Thanks for sharing @LeslieEKern1 but unfortunately the criticism the Framers wanted the Electoral College to enshrine slavery is a remarkably absurd, ignorant & off-base take that is and has already been easily refuted.
Gang, hold onto this because that undeveloped line of attack will come up again as Democrats like Tim Walz, Gavin Newsom, Hillary Clinton, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez naively go after the Electoral College (& I’m an independent by the way). Even though it elected every Democrat going back to Andrew Jackson.
When the Framers voted on the proposal for the Electoral College during the Constitutional Convention, the Southern states, with a higher population of slaves, voted against it. (w the exception of Virginia). Northern states with a lower slave population, unanimously voted for the proposal.
The Electoral College in fact contributed to ending slavery, since Abraham Lincoln, after only earning 39.9% of the popular vote in 1860, won an overwhelming victory in the Electoral College—triggering many Southern slaveholders to stampede to secession in 1860 and 1861 and demand the abolishment of the Electoral College.
Also, when the Constitution was drafted, slavery was practiced in every state, and the number of slaves did not give the Southern states a particular advantage. According to the 1790 Census, New York and Virginia were the largest slave-holding states north and south of the Mason–Dixon Line. Both were abolitionist states.
The Framers were about something much more expansive. It’s narrow, wrong and jejune to think “it was all about preserving slavery” (a horrendous, evil system no doubt) many in the far left are in thrall to.
The Framers did not, in a nutshell, want the bigger, more populated states, states today like New York or California, to bully the smaller states. The same vivifying sense and vision of protecting the minority states that animated the Civil Rights movement.
In fact, the Framers of the Constitution did not anticipate political parties. George Washington's Farewell Address in 1796 included an urgent appeal to avert such parties. He and the Framers really envisioned a democratic republic, of, by, and for the people, protecting the will of all voters in states big and small. They did not want a bullying mobocracy or ochlocracy that a popular vote system would engender. I.E. Do the voters in other states really want New York or California dictating how they live?
The Framers felt choosing the president should reflect the "sense of the people" at a particular time, not the dictates of a faction in a "pre-established body" like even Congress or the State legislatures, and independent of the influence special interests—like slaveholders—or foreign powers.
As Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, the original intention of the framers was that the electors would not feel bound to support any particular candidate, but would vote their conscience, free of external pressure.
"No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices,” he wrote.
#ElectoralCollege @Tim_Walz @HillaryClinton @GavinNewsom @nytimes @FoxNews @FoxBusiness @EveningEdit @elonmusk @KamalaHarris @CNN
Gang, hold onto this because that undeveloped line of attack will come up again as Democrats like Tim Walz, Gavin Newsom, Hillary Clinton, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez naively go after the Electoral College (& I’m an independent by the way). Even though it elected every Democrat going back to Andrew Jackson.
When the Framers voted on the proposal for the Electoral College during the Constitutional Convention, the Southern states, with a higher population of slaves, voted against it. (w the exception of Virginia). Northern states with a lower slave population, unanimously voted for the proposal.
The Electoral College in fact contributed to ending slavery, since Abraham Lincoln, after only earning 39.9% of the popular vote in 1860, won an overwhelming victory in the Electoral College—triggering many Southern slaveholders to stampede to secession in 1860 and 1861 and demand the abolishment of the Electoral College.
Also, when the Constitution was drafted, slavery was practiced in every state, and the number of slaves did not give the Southern states a particular advantage. According to the 1790 Census, New York and Virginia were the largest slave-holding states north and south of the Mason–Dixon Line. Both were abolitionist states.
The Framers were about something much more expansive. It’s narrow, wrong and jejune to think “it was all about preserving slavery” (a horrendous, evil system no doubt) many in the far left are in thrall to.
The Framers did not, in a nutshell, want the bigger, more populated states, states today like New York or California, to bully the smaller states. The same vivifying sense and vision of protecting the minority states that animated the Civil Rights movement.
In fact, the Framers of the Constitution did not anticipate political parties. George Washington's Farewell Address in 1796 included an urgent appeal to avert such parties. He and the Framers really envisioned a democratic republic, of, by, and for the people, protecting the will of all voters in states big and small. They did not want a bullying mobocracy or ochlocracy that a popular vote system would engender. I.E. Do the voters in other states really want New York or California dictating how they live?
The Framers felt choosing the president should reflect the "sense of the people" at a particular time, not the dictates of a faction in a "pre-established body" like even Congress or the State legislatures, and independent of the influence special interests—like slaveholders—or foreign powers.
As Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, the original intention of the framers was that the electors would not feel bound to support any particular candidate, but would vote their conscience, free of external pressure.
"No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices,” he wrote.
#ElectoralCollege @Tim_Walz @HillaryClinton @GavinNewsom @nytimes @FoxNews @FoxBusiness @EveningEdit @elonmusk @KamalaHarris @CNN
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