In my discussion of the Constitution, I have to talk about the Electoral College, because it's still how we elect our presidents. The exact phrasing I use to discuss its shortcomings as an electoral mechanism is "Despite what happened in 1800, 1824, 1876 and 2000, we still use it." We're in an election year now, and the series has arrived at the election of 1800, the first election in modern history anywhere that by popular decision transferred power from one political party to another.
It's historically important, certainly, but it was flawed, and since the Constitution was amended to make sure what happened could never happen again, it's worth investigating. Follow me below the great orange schnecken for the investigation.
Direct election of the president had been considered and discussed, but rejected by the Constitutional Convention because it might have unforeseen results. The constitution, in Article II, Section 2 instructed the states to appoint
in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
These electors were to meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for “two persons.” Whoever received the most votes would be President, and whoever received the next most votes would be Vice President (in 1796, the two persons were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Any ties would be broken by the House of Representatives.
The election of 1800 revealed the culmination of three developments:
1) The difficulty that the framers faced in perceiving the political dimensions of the presidency.
2) The realization that control of the government depended on control of the executive branch.
3) The understanding that the brevity of the constitutional provisions that governed the electoral college created opportunities (and thus incentives) to manipulate the text for political advantage.
Campaigning in 1796 had not begun until 100 days before Election Day, when Washington announced his intention to retire. Four years later, Abigail Adams noted in November 1799 that “Electioneering is already begun.”
The supporters of Adams and Jefferson put on a reasonably ugly election, complete with personal invective: it seems it was rumored that Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves. This, of course, is the Sally Hemmings story. There is a TON of information at the Frontline site on this show, "Jefferson's Blood," at pbs.org. For the purposes of this diary, yes, the DNA shows this to be true, but before the DNA testing any historian who dared to sully the sainted memory of the writer of the Declaration was figuratively dragged through the mud and otherwise humbled.
As for Adams, Alexander Hamilton published a letter in October 1800 informing his readers that “there [were] great and intrinsic defects in his character which unfit” Adams for any high office. Yes, there was a challenge, but a duel was averted (the next diary in this series will cover the duel Alexander Hamilton had to fight in 1804).
It was a close election which resulted in a tie in Electoral College (no electors from NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE voted for Jefferson). A tie? The Republican electors had forgotten to make sure that the presidential candidate had one more electoral vote than the Vice Presidential candidate, which meant there was a tie between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. Yes, we're discussing him next week too.
Worse yet, the ballot paper from Georgia was blatantly irregular: no physically distinct document reported the states electoral vote, and the document that DID was signed on the back of the paper. It was the responsibility of the President of the Senate to accept or reject it. As you remember, the Constitution made the Vice President President of the Senate and who was President of the Senate at the time? Thomas Jefferson. Yes, he was allowed to help himself, and he did.
This threw the election into the House of Representatives (each state had one vote), which, because of the timing (Congress sat until the beginning of March the year after the election until that was revised by the 20th Amendment), was controlled by Federalists. It took 36 ballots to elect Jefferson, as questions about Burr’s reliability caused several Federalists to cast blank ballots, thus delivering additional states to Jefferson. This story is told in much greater detail by Bruce Ackerman in the Atlantic, March 2004.There are also articles on the election of 1800 from 1876 in the Atlantic at the Atlantic link. The final election map:
Hence the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, in time for the next Presidential election:
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.
But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
This solved the problem, but, like almost everything that happens in politics, it had unforeseen consequences. The fact that the president and the vice-president now ran as a ticket transformed the presidency into a reliable instrument of political party rule, and we see how this works even today.
Oh. By the way, Adams and Jefferson, who had a long and fruitful correspondence after Jefferson left the presidency, died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration.
The duel as an instrument of politics next week.
Thu May 10, 2012 at 8:12 AM PT: Edited to correct the first sentence below the separator (h/t hmi). Direct election had been discussed but rejected.