There was no popular vote in the election of 1789. Instead, the electoral college chose from a group of candidates. Each college member cast two votes with the candidate receiving the most votes becoming president and the runner-up becoming vice-president. George Washington was elected unanimously receiving all sixty-nine electoral votes. John Adams came in second and became the first Vice-President.
Washington won with a total of 69 out of 69 votes. The vote for Washington was unanimous among the Electoral College, those representatives the states elected to choose our president.
The republican basis of the Electoral College stems from the Constitution. When the founders of the United States set out to secure a system of political representation, many among them feared mob rule. Elections based on representative blocks of votes would implement checks within the system. The Framers took into consideration that large numbers of regional candidates could appeal to the interests of various select groups, and thus the populace could be divided widely, and disturbances in the succession of power could ensue. They surmised that Congress should have the power to settle issues that are not resolved in a popular election, and thus they created the Electoral College.
I found this interesting:
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States. Some States, however, require electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories -- electors bound by State law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties' nominees.
Indeed.
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." -- James Madison
“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can
any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is
preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant,
and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own
weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
— Samuel Adams (letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775)
Reference: Our Sacred Honor, Bennett (261)
ping
Not to mention the fact that, while government schools are dumbing down and propagating ignorance, they are busily building “self-esteem”. So, the ignorant can be quite prideful in their stupidity.
So if “Democrat” was an epithet...
what about today’s “Dhimmicrats”?
This leads me to ask a question. I know that the Constitution is a limit on government not the people. It tells govt. what it may, must and may not do. It is not a full ennumeration of the people’s rights as mentioned in the 9th amendment. There are, though, some spelled out in the Bill of Rights.
So why is it that some people then point to the Constitution and say “well, the right to X is not in the Constitution so that right doesn’t exist.”
For instance, I was reading Levin’s Men In Black and he had just finished discussing what I put in my first paragraph and then a few pages later began saying that the people do not have a right to privacy because it’s not in the Constitution. I could not read any further because of what seemed to be a great contradiction. Mind you, I’m not here claiming a side in that argument, just confused by the contradiction. Any enlightenment would be helpful.
I do not think it is inaccurate to say that the United States is a constitutional representative democracy, but a democracy, nonetheless.
We do not have “direct democracy”, the constitution and representative government were meant to attenuate the undesirable effects of mob rule, but keep the government ultimately accountable to the people.
IMHO, the problems all started with the 19th amendment. See my tagline.
Ping
New quote!