Chapter 13: The Presidency Section 3: Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan

Objectives: * Explain the Framer’s original provisions for choosing the President. * Outline how the rise of political parties changed the original provisions set out in the Constitution.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan * In formal terms, the President is chosen according to the provisions of the Constitution. * In practice, the President is elected through an altogether extraordinary process that is not very well understood by most Americans. * That process is a combination of constitutional provisions, State and federal laws, and in largest measure, a number of practices born of the nation’s political parties. * To make sense of this very complex system, you must first understand what the Framers had in mind when they designed the presidential election process.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan Original Provisions * The Framers gave more time to the method of choosing the President than any other matter. * James Wilson of Pennsylvania said “the most difficult of all on which we have had to decide”. * The difficulty arose largely because most of the Framers were against selecting the President by either of the obvious ways: by Congress or a direct vote of the people.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan * Early in the Convention, most of the delegates favored selection by Congress. * Later, nearly all of the delegates came to believe that congressional selection would put the President too much under the legislative thumb. * Very few of the Framers favored choosing the President by popular vote. * With the country so spread out, it was too hard for the general population to know enough about the candidates to make a wise and informed decision.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan * Alexander Hamilton introduced a plan that would choose the President and Vice-President by a special body of presidential electors. * These electors would each cast two electoral votes each for a different candidate. *The candidate with the most votes would become President and the candidate with the second most votes would become Vice-President.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan * The electors were suppose to be the “most enlightened and respectable citizens” from each State. The Rise of Parties * The electoral college – a group of people (electors) chosen from each State and the District of Columbia to formally select the President and the Vice-President. * Flaws in the original system began to show in * With the rise of political parties, John Adams (Federalist) won the presidency and his opponent Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) became Vice- President.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan The Election of * The system broke down in the election of * By now there were two well-defined parties 1. Federalists 2. Democratic-Republicans * Each party nominated a Presidential candidate and a Vice-Presidential candidate. * The electors were chosen by the parties and always voted for their party’s candidate.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan * The 73 Democratic-Republicans voted for their candidates Jefferson and Aaron Burr * This produced a tie for the president. * To break the tie, the House of Representatives had to cast a vote to come up with a winner. * It took 36 ballots before a winner was determined. * Thomas Jefferson became President * The election of 1800 marked the introduction of three new elements i8nto the process of selecting a President.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan 1) party nominations for the presidency and vice- presidency. 2) the nomination of candidates for presidential electors pledged to vote for their party’s presidential ticket. 3) the automatic casting of the electoral votes in line with those pledges. * The thought that electors would act as free agents when voting went out the window at this point.

Presidential Selection: The Framer’s Plan The 12 th Amendment * The election of 1800 produced another notable result. * The 12 th Amendment was added in 1804 * The major change was separating the presidential and vice-presidential candidates into two elections. * When electors voted they had to declare their vote for president and vice-president. * With this change, the constitutional framework was laid for the presidential selection system as we know it.