This meme seems to circulate every year or so, and it’s back again, so here’s the rebuttal. It claims that the electoral college was the South’s idea and was implemented to help slave states. This is dubious at best.

▪️During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, there was significant division over how to elect the president. Initially, some delegates did propose a direct election by the people. This was championed by James Madison, a southerner, and two northerners (James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris).

▪️However, this proposal was roundly rejected by the convention, and not because of slavery. One of the most outspoken members against direct election was Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who feared that demagoguery could result in a monarch in a direct election, a common fear at the time. Most of the delegates, north and south, preferred an indirect election of the president.

▪️Several proposals were then put forward. At first, a majority thought Congress should select the president. This was ultimately rejected because it was feared it would make the president too subservient to Congress. Other proposals included having state legislatures or governors elect the president. Alexander Hamilton even floated the idea of having a president for life.

▪️During the initial vote over having electors select the president, the only states voting “nay” were NC, SC and GA, the three most ardently proslavery states in the convention. Clearly it was not their idea or something they were clamoring for.

▪️When it first took shape, the Electoral College wouldn’t have helped the South significantly. Under the initial apportionment of the House, the slaveholding states would have held 39 out of 92 electoral votes, or about 42%. Based on the 1790 census, about 41% of the nation’s total white population lived in those same states, a tiny difference.

▪️The Electoral College eventually came out of the Brearly Committee, which included a cross section of the delegates, slightly weighted to northern states. It included David Brearly (NJ), Nicholas Gilman (NH), Rufus King (MA), Roger Sherman (CT), Gouverneur Morris (PA), John Dickinson (DE), Daniel Carroll (MD), James Madison (VA), Hugh Williamson (NC), Pierce Butler (SC) and Abraham Baldwin (GA).

▪️Once decided, the Electoral College was met with general satisfaction and received little resistance from the state ratifying conventions. Northerners and anti-slavery proponents defended it, like Alexander Hamilton did in Federalist No. 68. It was, perhaps naively, held up by most as a way to ensure virtuous people made the decision instead of the mob. As Hamilton put it, the EC was “most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated negotiations.”

▪️Ironically, it was the anti-slavery John Quincy Adams who first benefited from the system, when he won despite losing the popular (and electoral) vote to Andrew Jackson in 1824 (the House decided the election since neither had a majority). It was pro-slavery Jackson who became one of history’s most prominent critics of the EC, lambasting it for preventing the people “to express their own will.”

▪️The EC made no difference in deciding the presidency during the 36 years before the Civil War. Except in 1860, Lincoln had 39.9% of the vote (in a 4 person race) but won a crushing victory in electoral votes. Many in the South ran the numbers and realized the North would be able to continually crush them with the EC and quickly stampeded to secession.

▪️There’s little evidence to suggest the EC was implemented over slavery. The reality was at the time few wanted a direct election of the president, the primary question was how to devise an indirect system. After much debate, they decided on each state getting the amount of electors equal to their representatives plus Senators, and few objected to that. But to change it now would require an amendment, which many would object to, making it extremely unlikely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/opinion/the-electoral-college-slavery-myth.html
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/gerry.html
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/static/convention/themes/8.html
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp
https://constitutioncenter.org/debate/special-projects/a-madisonian-constitution-for-all/essay-series/the-constitution-the-presidency-and-partisan-democracy-congress-revises-the-electoral-college-1804#_ftn2
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/in-defense-of-the-electoral-college

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