9.38 Myth about Hamilton Favoring the Current System

Tara Ross, a lobbyist against the National Popular Vote Compact who works closely with Save Our States, has asserted:

“[The National Popular Vote Compact] … tears apart a well-established institution that was admired by the Founding generation and that has served America successfully for centuries. Alexander Hamilton described its reception by the Founding generation, noting that

‘the mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system…which has escaped without severe censure. … I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.’” [Emphasis added]

Trent England, Executive Director of Save Our States, has written:

“An ‘excellent’ system Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist that, if the Electoral College is not perfect, ‘it is at least excellent.’”[1018] [Emphasis added]

These out-of-context quotations about the excellence of the Electoral College do not refer to the way that the Electoral College has actually operated since the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became prevalent in the 1830s.

Instead, Hamilton made clear in Federalist No. 68 (a few sentences after the above out-of-context quotations) that he was referring to the Founders’ never-achieved vision of a “deliberative” Electoral College:

“[The] election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass,will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”[Emphasis added]

The practice of presidential electors acting as rubber stamps started at the time of the nation’s first contested election in 1796, when political parties started making national nominations for President and Vice President. Once that happened, a party’s obvious and necessary path to victory required the nomination of presidential electors who could be relied upon to vote in lockstep in the Electoral College for the party’s nominees (section 2.5).

Moreover, Hamilton’s statement in Federalist No. 68 that the Electoral College is “excellent” was made during the debate on ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788—that is, before Hamilton or anyone else could see how the Electoral College would operate after the Constitution took effect.

In particular, Hamilton’s statement came four decades before the winner-take-all method started being used by a majority of the states.

There is no record of Hamilton ever endorsing the system in which states conduct popular elections to award 100% of their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the state.

In fact, at the time of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the writing of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton favored having the state legislature appoint all of the state’s presidential electors—that is, he was not in favor of allowing the people to vote for the presidential electors at all.

Alexander Hamilton died in 1804.

Hamilton’s home state of New York did not let the people vote for presidential electors until 1828 (when it used a congressional-district method). It was not until 1832—28 years after Hamilton’s death—that New York adopted a law calling for presidential electors to be elected on a statewide winner-take-all basis.

In any case, Alexander Hamilton, the other Founding Fathers, and almost all[1019] the rest of the Founding Generation had been dead for decades before the state-by-state winner-take-all rule became the predominant method for awarding electoral votes.[1020]

Madison opposed the winner-take-all method

James Madison (often regarded as the “father of the Constitution”) did not favor the winner-take-all method of selecting presidential electors.

As the U.S. Supreme Court noted in its 1892 decision in McPherson v. Blacker,

“The district system was largely considered the most equitable, and Madison wrote that it was that system which was contemplated by the framers of the constitution, although it was soon seen that its adoption by some states might place them at a disadvantage by a division of their strength, and that a uniform rule was preferable.”[1021] [Emphasis added]

In fact, Madison was a critic of the winner-take-all method of choosing presidential electors that evolved in the early 1800s. In a letter to George Hay on August 23, 1823, Madison wrote:

“I have recd. your letter of the 11th. with the Newspapers containing your remarks on the present mode of electing a President, and your proposed remedy for its defects.

“The difficulty of finding an unexceptionable process for appointing the Executive Organ of a Govt. such as that of the U.S. was deeply felt by the Convention; and as the final arrangement of it took place in the latter stage of the Session, it was not exempt from a degree of the hurrying influence produced by fatigue & impatience in all such bodies.”[1022] [Emphasis added]

Far from praising the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes, Madison continued:

“I agree entirely with you in thinking that the election of Presidential Electors by districts, is an amendment very proper to be brought forward at the same time with that relating to the eventual choice of President by the H. of Reps. The district mode was mostly, if not exclusively in view when the Constitution was framed & adopted; and was exchanged for the general ticket [i.e., winner-take-all] & the Legislative election, as the only expedient for baffling the policy of the particular States which had set the example. A constitutional establishment of that mode will doubtless aid in reconciling the smaller States to the other change which they will regard as a concession on their part. And it may not be without a value in another important respect.

“The States when voting for President by general tickets or by their Legislatures, are a string of beeds: When they make their elections by districts, some of these differing in sentiment from others, and sympathizing with that of districts in other States, they are so knit together as to break the force of those Geographical & other noxious parties which might render the repulsive too strong for the cohesive tendencies within the political System.”[1023] [Emphasis added] [Spelling as per original]

FairVote’s article entitled “Why James Madison Wanted to Change the Way We Vote for President” discusses this letter in greater detail.[1024]

Footnotes