It is January 27th. Welcome to Episode 27 of History in a Year. Today, the Founding Fathers try to solve the hardest puzzle of the Convention: The President. Terrified of creating a new King George, they debate for weeks. We witness Alexander Hamilton’s disastrous speech where he suggests a President for life, and we watch the exhausted delegates invent a confusing, Rube Goldberg machine called the Electoral College just so they can go home.
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STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is January 27th. Welcome to Episode 27. Yesterday, we saw Roger Sherman save the Constitutional Convention with the Great Compromise. They had finally figured out the Congress—the House representing the people, and the Senate representing the states.
LEAH:
But they still had a massive hole in their plan. A gaping void where the leadership should be. Who was going to run the country?
STEPHEN:
Under the Articles of Confederation, there was no leader. No executive. There was just a presiding officer of Congress who couldn’t really do anything. And that had been a disaster. The country was leaderless in a crisis.
LEAH:
So, everyone in the room knew they needed an “Executive.” But the moment you said that word, the temperature in the room dropped. “Executive” sounded a lot like “King.”
STEPHEN:
And remember, these men had just fought a bloody eight-year war to get rid of a King. They had signed the Declaration of Independence listing all the crimes of George III. They were terrified of creating a new tyrant who would crush their liberties.
LEAH:
The debate began on June 1st. It was a tense day. James Wilson of Pennsylvania stood up. He was a brilliant lawyer, probably the best legal mind in the room. He moved that the Executive should consist of a “single person.”
STEPHEN:
The room went dead silent. A “single person”? That sounded exactly like a monarch.
LEAH:
Edmund Randolph of Virginia jumped up. He was horrified. He famously said that a single executive was the “fetus of monarchy.”
STEPHEN:
Randolph proposed a safer idea. He wanted a three-man executive council. One man from the North, one from the South, and one from the Middle states.
LEAH:
He argued that three men would check each other’s power. It would be safer. It would represent the whole country.
STEPHEN:
But the other side pushed back. James Wilson and others argued that a three-headed executive would be a disaster. Imagine three Presidents trying to decide whether to send the army to stop a rebellion. They would just argue and bicker while the country burned.
LEAH:
They argued that you needed “energy” and “dispatch” in the executive. When a decision needs to be made, one person needs to make it.
STEPHEN:
The debate dragged on for weeks. It was circular. They were paralyzed by their fear of a King.
LEAH:
And then, on June 18th, the room got a shock. Alexander Hamilton stood up.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton had been quiet for most of the Convention. He was a delegate from New York, but he was constantly outvoted by his two fellow delegates who hated strong government. He was frustrated. He thought the plans on the table—the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan—were all too weak.
LEAH:
So, on a hot Monday, he decided to swing for the fences. He started speaking… and he didn’t stop.
STEPHEN:
He spoke for six hours. Six. Hours. Without a break. He outlined his own plan for a government.
LEAH:
And what he said was explosive. He praised the British government—the enemy!—as the “best in the world.” He said the United States should copy it as closely as possible.
STEPHEN:
He proposed a President (he called him a “Governor”) who would serve for life—on “good behavior.”
LEAH:
He basically said: “Let’s have an elected King.” He wanted the President to have absolute veto power over all laws. He wanted the Senators to serve for life too. He wanted the states to be stripped of almost all their power.
STEPHEN:
As he spoke, the other delegates sat there in stunned silence. This was exactly what they feared. Hamilton was saying the quiet part out loud.
LEAH:
When Hamilton finally sat down, exhausted, nobody said a word. Nobody debated him. Nobody supported him. They just awkwardly moved on to the next subject. It was like someone had shouted a profanity in church.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton’s speech was a political suicide note. It confirmed everyone’s suspicion that he was a closet monarchist. He left the Convention a few days later in frustration (though he came back at the end to sign the document).
LEAH:
But here is the irony: Hamilton’s extreme speech actually helped. By proposing a “King,” he made the other ideas—like a single President serving a 4-year term—seem moderate by comparison.
STEPHEN:
So, eventually, the delegates agreed on a single President. But then came the hardest question of all: How do you pick him?
LEAH:
This was the “Goldilocks” problem. Every option seemed wrong.
STEPHEN:
Option 1: Let Congress pick the President.
Most delegates liked this at first. It seemed logical. But then they realized: If Congress picks the President, the President will just be a puppet of Congress. He won’t be independent. He’ll always be trying to please his bosses in the legislature.
LEAH:
Option 2: Let the State Legislatures pick him.
Too messy. The President would owe favors to the states, not the nation.
STEPHEN:
Option 3: Let the People pick him directly (a popular vote).
Now, to us, this seems obvious. But in 1787, the delegates hated this idea.
LEAH:
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts said the people are “dupes of pretended patriots.” George Mason said letting the people pick the President would be like letting a blind man pick colors.
STEPHEN:
They didn’t trust the average voter. They thought the average farmer was uneducated and easily tricked by smooth-talking demagogues.
LEAH:
Plus, there was a practical problem. In 1787, there was no internet, no TV, no national news. A farmer in rural Georgia wouldn’t know anything about a candidate from Massachusetts. They would just vote for the local guy. The delegates feared that a popular vote would just result in 13 separate candidates, none of whom had a majority.
STEPHEN:
They were stuck. They voted on this over and over again. According to one count, they voted on the method of election sixty times. They would agree on one way, sleep on it, realize it was bad, and change their minds the next morning.
LEAH:
Finally, in late August, exhausted and desperate to go home, they appointed a “Committee of Eleven” to solve the unsolvable problem.
STEPHEN:
And the Committee came back with a weird, complicated invention: The Electoral College.
LEAH:
It was a Rube Goldberg machine of democracy. Here is how it worked:
Each state gets a number of “Electors” equal to their Representatives plus their Senators.
The State Legislatures decide how to pick those Electors.
The Electors meet in their own states and vote for two people for President.
STEPHEN:
Why did they do this?
LEAH:
First, it kept Congress out of it, so the President was independent.
Second, it gave the states a role.
Third—and this is the dark side again—it protected the slave states.
STEPHEN:
Remember the 3/5ths Compromise? If they had a direct popular vote, the South would lose every time because so much of their population (slaves) couldn’t vote. But with the Electoral College, the South got “credit” for their slaves (the 3/5ths count) in their number of Electors.
LEAH:
James Madison admitted this explicitly. He said the popular vote was the best way, but the South wouldn’t go for it because of the “negro” population.
STEPHEN:
So, the Electoral College was born out of exhaustion, compromise, and slavery.
LEAH:
But here is the funny part: They didn’t think it would work the way it does today. They assumed that in most elections, no candidate would get a majority of the Electoral votes because everyone would just vote for their local “favorite son.”
STEPHEN:
They thought the Electoral College would just be a nominating body. They expected that 19 times out of 20, the election would fail to produce a winner, and the House of Representatives would make the final choice from the top five names.
LEAH:
They didn’t anticipate political parties. And they didn’t anticipate national campaigns.
STEPHEN:
But in 1787, they weren’t worried about the future. They were worried about the first President. And they all looked at the man sitting in the high chair at the front of the room.
LEAH:
They knew George Washington would be the first President. And they trusted him not to be a tyrant.
STEPHEN:
Because they trusted George, they gave the office a lot of power. They made him Commander-in-Chief. They gave him the Veto. They gave him the power to Pardon.
LEAH:
Pierce Butler, a delegate from South Carolina, wrote: “I do not believe they would have given so much power to the President… had not many of the members cast their eyes toward General Washington as the President.”
STEPHEN:
Basically, the Presidency was tailored like a suit of clothes to fit George Washington.
LEAH:
By September, the document was finished. A Congress. A President. A Court. It wasn’t perfect. It was a bundle of compromises. But it was a government.
STEPHEN:
Now they just had to sign it. But as the delegates read the final draft, three men stood up and said “No.”
LEAH:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 28. The signing. Benjamin Franklin gives one last speech about the “Rising Sun,” and three delegates—Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and Edmund Randolph—refuse to sign the Constitution because it lacks a Bill of Rights.
STEPHEN:
I’m Leah.
LEAH:
And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.