Who is Afraid of the Electoral College?
A lesson on democracy and the virtue of the Electoral College
"He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man..." Samuel Adams
The following article is taken from the Institute on the Constitution Newsletter, October, 2004.
To subscribe to the IOTC Newsletter (free of charge)
call (866) 730-9796
or go to http://www.iotconline.c
om/index.php?id=37 
By Pastor David Whitney
If the November 2004 election for President of these united States is in any way similar to the presidential race of 2000, we can expect renewed noises to abolish the electoral college. In fact, even before the votes are cast many are calling for the abolition of the electoral college. They argue that in a democracy, the electoral college obstructs the whole purpose of an election, which is of course majority rule.
That argument presupposes that we are a democracy. Most people believe this to be the case because they have heard the lie repeated so often and for so many years they have come to believe it must be true.
Our founding fathers took an unequivocal stance against democracy. They warned that our country would be in grave danger if it ever became a democracy.
Our fourth President James Madison, who is called the father of the constitution noted,
"[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
Madison also stated,
"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few."
Noah Webster observed,
"In democracy. . . there are commonly tumults and disorders.... Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth."
Next time someone tells you we are a democracy remind them of these quotes from our founders. Our second President, John Adams warned,
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
Our founders put into play a variety of impediments to prevent democracy from encroaching upon this Constitutional Republic. One of those impediments was the Electoral College.
Article Two, section one of the Constitution spells out the details of the Electoral College. It was subsequently altered by the twelfth amendment. In essence the election of a President involves a two stage procedure.
Each state chooses its own electors equal to the total number of Senators and Congressmen from that state. In the current rendition this means whoever wins the popular vote in that state will have all the electoral votes for that state. But that is not how the Electoral College was originally designed to function. There are two states which have retained the original practice, Maine and Nebraska. In those states the winner of each Congressional district wins that electoral vote from that district. This was a far better design because it allowed the more thinly populated parts of a state to be adequately represented. As it is in most states today, the cities control who wins all the electoral votes for that state.
The Electoral College was designed to be a state check on Federal power. By protecting the smaller states, they have a greater say in the election of a President. Their protection is abolished by the purely popular vote system advocated by those who desire to do away with the Electoral College. These noise makers would like nothing more than "the mob" in the most populous States to control the outcome of the election. Our founders wisely protected the rural or more thinly populated portions of our country by this mechanism.
Furthermore, in our day we find that most voters take their cues from the major media. These media outlets are hardly unbiased. They don't present anything but the two party monopoly which is currently moving our country efficiently down the road to complete socialism. The major media is no friend of liberty, and cannot be trusted to preserve our Constitutional Republic. To abolish the Electoral College would give greater powers to an already overly powerful socialist media.
Electors are normally pledged to support the candidate who carried their state. However the design of our founders was intended to prevent mobocracy. The electors could, if they deemed the decision of the majority destructive to the Constitutional Republic, vote contrary to the wishes of the majority. The actual selection was left to the elected representatives.
What we must remember is that we are a representative system of government, not a democracy. Those who are afraid of the Electoral College, are afraid of the Constitutional Republic that our founders carefully constructed. Fisher Ames' Author of the House Language for the First Amendment said,
"A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way... The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty."
The difference between a Republic and a Democracy can be illustrated by the typical Western. The bad guy rides into town. We know he is the bad guy because he is wearing a black hat. He ties up his horse in front of the saloon. Shortly after he enters that establishment, a fight breaks out. The bad guy emerges followed by the town hero. They stand back to back in the center of the dusty street and walk ten paces. Both turn and guns blaze as the lead flies. When the dust settles one man is lying dead-the town hero.
The crowd yells for the sheriff who duly arrives on the scene and arrests the bad guy hauling him off to jail. The dejected towns folk gather around the town's charismatic leader. Watch him carefully, He is the demagogue, the promoter of democracy.
With his flaming passionate rhetoric, the demagogue soon has the crowd in the palm of his hands. He molds them into a potent weapon - the mob. He challenges the wisdom in waiting for a trial. They all know what took place in their town. They know what is right, and they know who should hang. They must not wait for the slow wheels of justice. A trial will take months. They will have to feed and house this murderous criminal for many months at tax payers expense. He rouses the crowd to a fever pitch.
Under his influence they swarm around the jail and demand the prisoner be released immediately, so they can administer justice. Some one grabs a rope. It is thrown high, up and over the limb of the tallest tree. The mob is growing surly as the sheriff emerges from his office. Watch him carefully for he is the Constitutionalist - the promoter of the Republic.
He clears his throat and motions for the mob to be silent. This takes awhile. Finally someone says, "Let's let him speak."
"Men, when you elected me as your sheriff, before I took office, I swore a solemn oath. Now an oath is not just some nice toss off ceremony. It is a serious thing, because to take an oath is to make a solemn vow before Almighty God. Thomas More said that
'people who take an oath, take their eternal lives in their hand.'
God inspired King Solomon to write in Ecclesiastes 5,
'When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; For He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed-Better not to vow, than to vow and not pay. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands.'
The solemn, holy vow I took before Almighty God as I assumed the office of sheriff, was an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this State, as well as the Constitution of these united States. If I were to knowingly violate that oath, I place my eternal soul in jeopardy. The Fifth Article of the united States Bill of Rights states,
'No person shall be .... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;'
Now I know you are impatient for justice. But justice will not be served if you hang this man. He must have his day in court. That is the rule of law. We are a country ruled by laws not by men. We are a Republic not a Democracy. I intend to see that here in this town we continue to be ruled by laws and not by men. Now you all head on home. Enough trouble has been done here for one day."
The sheriff's words are more powerful than the demagogue's. So with that, the mob shuffles its feet, mutters a few words and disbands and ambles back home.
We must remember the lesson that this sheriff taught. Our founders clearly labeled democracy-mobocracy. What the demagogues of today are promoting is socialism. It is an evil system tried and found wanting. It cannot succeed as a system of government which secures our God given rights because it is committed to the doctrine that government is God. Our founders clearly believed that civil government was ordained by God and therefore could only rightly function within its God boundaries. Socialism believes government should have no boundaries, it should be unlimited in its functions because after all it is God.
What we really need to understand is that those who are clamoring for democracy are aiming at one common goal; the destruction of our Constitutional Republic. Rather than fight a direct, all out war, they engage in subterfuge, deceit and misinformation.
But providentially, we have the tools available to dispel the lies. The words of our founding fathers have not been erased, but simply ignored. At Institute on the Constitution we are dedicated to teaching millions of Americans the truth about our Constitutional Republic.
Our host kit is designed so that anyone, anywhere with any group of people can teach what our founders believed about law and government. It is heartening to see eyes opened to the truth about America.
Many people are intimidated by the thought of conducting a class on the Constitution to teach the history and heritage of our Constitutional Republic. I often hear, "Who me host the Institute? I can't do that! I am not a legal scholar, historian or a teacher."
The good news is you don't have to teach or even have any special knowledge of the Constitution or America's history. Dr. John Eidsmoe does that work for you in the half hour lectures. You simply need to supply a place, T.V./VCR, and walk your group through the questions following each lecture. We provide the answers and supplemental materials. We've designed this host kit so that anyone can effectively lead a group to understand our Constitutional Republic.
We invite you to join in the cause of preserving our God given
Liberty, and restoring our Constitutional Republic. If you don't defend
Liberty, who will? Order a host kit today by calling 866-730-9796 or
order online at http://www.IOTConline.com.