>>I understand that the electoral college was created in part to justify
>>the representation of slaves in the southern states. In other words, it
>>was a necessary part of the 3/5 representation. Michael Hoover always
>>knows about this sort of material."
At 09:26 PM 11/9/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Sounds confused. the 3/5 representation thing was for the House of Reps,
>the only directly elected body in them thar days. The function of the EC,
>if I recall my Federalist Papers and the Debates on the Constitution, is
>to make sure that the hoi poloi didn't elect a populist/radical/democratic
>prez who would do something like pressfor the abolition of debt. In other
>words, it served a similar function to the indirect election of Senators
>by the state (I almost misstyped satanic) legislatures. --jks
Pat Mason once told me that the 3/5 rule was an effort to assign weights
according to relative wealth holdings, since it was hard to actually
measure wealth. It sounds to me like one of those many compromises that
show up in the law, here between States Rights and Federalism.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
