The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1941-03-06
Let's Scrap the
Electoral College!
By DAVID A. OREBAUGH


BY DAVID A. OREBAUGH
Having recently emerged from one
of the quadrennial travails of its de-
mocracy, the attention of the Amer
lean people again is focused upon
that archaic and lightly esteemed in
stitution, the so-called Electoral Col
lege. With the college" again play
ing its superfluous role it will be both
opportune and profitable briefly to
trace it's history and to take note of
its originators and sponsors, to the
end that the reader may be able to
weigh the motives that gave it birth
and decide upon the advisability of
retaining or discarding it as an inte-
grail part of the United States gov
ernmental system. In order to exam
inc the Electoral College against its
original background and in it's true
perspective, it will be helpful to re-
view briefly some historical events
which antedate by centuries the Con-
stitutional Convention of 1887.
In 962 A. D., under the guidance
and sponsorship of the church of
Rome (Which after the fall Of the
Empire inherited whatever remained
Of organized authority, central Eu-
rope, including eastern France and
northern Italy, was welded into a
confederation which appropriated a
United States of Europe and which
was dimly comparable to our own
federal union. The confederation con-
tinued to function in succession to the
Roman state under the name of the
"Holy Roman Empire" until 1906,
when it was overthrow by the ambi-
lions and armies of Napoleon.
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Attention is directed as we proceed
to certain striking analogies and sim
ilarities to the United States Electoral
College. The emperors Of the Holy
Roman Empire were elected by the
votes of certain hereditary and eccle-
siastical princes called Electors" the
source of whose authority seems to
have arisen from the nomination and
support of the popes of Rome, and a
popular acquiescence in their prestige
as princes and civic and religious
leaders. Apparently the electoral sys-
tenn was patterned after the College
of Cardinals, the group of ecclesias-
itcal dignitaries who from time i'm
memorial have elected the popes of
Rome. Its purpose was to remove as
far as possible from the people the
actual choosing of their rulers, and to
insure the retention of power by the
ruling classes.
1t then was felt las later was felt
by many Of the trainers of the United
States Constitution) that the people
could not be trusted to make a wise
selection of chief magistrate. Hence,
it became necessary to invent some
means Of curbing any tendency to-
ward popular elections, and the ne
cessity was shrewdly met by the es-
tablishment of the Electoral College
of princes. Thus will be seen that the
term, Electoral College," now used
by Americans to describe what they
have been pleased to regard as part
Of the democratic process, has a dis
tinctly ecclesiastical and monarchial
connotation and was designed not to
promote democracy, but to restrain it.
&##
When the delegates to the Conven-
ton assembled in Philadelphia in
May, 1887, for the purpose Of estab-
fishing new government under
which the weaknesses and defects Of
the old Articles of Confederation were
to be remedied, the most exasperating
problem that confronted them at any
time, and the one fraught with the
greatest possibilities of disaster to
the Convention and the purposes for
which it convened, was that of the
method Of choosing a President. This
danger was recognized by the dele
gates, and by tacit consent it's consid-
GRAFTON and final settlement was de-
ferred until disposition had been made
of virtually all other controversial
questions.
Throughout the summer in which