Transcripts For CSPAN2 20170219 : vimarsana.com

Convention but it wasnt that extreme. For delegations voted for a lifetime tenured president because they thought Property Rights wouldnt be adequately protected anymore republican form of government. Interesting. Take one quick thing. We are obviously as is often the case during president ial election years people often have questions about how they got the Electoral College. College. Can you take a beat on sort of [laughter] where that came from and what was the framers rationale for it . For most of the convention they thought that congress would pick the president. Thats what most states constitutions worked as the legislator picked the governor. For most of the convention they integrate the president would be selected by congress for a single term of seven years but the problem with a single term is they thought it would deprive the president of could be able to see billy to be reelected. The problem with giving the president of the building to be reelected if yes picked by congress is that he didnt would be very dependent on congress for his reelection. The whole point of having a dependent project was to check congress. Theyre going to give the present of veto if the president was depend on congress for election he would have to be leery about exercising veto. Direct election by the people, three problems with that. First of all they didnt trust the people with that important a task. One of my favorite quotes from the convention is george mason, come an important delegate from virginia saying that asking people to choose the chief magistrate would be liking referring the choice of colors to a blind man. They didnt trust the people. Thats one problem with the direct election. A second problem with the direct election of seven slaves, 40 of the south population were slaves. They found those slaves ought to count in terms of increasing the south political power and finally they thought if he had direct election the small states would never have a president. This is the era of poor communication come for transportation at there were not assuming the existence of Political Parties so that they could people and large states, would vote for that candidate. If you came from massachusetts you would vote for john henke. If you came from pennsylvania, you would vote for wilson. The Electoral College system enable them to compromise lots of differences. One thing is radically to have depression picked directly by the people to get state legislators deciding how electors are chosen and then they assumed the electors would exercise independent judgment. Then they apportioned the Electoral College in such a way that the south gets greater clout than it would in a direct election and the small states have a greater opportunity to elect somebody. The apportionment of the Electoral College as you know vision of house members plus number cinders. Virginia is by far the largest date. Industrial times the population of delaware. In house there are 10 virginia representatives one from delaware. In the Electoral College or add your senators to your house members which means 12 electors from virginia and three from delaware. Thats from a four to one Convention Rather than a 10 to one advantage. Small states like that, the slave states like that because their house numbers include the number of slaves for the 3 5 rule and there their some of the complications worked in there. The only way to defend the Electoral College today, and up apportioned, first of all the indirect election no longer works that way because i would just have a popular election to choose delegates except for the possible faceless and lucky. But in terms of amount which basically what the Electoral College as is a gives of voters in wyoming four times the power of voters in california. California had 55 electoral votes. Wyoming has three. Thats about an 18 to one despair to the california has 70 times the population of wyoming. And lest you can provide a good account for why wyoming voters are some out discriminate against minorities, dessert and has our intellectual culture some, there probably isnt a good defense for anymore. It just gives some people inflated power in choosing the president. The senate subject to the same objection and much more extreme. California 70 times the population. Thats just a power play by the small states at the philadelphia convention. They tried to justify with fancy reasons for why small states would be overwhelmed by the large states but it was basically just a powerplay and the small states and we will walk out at the convention if you dont give us quality in the senate. Sorry, that was longwinded. [applause] you can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at some of the staff picks from politics and prose bookstore in washington, d. C