Federalist Paper No. 68
The Mode of Electing the President
From the New York Packet.
Friday, March 14, 1788.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York.
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost
the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure,
or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most
plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election
of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and
hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.
It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished
for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of
the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by
committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by
the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate 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.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to
tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a
magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government
as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily
concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this
mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much
less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the
choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the
electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are
chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and
ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be
convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be
opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican
government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one
querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in
our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own
to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger
of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the
appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be
tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first
instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of
persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have
excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected
of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other
person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers
of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in
the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their
transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a
satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of
corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well
as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be
over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could
not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their
duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be
independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might
otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was
necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be
secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed
by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the
convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as
electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the
national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as
President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national
government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes
will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in
one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is
provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the
candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion
may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President
will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the
requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may
alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require
other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and
confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary
to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United
States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of
seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will
be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to
estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its
good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet
who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered
is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its
aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with
this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by
the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.
The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been
objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have
been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer
answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the
convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a
definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a
casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him
in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from
which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the
Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme
executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for
the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other.
It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made
would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by
the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for
the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to
exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.
PUBLIUS.
(Continue to Page 69)
1 Vide FEDERAL FARMER.
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