Forget what you think you know about why they created the Electoral College.

0:00 Background

1:14 The Constitutional Convention of 1787

2:24 Direct election of the president?

6:58 Congressional appointment of the president?

11:11 Congressional apportionment bonuses

14:55 The logic of an electoral college

20:38 Why the small states and slave states were skeptical of an electoral college

21:50 The Brearly Committee

22:35 Let's read the Constitution

31:50 The president's term of office and re-electibility

33:49 What would you have done?

34:57 Footnotes

FOOTNOTES

The primary source used for this video is The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand, rev. ed., 3 vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966 [1911, 1937]). It collates the notes taken by different individuals regarding the debates and votes at the convention sequentially according to date. I cite the dates below.

[1] Wilson and Morris’s advocacy for direct election of the president and the arguments made against it by other delegates: June 1, July 17, July 19

[2] Gerry’s concern about an interstate political organization: July 25

[3] See the credentials of Delaware’s delegates in Appendix B of The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3, pp. 574–575. See also James Madison’s notes on the debate on May 30 (vol. 1, p. 37).

[4] Debates on whether states should have equal or proportional representation in Congress: May 30, June 9, June 11, June 19, June 27–30, July 7

[5] Wilson and Morris’s advocacy of an electoral college: June 2, July 19, September 4. Other delegates also sometimes spoke in favor.

[6] Shlomo Slonim, “The Electoral College at Philadelphia: The Evolution of an Ad Hoc Congress for the Selection of a President,” The Journal of American History 73, no. 1 (June 1986), 55–56.

[7] Wilson proposed that electors be proportional to population: June 2

[8] Ellsworth proposed a 3-2-1 scheme: July 19

[9] The delegates did approve an electoral college on July 19 and then reverted to selection by Congress on July 24. During those days the draft had the electors being chosen by state legislatures, with the largest states getting three electors and the smallest getting one. They did not switch back to an electoral college until September.

[10] The Brearley Committee's solution to have electors vote within their respective states: September 4. Madison recorded the rationale, as expressed by Gouverneur Morris, in vol. 2, p. 500.

[11] Houston’s concern over the distance electors would have to travel: July 24. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina had also voiced this concern on June 2.

[12] Morris voiced this view on July 17 (vol. 2, p. 33)