Historians sometimes talk about the constitutional convention of 1787 as “the miracle of Philadelphia.” Why? This is Part THREE of the answer.
Last time we discussed the Connecticut Compromise, but this was only one of several compromises required to birth a new national government. Others involved how to count slaves in allocating congressional representatives among the states, and how to configure and elect the executive branch of the national government.
States with large slave populations argued that their size and economies would be short-changed in congressional representation. Northern states argued that slaves should not be counted in determining a state’s population, since their states didn’t treat them as citizens or allow them to vote. Slavery, often called our nation’s “original sin,” was already an embarrassment to many who took the pronouncements of the Declaration of Independence seriously. The convention ultimately adopted the infamous “3/5ths compromise” to defer the issue. Proposed by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who personally opposed slavery, this compromise counted each slave as 3/5ths of a person in determining a state’s representation in Congress.
That still left the executive branch to configure. Many delegates suspicious of federal power and leery of creating a monarchy or dictatorship, wanted a committee of presidents. Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and others persuaded a majority that effective administration of the government required a single president, in the same way each state had a single governor. But delegates disagreed on how to choose this person. Wilson wanted the people to elect him by direct national vote. Others from smaller states, suspicious that the most populous states would have too much influence, wanted the choice to be by vote of the states, with each having an equal say. The convention crafted what we now know as the electoral college as a compromise between the two extremes.
"The History of Our Freedoms" is produced by KEDT-FM in Corpus Christi. Dr. Bill Chriss is a historian and legal scholar. For more on history and the constitution, check out his blog at https://drbillchriss.substack.com/.
