By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
November 16, 2000
When I started voting, about 50 years ago, a voter had to be 21 years old and had to prove they could read and write. Both criteria were dumped some years ago based on modern notions of civil rights. It was during the Vietnam War that young people demanded the right to vote at age 18 since they were drafted into the army at age 18.
And, of course, the change came in proving literacy based on the notion that it discriminated against blacks, whose reading and writing ability was often a bit shaky.
Here we are, 50 years later, with one of the wealthiest, and whitest, counties in the Country - Palm Beach - is suddenly pleading that they should not be expected to punch a hole beside an arrow for their candidates and, besides, punching a hole is really much to difficult for the average Palm Beach resident.
While we are getting used to that, we hear, from the newly elected Senator from New York, an amazing demand that the Electoral College be abandoned. And, exactly, what WAS the reason those silly founding fathers put the Electoral College into the Constitution?
In Federalist Paper 62, which was written either by James Madison or Alexander Hamilton, the reason was clearly given. The House of Representatives was designed to be the voice of the people and the Senate was designed to be the voice of the States:
. "No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger. But as the larger States will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser States, and as the faculty and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it is not impossible that this part of the Constitution may be more convenient in practice than it appears to many in contemplation.
"Excess of law-making?" I wonder if Hillary Clinton ever read the reason why the Senate, like the Electoral College, was never intended to be another body representing the people? The House of Representatives is the people's house. The Senate speaks for the States, which makes one wonder why New York State would elect someone who has never even LIVED in the state.
The purpose of the electoral college was to do exactly what we see it about to do in the year 2000 election. It will chose the person that the STATES believe will make the best executive. As Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist Paper 68:
"It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place."
When, and if, the State of Florida can figure out who its electors will be, they will meet in Florida and vote for the president. The Electoral college is designed to cut down on the "tumult and disorder," which is being so clearly demonstrated in Florida. Hamilton went on to say:
"Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention.
This was written more than 200 years before the millions of dollars sent by foreign nationals to the Clinton-Gore campaign finance fund in 1992 and 1996. We are still trying to figure out just exactly WHAT sort of "improper ascendant to our councils" resulted from the cabal, intrigue and corruption of those elections.
Hamilton continues:
"They (the writers of the Constitution) have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it.
That's why we don't have a parliamentary system. We weren't SUPPOSED to end up with such a strong party system that we would be experiencing what we are now experiencing in Florida, where there is a public and concerted effort to count ballots very differently in Democrat strongholds than in Republican strongholds. We are watching people counting ballots who are quite ready to prostitute their votes, if they can get a court of law to agree with their one-sided vote counting tactics. Once this was called corruption and Hamilton said of corruption:
"The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means.
A temporary group, such as the Electoral College, Hamilton believed, would be less apt to be corrupted by special interests than a group composed of office holders.
It appears that the State of New York has elected a senator who hasn't a clue about the purpose of her job. She is supposed to be representing the STATE of New York. If she does not believe in the purpose of the Senate, she shouldn't be in it. The people of New York are represented by members of the House of Representatives.
The principles behind the Electoral College are pretty much the same as the principles behind the Senate. The votes in each represent the State. If Hillary believes the Electoral College should be abolished because it is not "democratic" and sometimes the majority of the people do not get their way, logic would require that she also demand the abolishment of the U.S. Senate, where a senator from a state with a small population and one member of the House of Representatives, such as Wyoming with its 211,000 voters has exactly the same amount of clout that she will have from the State of New York with its 6, 196,165 voters.
If the present situation proves anything, it proves the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in creating both the Senate and the Electoral College.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
To Subscribe to the Reagan Monitor, the newsletter that gives you news FACTS you can USE to make your life, and the world, better go to:
Start Your Subscription
