Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Part VI: Calculated to Satisfy & Promote Unanimity, contd.

            It is something of a surprise, in light of the trajectory which his career would shortly take, that the man who spoke in immediate opposition to Mr. Morris’s defense of the Committee of Eleven’s proposal was none other than Alexander Hamilton. While it was true that his public career had to this point been relatively brief – between a handful of years in Congress and a handful more in the New York state assembly – he had never really acted as though he was all that squeamish about the prospect of centralized political power. Indeed, from the time of his first foray in national politics in 1782, he seemed to take it as a kind of maxim that some people simply weren’t possessed of the wisdom necessary to exercise authority over themselves or others. On the contrary, some people simply needed to be led, and their leaders needed to possess all the practical power that was feasible. Bearing this attitude in mind, and recalling that Hamilton’s previous contribution to the executive election debate had been to suggest the creation of a President-for-life, his comments of September 6^th appear more than a little out of character. Having previously shown himself to be quite content with the notion of a chief executive possessed of significant power who was also incapable of being voted out of office, he now expressed both a sense of satisfaction at the prospect of term-limited elected President and an adamant distrust of the potential aggrandizement of the Senate in the process. If the President were more often appointed by the upper house of Congress than not, he asserted, “He would be tempted to make use of corrupt influence to be continued in office. It seemed particularly desirable therefore that some other mode of election should be devised.”

            The reason that this statement arguably represented something of a turn for Hamilton was that it seemed to contradict his previous position as to the safest repository of political power. Previously, on June 18^th, he had boldly declared to his fellow delegates that, “Elective monarchies wd. be the best if they could be guarded agst. the tumults exited by the ambition and intrigues of competitors.” He then went on to argue that a President chosen for a life term represented the apotheosis of this exact idea because the magistrate in question, thus freed from seeking re-election, would have no reason to pursue anything other than the peace and prosperity of their fellow citizens. What this argument necessarily assumed, of course, was that public servants who faced election less often were inherently more trustworthy than those who were regularly required to submit themselves for public approval. By September 6^th, however, Hamilton’s tune had significantly changed. Having evidently accepted the Committee of Eleven’s basic premise of a chief magistrate elected every four years by a college of popularly-chosen electors, he now seemed to think that the institution specifically designed to promote autonomy of action by way of longevity in office – i.e., the Senate – could not be trusted to appoint a President in the event of a failure by the electors to vote in the majority.

Granted, the six-year term to be enjoyed by Senators fell a fair bit short of the life term Hamilton had hoped to extend to the office of President, but at this stage the Senate was still set to be the elected branch of the national government most insulated from the tensions and temptations of having its tenure constantly renewed. And it was a communal body at that; not an individual capable of making decisions quickly and without warning, but a deliberative body whose actions would almost always be the product of drawn-out discussion. And yet somehow, for some reason, Hamilton distrusted the influence of the Senate. He was content to allow a lone individual to spend the rest of their life at the head of an increasingly centralized national administration, and similarly took no issue with the prospect of this selfsame chief magistrate being chosen by electors appointed by the people at large. But to allow the members of a body whose purpose was to be static, sober, and generally removed from the tumult engendered by frequent popular elections even the chance of selecting a President was evidently, for Alexander Hamilton, going too far.

            Odd though Hamilton’s evident change of opinion arguably was, the solution which he offered to the issue at hand was really anything but. Like many of his colleagues in Philadelphia – in addition to distrusting the Senate – he evidently thought that a majority vote by the electors in the first instance would be an uncommon occurrence. “The appointment [,]” he accordingly concluded, “Would consequently in the present mode devolve upon the Senate.” His desired remedy? Like Mason and Williamson had suggested before him, Hamilton was likewise willing to allow the chief magistrate of the United States of American to be elected by a plurality of the votes of the electors rather than require a majority. “What was the objection to this?” he asked of his colleagues. “Merely that too small a number might appoint. But as the plan stands, the Senate may take the candidate having the smallest number of votes, and make him President.” But while the proposal itself was not a novel one, and while there was certainly a fair point to be made about the implications of the Senate elevating the last place finisher among the electors to the office of President, Hamilton’s previous statements rather muddied the argument. On September 6^th, he essentially claimed that the prospect of the Senate making the elector’s fifth-favorite candidate for office the eventual victor represented a subversion of the popular will. But previously, on Jun 18^th, he took no issue with the idea of someone serving as President for an unknowable number of years without every having to submit themselves to regular public approval. The contradiction represented by Hamilton thus appearing to favor what he feared and fear what he favored accordingly makes it difficult to determine just where he was coming from on September 6^th and what it was he intended. If he preferred infrequent elections, why was he so suspicious of the Senate? If he disliked the idea of so much power being placed in the hands of so few, why had he previously argued for the creation of a President who could potentially serve for decades without re-election? Likely no one could answer these questions but Hamilton, and he was never one inclined to give very much away.                       

Not that whatever Hamilton had to say seemed to matter very much at this point. He had contributed, in his own way, to a debate which had been going on for some time, and his contribution appeared to do very little to affect the final outcome. In the flurry of votes that followed Hamilton’s comments, a number of lingering issues were either settled or largely upheld in very short order. On the question of the President being chosen by popularly appointed electors, for example, nine state delegations out of eleven voted in the affirmative. On the question of the victor in the race for President requiring the support of a majority of the electors, a slightly reduced majority of eight states delegations again voted in the affirmative. And on the question of referring an otherwise inconclusive executive election to the Senate for resolution, a yet smaller majority of seven state delegations voted to uphold. In spite of everything that had been said since the Committee of Eleven’s proposal was introduced on September 4^th – the objections, alternative schemes, modifications, and attempts at compromise – it seemed that the majority of those present were content to ratify the exact set of procedures which they had originally been handed. None of the cited votes had been unanimous, of course. And doubtless many members of the state delegations which had voted in the affirmative had objected and been overruled by the majority of their colleagues. But there it was, for better or worse. After three days of debate, the Committee of Eleven’s proposal had been upheld in full.

Or, at least for a moment it was upheld. Though the core conceit which the Committee of Eleven had devised – i.e., that the President be chosen by popularly-appointed electors – had never been all that strongly opposed, there remained some lingering discontent surrounding the procedure in place for resolving an inconclusive vote. The assembled delegates, it was true, had just moments before voted to affirm the role of the Senate in this capacity, but this did not necessarily mean that the matter in question was entirely settled. James Madison, delegate from Virginia and author of the record being herein examined, accordingly proposed that a contingent election in the Senate only take place in the event of a quorum of two-thirds of all those seated. As the delegates had already discussed the potential for unfortunate interactions between the Senate’s rules of procedure and its role in resolving inconclusive executive elections – by way of the previously-cited comments of Mr. Randolph on September 4^th – this would not have been an unexpected suggestion. Nor, it seemed, was it an unwelcome one. Not only did South Carolina’s Mr. Pinkney second the motion, but a majority of six state delegations voted to affirm it shortly thereafter. And while this constituted the closest vote of those cited here – with four states objecting and one electing to abstain – it still represented a workable consensus. Thus, if by a narrow margin, the assembled delegates had made their one, single, relatively minor alteration to the Committee of Eleven’s proposal. Contingent votes would still be held in the Senate, but a vote therein could only take place when at least two-thirds of those seated were present.

Except, this was also not to be the case for very long. After three days of essentially talking around each other without very much to show for it, the delegates then assembled in Congress Hall in Philadelphia were suddenly in a very agreeable mood. No sooner did he record the affirmative vote on his own motion then Madison noted another suggestion put forward by Hugh Williamson for a further alteration of the Committee of Eleven’s proposal. Harkening back to a modification offered by Connecticut’s Roger Sherman at the beginning of business on that very same day, Williamson, “Suggested as better than an eventual choice by the Senate, that this choice should be made by the Legislature, voting by states and not per capita.” Showing what was arguably an admirable degree of magnanimity at having his idea ignored one moment and then seized upon the next, Sherman himself then spoke in affirmation of this proposal, moving to strike out the verbiage referring to the Senate from the Committee of Eleven’s proposal and inserting in its place the clause, “The House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President, the members from each State having one vote.” Virginia’s George Mason, who had objected strongly on September 5^th to any addition to the powers of the Senate, unsurprisingly seconded this proposal, and the matter was put to yet another vote. Of the eleven state delegations present and participating, ten ultimately chose to affirm Mr. Sherman’s amendment, with only Delaware voting in the negative.

Definitive though this might sound, however, there was still one final issue that evidently needed to be addressed. Though more state delegations had just voted for Mr. Sherman’s proposed amendment than for any other alteration to the Committee of Eleven’s plan to that point, James Madison was apparently not so flushed with relief that he didn’t take note of a potentially serious problem therewith. Indeed, it was much the same problem his fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph had observed having to do with the Senate’s rules of procedure. “As a majority of members wd. make a quorum in the H. of Reps.” Madison observed, “It would follow from the amendment of Mr. Sherman giving the election to a majority of the States, that the President might be election by two states only, Virga. & Pena. which have 18 members, if these States alone should be present.” This was perfectly true, of course. Madison’s numbers were a little off – at its first sitting in 1789, the House of Representatives was comprised of fifty-nine members, of which a quorum would have constituted thirty, not eighteen – but he was right to point out that the number of Representatives required for the House to conduct its business could have easily been filled by as few as two or three state delegations. In which case, in the event of an inclusive vote by the electors, the person eventually chosen as President might conceivably be elected by as few as two state votes. The individual Representatives would have their say within their respective delegations, to be sure, but the final count would only record the majority vote thereof. If five of Pennsylvania’s eight Representatives voted for candidate A, along with six of Virginia’s ten, then it wouldn’t matter if all eight of Massachusetts’ Representatives voted for candidate B. And if these three states were the only delegations present, candidate A would ascend to the office of President in spite of the fact that only eleven of twenty-six Representatives voted in their favor. This, as Madison rightly pointed out, was simply not acceptable.

When Sherman’s amendment again came to a vote, however, it was once more affirmed by a majority of the states. Granted, Madison seemed to have swayed New Jersey and Maryland to declare in the negative in addition to Delaware this second time around, but New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia all nevertheless declared in the affirmative. And while that very well could have been the end of the conversation, with the assembled delegates left simply to hope that Madison’s worst-case scenario never came to pass, Mr. Angus King of Massachusetts fortunately offered a last-minute fix. To the amendment of Mr. Sherman, he proposed, it should be added that, “A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the States […] and also a majority of the whole number of the House of Representatives.” The result, when this final change was put to the floor, was mixed, if reasonably definitive under the circumstances. The first clause, up to the word “States,” Madison simply recorded as having been agreed to. One wonders why he declined to note the exact tally of the vote, but so it goes. And on the second clause, beginning with the words “And also of a majority,” the states voted against it by a margin of six to five. Thus, on this rather less than glamourous note, and after three days of very focused debate and three months since the topic was first broached, the Philadelphia Convention had settled upon a procedure for electing a chief executive. Not everyone involved was entirely happy, to be sure, and almost no one got exactly what they wanted. But at least the thing was done. At least now, finally, they could all go home.