As the fate of Florida's electoral votes was being decided, George Street Journal writer Kristen Cole sought out Gordon S. Wood, the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History, for his perspective on the Electoral College. Wood won the Pulitzer Prize in history for his 1991 book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution."
Actually, they considered that at the convention in Philadelphia in 1787 - that is, to have the president elected directly by the people. They finally dismissed it, not because they feared the people, as some have suggested, but rather because they didn't see how the people would know who to vote for after the first president. Everyone knew George Washington would be the first president. But after that, in the absence of political parties, in the absence of national media - there were no national newspapers even - people in Massachusetts, for example, would simply not know who was prominent or who was available in South Carolina or Virginia and so on. They really felt this would be a major problem. The public would simply not know who to vote for. So they needed some intermediary party. First they thought of the Congress. However, they said, if the Congress decided the president it would make the president too dependent on the Congress. Then they suggested making the presidency a single seven-year term. Then he wouldn't be dependent on the Congress because he wouldn't be up for reelection. But they felt that was too long of a term. So they finally hit upon the idea of an alternative Congress, the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body that is just like the Congress, made up of two senators and the number of representatives each state has. Those making up the Electoral College would be distinguished people from the community who would know the important people and would be better able to make a sensible decision.
Could the framers have anticipated what has happened in this election?
Oh, I think many of them thought that all the elections would be thrown into the House of Representatives. They assumed, in the absence of political parties in 1787 - they just simply did not anticipate parties - that nobody would get the majority of the Electoral College. They anticipated the first five nominees - the original constitution read the first five - none of whom had a majority, would go into the House, where each state would vote as a block for the president. They assumed the large states, with their larger number of electoral votes, would nominate the candidates. Then the states as equals would elect the president from those top five vote-getters. They expected most elections to be decided in the House.
How will we view this election and the resulting presidency in history?
I think it will fade. How many people remember the 1876 election? That election was far more contentious than this one - and was far closer, too. Only one electoral vote separated the two candidates and three states in contention at that time - Florida being one of them. The winner of the popular vote was actually the loser in the election. Tilden had 300,000 votes more than Hayes, and the decision was thrown into the Congress... That was a far more contentious election than our own, and I don't think very many people think about it much today. So this will fade, presumably, depending on what happens of course during the next presidency.