Post by @nikanikaroo

This meme is pointing at something very real, but I want to tighten the history because the Electoral College wasn’t created only because of slavery. The Constitutional Convention wrestled with several issues: large states vs. small states, congressional selection vs. popular election, federalism—and slavery. But slavery was absolutely part of the equation. Here’s the part that should make every American stop for a second: Enslaved people couldn’t vote. Yet slaveholding states wanted them counted when determining political representation. The eventual Three-Fifths Compromise counted three out of every five enslaved people when determining a state’s population for representation in the House. And here’s where the Electoral College comes in. A state’s electoral votes were based on its congressional representation. So the additional House seats slave states received by counting people they enslaved also translated into additional power when choosing the president. The National Archives describes the Three-Fifths Clause as giving slave states extra political power in both the House and the Electoral College. James Madison himself acknowledged the problem with a direct popular election: voting rights were much broader in the North, while the South’s enormous enslaved population couldn’t vote. The Electoral College allowed that nonvoting population to nevertheless increase Southern influence over presidential elections. Think about the perversity of that arrangement: You don’t get a vote. You don’t get freedom. But your existence helps give the person enslaving you more political power. That’s a piece of Electoral College history we should actually know. Whether America should abolish it today is a separate constitutional and political debate. Doing so would require a constitutional amendment; there are also reform proposals that attempt to change presidential elections without formally abolishing the institution. But if we’re going to defend a 239-year-old institution because “the Founders designed it that way,” then we should probably understand ALL the compromises that went into that design. History isn’t disrespectful because it’s uncomfortable. It’s just history. #ElectoralCollege #AmericanHistory #VotingRights #USPolitics #Civics