Did the Founding Fathers Ever Intend for Voting From the General Population?

Executive Summary

• It is often stated that the founders planned for the general public to vote for representatives.
• This article investigates how valid this claim was.

Introduction

In this article, we’ll review what the founders wrote about the degree of voter participation among the general public.

What The Founders Set Up Regarding Voting

The following quotes are from Reddit.

The Extreme Limits on Voting

The U.S. Constitution originally left it to states to determine who is qualified to vote in elections. For decades, state legislatures generally restricted voting to white males who owned property. Some states also employed religious tests to ensure that only Christian men could vote.

No Popular Elections for President

There is nothing that requires popular elections for president. From Article II, this is the relevant language:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress:

The Constitution lets the State Legislatures decide the method for selecting electors. It is clear that this language did not even imply that an election was required. Language that would have required direct elections was rejected. Many States immediately adopted a practice of the Legislature appointing electors – no one thought that unusual. The Constitution had also provided that Senators were not picked by popular elections, so a procedure not requiring elections for President was consistent with the thinking.

The Constitution only provided for elections as to the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives is the “lower house” or the House of Councilors.

The Founders Thought That Voting Should be Performed by White Men Appointed by the State Legislators

The Founding Fathers, the ones who wrote the Constitution in 1787, intended for the President to be voted upon by a large number of White men who were “appointed” by the State legislatures—that’s the term used in the Constitution—none of whom would know who was being voted upon in other States.

There were no US political parties in 1787, so the Founders anticipated that there would be numerous candidates for President each time. According to George Mason, there would be a lack of a majority in the electoral college ninety-five percent of the time. If that were the case, then 19 out of 20 Presidents would be elected by the US House of Representatives, with each State delegation having one vote. These State delegations, according to the Constitution, would choose from among the five men who had received the most electoral votes when these votes were cast at the State capitols in December. There was no popular election anticipated, but, likewise, there was no expectation that the Presidential election contest would come down to a handful of “swing” States as it does today.

And This Quote

No, in fact the Constitution gives state legislatures the power to pick electors. For the first few presidential elections, in fact, we don’t even know what the popular vote was. Gradually all the states opted to have the voters select electors. Interestingly the last state to give them that right was South Carolina in 1860, just before they seceded. The last state where the legislature picked electors was Colorado in 1876, because it was admitted to the Union too late to have a general presidential election.

The Expansion of Voting Rights

It is often claimed that the expansion of voting rights was a very positive feature. The following article is very typical of articles that make this type of claim. They also overlook the fact that this expansion of voting rights contradicts the founders’ design. The following quote is from the article Voting Rights Timeline.

Challenges to voting rights in this country are hardly a 21st-century invention. Entrenched groups have long tried to keep the vote out of the hands of the less powerful.

This also includes the founders.

Indeed, the United States began its great democratic experiment in the late 1700s by granting the right to vote to a narrow subset of society — white male landowners.

That would not be democratic. At best, this would be an experiment in a republican form of government.

Even as barriers to voting began receding in the ensuing decades, many Southern states erected new ones, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, aimed at keeping the vote out of the hands of African American men and other targeted groups.

Having blacks vote has not done anything good in either the US or in Africa.

Having blacks vote has resulted in them taking over the local government in places like Baltimore, Detroit, Birmingham, East St Louis, Philadelphia, Youngstown, etc., which has led to the most corrupt cities in the country. Nearly all of the most corrupt cities in the US are black run. Therefore, the outcomes of black-run cities and societies are known and are terrible. But furthermore, even polling black people on issues demonstrates the lowest levels of knowledge, the highest levels of emotionalism, and the least degree of rationality. That’s just one example. The majority of blacks in the country think that the entirety of the Black Lives Matter movement is justified. However, the primary reason that blacks are shot in interactions with police officers is because they are using weapons against police officers, which I cover in the following article Why the Claims by Black Lives Matter on Police Shootings Are False. Furthermore, all of the ideas proposed by BLM to address what is a fake discrepancy has degraded all of the cities that implemented BLM’s ideas as I cover in the The Ferguson Effect – How BLM Worsened Black on Black Violence in the US.

Latinos, who are highly ignorant, have also been given the right to vote. And the same thing has happened; it has allowed Latinos to take over local government and turn those cities into hellholes.

Over time, voting rights became a bipartisan priority as people worked at all levels to enact constitutional amendments and laws expanding access to the vote based on race and ethnicity, gender, disability, age, and other factors.

Again, this has not been a good thing. Furthermore, it is not something that the founders would have agreed with. So in that sense, it is unconstitutional. The pattern has been to enlarge voting rights into increasingly less intellectual and rational areas of the population. There has never been a successful society run by either Blacks, Latinos, Indians, or women.

After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, the Biden administration paid for tens of millions of illegal aliens to come into the country. For the sole purpose of rigging the 2024 election. The Democrats did not care that these illegal aliens could barely speak English and could not write or read English. The liberals now propose that illegal aliens voting is inclusive.

Letting Blacks Vote?

Black were given the right to vote. South Africa, in the space of between 30 and 35 years, has degraded into a failed state. The majority of the US population will promote the idea that black voting is virtuous and intelligent.

And yet, we promote the idea that giving these people the vote is a positive sign of progress.

American Knowledge Levels of History and Politics

Many of the people bombing basic questions about American history are white. It should be understood that the founders would not have been in favor of the majority of whites voting either. Aristotle discussed the necessity of slavery in Athens in its connection to democracy as the slaves freed the voters or the citizens from work that would allow them to focus on educating themselves on issues of the state.

See this quote from regarding Socrates’ view on voting.

Socrates’s point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm.

We have forgotten all about Socrates’s salient warnings against democracy. We have preferred to think of democracy as an unambiguous good – rather than a process that is only ever as effective as the education system that surrounds it. As a result, we have elected many sweet shop owners, and very few doctors. – School of Life

I also cover how Aristotle saw democracy as necessitating slavery in the article We Can Have Democracy, But We Probably Need to Bring Back Slavery.

See the following quote on slavery in Athens.

It is difficult to estimate the number of slaves in ancient Greece, given the lack of a precise census and variations in definitions during that era. It seems certain that Athens had the largest slave population, with as many as 80,000 in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, on average three or four slaves per household.

According to the literature, it appears that the majority of free Athenians owned at least one slave. Aristophanes, in Plutus, portrays poor peasants who have several slaves; Aristotle defines a house as containing freemen and slaves.

The Greeks had many degrees of enslavement. There was a multitude of categories, ranging from free citizen to chattel slave, and including Penestae or helots, disenfranchised citizens, freedmen, bastards, and metics. The common ground was the deprivation of civic rights. – Wikipedia

How Slavery Allowed The Athenians More Leisure and Study Time To Engage in Politics

As is apparent from discussing political subjects with many people, understanding politics takes mental effort and time. However, people working full-time jobs and having families typically do not have this time to devote to being educated on politics. But citizens of Athens were often slave owners — and this was an essential component of democracy.

Madison’s Statements on Democracy in the Federalist Papers

The term “democracy” is mentioned 10 times in the Federalist Papers. However, democracy is compared and contrasted with a republican form of government, but it is never endorsed or stated that the US will be a democracy.

Here are the references to democracy in the Federalist Papers.

Madison’s Argument of the Passions of Democracy and the Poor Outcomes of Democratic Systems

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.

A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.

Madison here is stating that the masses are easily manipulated into voting a certain way based on feelings and emotions.

Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Roughly speaking, Madison here states that democracies previously have ended in failure and have been short-lived.

Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

In the following quote, Madison proposes the superiority of republics over democracies.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking.

Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

The Advantage of a Republic Over a Democracy

Here, Madison is stating that the republic is superior to a democracy in terms of its ability to control the effects of factions. In the enlightenment of the representatives versus voters, in the security afforded to more parties against the rule of the mob.

Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, — is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice?

It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments.

Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security.

Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.

Here, Madison is stating that the republic is superior to a democracy in terms of its ability to control the effects of factions. In the enlightenment of the representatives versus voters, in the security afforded to more parties against the rule of the mob.

The Very Limited Geographic Scope of a Democracy (i.e. confined to a small spot)

The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms was also adverted to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.

Here, Madison is stating that a democracy can only be applied over a minimal geographic region, whereas a republic scales far better than a democracy.

In the following quote, Madison continues to explain the problems of applying democracy across a large geographic area.

As the natural limit of a democracy is that distance from the central point which will just permit the most remote citizens to assemble as often as their public functions demand, and will include no greater number than can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a republic is that distance from the centre which will barely allow the representatives to meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs. Can it be said that the limits of the United States exceed this distance? It will not be said by those who recollect that the Atlantic coast is the longest side of the Union, that during the term of thirteen years, the representatives of the States have been almost continually assembled, and that the members from the most distant States are not chargeable with greater intermissions of attendance than those from the States in the neighborhood of Congress.

That we may form a juster estimate with regard to this interesting subject, let us resort to the actual dimensions of the Union. The limits, as fixed by the treaty of peace, are: on the east the Atlantic, on the south the latitude of thirty-one degrees, on the west the Mississippi, and on the north an irregular line running in some instances beyond the forty-fifth degree, in others falling as low as the forty-second. The southern shore of Lake Erie lies below that latitude. Computing the distance between the thirty-first and forty-fifth degrees, it amounts to nine hundred and seventy-three common miles; computing it from thirty-one to forty-two degrees, to seven hundred and sixty-four miles and a half. Taking the mean for the distance, the amount will be eight hundred and sixty-eight miles and three-fourths. The mean distance from the Atlantic to the Mississippi does not probably exceed seven hundred and fifty miles. On a comparison of this extent with that of several countries in Europe, the practicability of rendering our system commensurate to it appears to be demonstrable. It is not a great deal larger than Germany, where a diet representing the whole empire is continually assembled; or than Poland before the late dismemberment, where another national diet was the depositary of the supreme power. Passing by France and Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior as it may be in size, the representatives of the northern extremity of the island have as far to travel to the national council as will be required of those of the most remote parts of the Union.

How The Threats of Democracy are Often Underestimated

In a government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of an hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the source of danger, and watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire.

In a democracy, where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited; both in the extent and the duration of its power; and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.

Conclusion

The founders did not want the general population to vote. Since voting rights have been expanded, the evidence of how correct the founders were from the beginning has turned out to be quite obvious. The Founding Fathers would have opposed the expansion of voting rights to groups that had received the vote. The founders did not support broad-based voting. And even in the case of the House of Representatives, it would have limited who could vote.