].

2.         What was the “menu” of modes of selection from which the Framers might chose in deciding upon the manner of selecting the President? What were the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative modes of selection? How did the question of mode of selection interact with other questions pertaining to Article II — in particular, the length of the President’s term and eligibility for reselection?

3.         What differing assessments have been concerning the Framers’ selection system? In particular compare and contrast the (explicit or implicit) interpretations and evaluations of Hamilton, Edwards, and Ross.

4.         Make sure you can fully and accurately describe how the framers’ Presidential selection system (including selection of the Vice President) would work in all contingencies. You might work with these numbers: 13 states with a total of 65 seats in the House of Representatives (as given by the temporary apportionment specified in the Constitution [again see the Apportionment Clause]). (Note: these numbers were never actually used in a Presidential election, because North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the Constitution at the time of the first election in 1789 and the apportionment bill following the Census of 1790 expanded the size of the House to 120.)

5.         Consider the Framers’ system as an election method and consider how Presidential “election campaigns” would be waged under such a system. What are some of the most striking contrasts with the Presidential election campaigns we are familiar with today?