Without The Electoral College, We’d Be More Likely To Have A Dictator

Some disparage the Founding Fathers’ distrust of the population. They constructed a representative republic rather than a pure democracy, even in a time when voting was limited to white yeomen—those who owned land and had what was considered a “stake in the country.”

The example of the French under Napoleon Bonaparte, who were constantly engaged in referendums that determined the amount of authority Napoleon should have, provide an example of why the Founders eschewed democracy. These referendums were direct votes, considered to be the most democratic of all voting methods. Each vote granted Napoleon more power until he became an absolute emperor over the French people. The French democratically and freely voted away their own liberty.

It appears the American Founders had presaged the events in France by examining the history of earlier democracies. The reasons America is a republic are more basic. In 1776 we were an expansive nation of almost a thousand miles north to south, diverse in geography, industry, customs, and religion. America comprised 13 individual states, each with its own autonomous government and laws. Prior to the Civil War, America was referred to in the plural: The United States of America are a wonderful country.

We are 50 independent states, never intended to have a central government that makes us all dance to the same tune. The existence of a National Interstate Highway System that connects all the states from coast to coast, with identical fast food restaurants at each interchange, may mean we have bad food habits, but it does not mean we are a unified democracy.

Then, there is the Electoral College, which really only makes sense when looking at the overall federal election system. In bringing the United States together under a new Constitution, the Constitutional Convention delegates were confronted with safeguarding both the people and the states from the great power that the new central government and chief executive may hold. To this end, they arranged an election system that distributes the vote among different election bases, coupled with elections for each office being held in staggered years.

In “The Federalist Papers,” James Madison said it is necessary to prevent a passion of the moment, a transient inflammatory issue during any particular election cycle, from overwhelming the government. Also discussed was protecting the minority from the majority. A democratic government should not function as a majority subjugating a minority to its will. The overlap of authority and differing electoral bases was to serve as a brake on the federal government, forcing compromise, as had occurred in the federal convention itself.

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Without The Electoral College, We’d Be More Likely To Have A Dictator