10. Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

My name is Alexander Hamilton

And there’s a million things I haven’t done

But just you wait, just you wait...

Until recently, Alexander Hamilton got little respect. In school we learned about America’s Founding Fathers, but about all I remember about Hamilton was that he was killed in a duel by someone named Aaron Burr. By 2015, Hamilton was about to be bumped from the $10 bill. 

All that changed by the end of the year when Lin-Manuel Miranda launched the smash Broadway musical of Hamilton’s life. Tickets are sold out for the next year. Then, after the 2016 Presidential Election, when Trump appeared to win the Presidency despite coming out nearly 3,000,000 votes short of Clinton, it was Hamilton’s writing, Federalist Paper No. 68, that revealed the real purpose behind the Electoral College. And the purpose was not what Republicans were saying it was. 

The Electoral College will meet today in each state capital to elect a President of the United States – a ritual that occurs every four years, yet which the press normally scarcely covers. Until this year, American voters were under the illusion that they elected the President, a misconception that has been corrected this year. Hillary Clinton received 2,864,974 more votes than Donald Trump, a plurality that has been steadily growing since the election (David Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, as of 12/19/16). Yet these votes don’t count. What does count is a 77,744-vote plurality in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which won Trump the Electors who, presumably, will vote to give him the presidency.

The Electoral College, as it is currently practiced, has two biases: one that gives extra weight to small states, and the other that gives extra power to close states (often called “battleground” states). The small state bias, it turns out, was not a factor in the 2016 election. Rather Trump’s presumed victory was the result of a lot of very close states, which gave him more electoral votes that Clinton’s wide margins in fewer states. More states are better than fewer states, Republicans say, regardless of the margin.

A favorite target of Republican pundits is California, where Clinton won a plurality of over 4 million votes. Take away California, they say, and Trump would win the popular vote. They also claim, without explanation, that California is not representative of the rest of the country. That claim is actually true in the sense that California is composed of 38 percent Hispanics (exceeded only by New Mexico), 13 percent Asians (exceeded only by Hawaii), and only 40 percent non-Hispanic whites (with only Hawaii lower). So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people want to discount California’s votes. 

Yet the “winner-take-all” rule -- which gives all of a state’s electoral votes to the popular winner in that state, and which gave Trump enough Electoral Votes to win the Presidency – was not even contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. In fact, they didn’t anticipate that citizens would vote directly for President at all. Rather, the Constitution assumes that citizens would elect state legislatures, the legislatures would choose Electors, and these Electors would evaluate and choose a President.  

The reason for this extra layer, according to Hamilton in Federalist Paper No. 68, is to prevent uninformed voters from being swayed by popularity over substance.  

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.

According to Hamilton, this ensures that a qualified person will be chosen.

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.

Many groups have been urging members of the Electoral College to make the independent judgements intended by Hamilton and reject a candidate who clearly does not have the qualifications, temperament, or judgement to be President. Vigils are planned at state capitals for last night and today. Among the organizing groups is one calling itself, appropriately enough, “Hamilton Electors.” Needless to say, Republicans and their allies reject this argument and assert that the Electoral College is not supposed to exercise an independent judgment, despite what Hamilton said. 

The Wall Street Journal recently gave its view, “The historical record suggests that discernment was meant to be triggered only in exceptional circumstances when new information about a President-elect’s ‘qualifications’ unknown to voters emerged after the general election.” According to this theory, the voters knew about Trump’s irrational outbursts, racism, and lack of coherent policy plans, but voted for him anyway, so their votes are binding. But Hamilton said nothing about whether information is known to voters or not -- since the Constitution never anticipated that the people would vote directly for the President at all. It is a credit to our system, that up until this year, the Electoral College has never needed to exercise its independent judgement of candidates, since the voters have never before elected someone who was clearly unqualified.

Hamilton’s crafting of the Federalist Papers is important enough for Electors to consider tomorrow as they cast their ballot for President. But he also set a personal example of how Electors should act in the Election of 1800. With John Adams out of the running, some Federalists were trying to sabotage the election by voting for the less qualified Aaron Burr, even though Democratic-Republicans intended Jefferson to be President and Burr Vice President. But Hamilton put the good of the country ahead of politics, as stated in “Election of 1800” near the end of the musical Hamilton.

The people are asking to hear my voice

For the country is facing a difficult choice

And if you were to ask me who I’d promote—

—Jefferson has my vote

I have never agreed with Jefferson once

We have fought on like seventy-five different fronts

But when all is said and all is done

Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none

Unfortunately, Hamilton ended up dead as a result of his feud with Burr, but Jefferson became one of the greatest presidents.

So as the Electoral College meets later today, the good of the country should be their highest priority.