@Frugal1,
Hahaha.... you're the Queen of Fake Numbers.
To all those crybabies who are now calling for the EC to be abolished....
The Electoral College Made It Possible For Us To Abolish Slavery
Matt Vespa | December 28, 2016
The Electoral College Made It Possible For Us To Abolish Slavery
The Electoral College is a racist system that helped slave states, and that’s why it should be abolished. That’s one of the many talking points the Left has hurled against our electoral process. In all, it’s just the typical antics of a sore loser. The Electoral College has to go because Hillary Clinton lost and California gave her more popular votes (no kidding since it’s a left wing cesspool). Even The New York Times says the Electoral College has to go because it’s racist (with the three-fifths compromise bit), and because Clinton got more popular votes (though she didn’t win the majority). Once again, the Left shows they have no sense of history, despite being obsessed with being on the right side of it.
Well, Allen Guelzo and James Hulme, a Civil War professor at Gettysburg College and attorney, respectively, wrote in The Washington Post that the Electoral College was instrumental in destroying slavery, it reinforces the concept of federalism, and it’s an overall stabilizing force in our system of government:
…the electoral college had nothing to do with slavery. Some historians have branded the Electoral College this way because each state’s electoral votes are based on that “whole Number of Senators and Representatives” from each State, and in 1787 the number of those representatives was calculated on the basis of the infamous 3/5ths clause. But the Electoral College merely reflected the numbers, not any bias about slavery (and in any case, the 3/5ths clause was not quite as proslavery a compromise as it seems, since Southern slaveholders wanted their slaves counted as 5/5ths for determining representation in Congress, and had to settle for a whittled-down fraction). As much as the abolitionists before the Civil War liked to talk about the “proslavery Constitution,” this was more of a rhetorical posture than a serious historical argument. And the simple fact remains, from the record of the Constitutional Convention’s proceedings (James Madison’s famous Notes), that the discussions of the Electoral College and the method of electing a president never occur in the context of any of the convention’s two climactic debates over slavery.
If anything, it was the Electoral College that made it possible to end slavery, since Abraham Lincoln earned only 39 percent of the popular vote in the election of 1860, but won a crushing victory in the Electoral College. This, in large measure, was why Southern slaveholders stampeded to secession in 1860-61. They could do the numbers as well as anyone, and realized that the Electoral College would only produce more anti-slavery Northern presidents.
The Constitution also makes us a federal union, and the Electoral College is pre-eminently both the symbol and a practical implementation of that federalism.
The states of the union existed before the Constitution, and in a practical sense, existed long before the revolution. Nothing guaranteed that, in 1776, the states would all act together, and nothing that guaranteed that after the Revolution they might not go their separate and quarrelsome ways, much like the German states of the 18th century or the South American republics in the 19th century. The genius of the Constitutional Convention was its ability to entice the American states into a “more perfect union.” But it was still a union of states, and we probably wouldn’t have had a constitution or a country at all unless the route we took was federalism.
The Electoral College was an integral part of that federal plan. It made a place for the states as well as the people in electing the president by giving them a say at different points in a federal process and preventing big-city populations from dominating the election of a president.
Without the Electoral College, there would be no effective brake on the number of “viable” presidential candidates. Abolish it, and it would not be difficult to imagine a scenario where, in a field of a dozen micro-candidates, the “winner” only needs 10 percent of the vote, and represents less than 5 percent of the electorate. And presidents elected with smaller and smaller pluralities will only aggravate the sense that an elected president is governing without a real electoral mandate.
The Electoral College has been a major, even if poorly comprehended, mechanism for stability in a democracy, something which democracies are sometimes too flighty to appreciate.
Guelzo and Hulme also touched upon another fact that’s often lost in political discussions, which is that our government was never meant to be efficient; it was meant to be safe. So, besides the Electoral College, and George Will has touched upon this ad nauseum, we also have three branches of government, two branches of the legislature, veto, veto override, supermajorities, and judicial review. All of these things were meant to slow down government.
@giujohn,
and the reason most of those wre instituted was because the framers had no love nor trust for the citizenry.
There are an equally compelling number of authors who see this argument from a totally opposite pole of reality. Funny how everyone feels that only their way of thinking is "correct"
Sort of like religions.
Ill calmly wait till Mr Trump impeaches" himself". Hes already on a good track toward "misdemeanors"
@farmerman,
I agree that it's only a matter of time before Trump is impeached. He has no understanding of our Constitution, and he thinks he's above the laws of our land.
Money can't buy him out of this problem.
Many in and out of government who sees Trump as a scammer and liar will make sure he goes on the straight and narrow, and if he doesn't, will face impeachment.
More & more American voters are expressing how happy they are that Trump won, and that nasty woman lost.
@giujohn,
Quote: But the Electoral College merely reflected the numbers, not any bias about slavery (and in any case, the 3/5ths clause was not quite as proslavery a compromise as it seems, since Southern slaveholders wanted their slaves counted as 5/5ths for determining representation in Congress, and had to settle for a whittled-down fraction).
Sure, they wanted to count slaves when it came to determining the number of representatives they would get. But those slaves couldn't actually vote. So that would mean the white southerners would have effectively had more than one vote per person.
@TomTomBinks,
The democrat plantation hasn't changed much.
@giujohn,
giujohn, quoting Matt Vespa quoting Allen Guelzo and James Hulme, wrote:
…the electoral college had nothing to do with slavery.
The Electoral College did have something to do with slavery and the Southern States.
In the
Records of the Federal Convention, Thursday July 19, 1787 James Madison weighed the appointment of an Executor by the Legislature against one being voted for by the general public and an electoral system being a compromise that would be accepted by the Southern States.
Quote:
The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.
@cicerone imposter,
cicerone imposter wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before Trump is impeached. He has no understanding of our Constitution, and he thinks he's above the laws of our land.
Money can't buy him out of this problem.
Many in and out of government who sees Trump as a scammer and liar will make sure he goes on the straight and narrow, and if he doesn't, will face impeachment.
If you're so sure do you want to take the bet? If the Senate convicts Trump or he is forced to leave office I will retire my handle at a2k... And if not you will have too. Is it a bet?
@cicerone imposter,
guijohn, Can't handle facts? LOL
@cicerone imposter,
Dayum, while I can see the need for Trump's impeachment because of several of his "self dealings", That Yahoo piece was, perhaps, one of the worst edited news pieces Ive ever read. Ive become familiarized with the poor writing and spelling on many of the right wing **** that Fuggle posts (Which makes me suspect that many of those sources are actually "off shore"). However, Im now suspecting that both sides have engaged in "subcontracting fake news"
@farmerman,
It's very dangerous.
Quote:JERUSALEM -- A fake news story has touched off a tense Twitter confrontation between nuclear power Pakistan and Israel, widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal of its own, in an episode that underlines the potentially harmful impact of such stories in sensitive global affairs.
In an apparent response to a fake story claiming Israel’s former defense minister threatened a nuclear attack against Pakistan if it sends troops to Syria, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif ominously reminded Israel that “Pakistan is a nuclear state too.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fake-news-twitter-confrontation-nuclear-powers-pakistan-israel/<br />
There was a punter on the telly saying what needs to be done is remove the profit incentive. A lot of these sites originate in Macedonia and they're only in it for the money. If they can't make money that way they'll move on.
@cicerone imposter,
Wow, the University of Utah... That's impressive... So you should have no problem taking my bet... what's the matter don't have the courage of your convictions? LOLOUDER.
@izzythepush,
Whose going to play chicken with this scenario?
@cicerone imposter,
I know it's bloody terrifying, a nuclear strike anywhere in the World will impact on everyone.
@izzythepush,
Yeah, and it will be a positive impact if it stops radical islamic muslims in their tracks.
@cicerone imposter,
Come on, don't chicken out now!
