The real reason we have an electoral college instead of using the popular vote

[paperview]

It's more than one man's opinion --- and the fact slavery was part of the equation is impossible to dismiss.

How about you address some of the things noted - such as I noted earlier, that the South dominated congress for near all of the first quarter of our history.

Or that every single president, with the exception of two (from the North, the Adams') until 1850 - was a slaveowner.

Or that eight of the first nine presidential races were won by a Virginian.

Why is no one addressing those hard cold facts which give pretty good evidence to part of why those at the Constitutional Convention - half of whom were slaveholders, set things up this way?

Why are people dismissing the inherent EC advantage of giving EC vote representation to non-citizens who had no representation?

 

[paperview]

Nope. Not because of some visionary genius by the Founders. Not some remedy for small states vs. large states, or rural vs. urban.

Like just about everything else in the history of America, it was connected to race, and slavery.

To put it simply -

Slaves couldn't vote, but they were counted at 3/5ths apiece to determine congressional representation.

The Southern states were thus at a disadvantage if the popular vote were to determine the winner,

but they got a big boost by the use of electors representing the size of their congressional delegations, since the counting of the slaves increased the number of house representatives those states were entitled to.

The Southern slave states got their way and that's where the electoral college comes from.

Seek help

Is that what passes for a rebuttal at the shelter?

 

[paperview]

It's more than one man's opinion --- and the fact slavery was part of the equation is impossible to dismiss.

How about you address some of the things noted - such as I noted earlier, that the South dominated congress for near all of the first quarter of our history.

Or that every single president, with the exception of two (from the North, the Adams') until 1850 - was a slaveowner.

Or that eight of the first nine presidential races were won by a Virginian.

Why is no one addressing those hard cold facts which give pretty good evidence to part of why those at the Constitutional Convention - half of whom were slaveholders, set things up this way?

Why are people dismissing the inherent EC advantage of giving EC vote representation to non-citizens who had no representation?

\\

*crickets*

 

[Papageorgio]

"The result of [the 1800] election was affected by the three-fifths clause of the United States Constitution, by which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of Congressional apportionment.

Historians such as Gary Wills, Leonard L. Richards, and William W. Freehling have written that had slaves not been counted at all, Adams would have won the electoral vote.

Adams had never owned a slave and was opposed to slavery, while Jefferson was an avowed slave owner. Jefferson was subsequently criticized as having won "the temple of Liberty on the shoulders of slaves". Arguing that the election was a turning point in American history, Akhil Reed Amar, a law and political science professor at Yale argued that "in a direct election system, the South would have lost every time."

United States presidential election, 1800 - Wikipedia

Instead, what happened was the South dominated congress for near all of the first quarter of our history.

& Every single president, with the exception of two (from the North, the Adams') until 1850 - was a slaveowner.

The elite had the money and the property, it isn't surprising that they were slave owners. Slavery was not looked down upon it was a slow transition.

 

[Papageorgio]

The view of one of the country's top Constitutional scholars and historian (The Supreme Court has cited his work in over thirty cases.), Akhil Amar:

<snip>"...But the real divisions in America have never been big and small states; they're between North and South, and between coasts and the center.

The House versus Senate is big versus small state, but from the beginning big states have almost always prevailed in the Electoral College. We've only had three small-state presidents in American history: Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, and Bill Clinton. All of the early presidents came from big states. So that theory isn't particularly explanatory.

<snip>

So what's the real answer? In my view, it's slavery. In a direct election system, the South would have lost every time because a huge percentage of its population was slaves, and slaves couldn't vote. But an Electoral College allows states to count slaves, albeit at a discount (the three-fifths clause), and that's what gave the South the inside track in presidential elections.

And thus it's no surprise that eight of the first nine presidential races were won by a Virginian. (Virginia was the most populous state at the time, and had a massive slave population that boosted its electoral vote count.)


This pro-slavery compromise was not clear to everyone when the Constitution was adopted, but it was clearly evident to everyone when the Electoral College was amended after the Jefferson-Adams contest of 1796 and 1800.

These elections were decided, in large part, by the extra electoral votes created by slavery. Without the 13 extra electoral votes created by Southern slavery, John Adams would've won even in 1800, and every federalist knows that after the election."

Carb is in good company.

So it isn't the real reason that we have the electoral college.

 

[Contumacious]

Nope. Not because of some visionary genius by the Founders. Not some remedy for small states vs. large states, or rural vs. urban.

Like just about everything else in the history of America, it was connected to race, and slavery.

To put it simply -

Slaves couldn't vote, but they were counted at 3/5ths apiece to determine congressional representation.

The Southern states were thus at a disadvantage if the popular vote were to determine the winner,

but they got a big boost by the use of electors representing the size of their congressional delegations, since the counting of the slaves increased the number of house representatives those states were entitled to.

The Southern slave states got their way and that's where the electoral college comes from.

Your being uninformed does not count as a "real reason"

Is that what passes for a rebuttal in conservatopia?

Really, why are you concerned about the EC?

I believe that fascists just declare themselves the winners and jail the opposition.


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