early U.S. has direct election of president, but no vice-president at all

On the theme that the vice-presidency is not worth a warm bucket of spit. Or to put it in more earthy terms, not worth a warm bucket of piss.

So, we don't have a parliamentary system, or at least not a full blown one. We have direct election of president, but no vice-president at all. How do we do it?
 
Unfortunately, I think you don't get direct election of the President unless the Framers have reason to be confident that the electorate would be restricted. So, maybe some kind of direct election, but unlike OTL the states don't pick the electoral qualifications for the voters. Instead, some kind of property requirement is spelled out in the Constitution, or at least its left to the Congress to determine.
Their other concern was that with 18th century communications, the electorate couldn't realistically be expected to have a good feel for who the options were nation-wide and would just end up voting for a local son. They didn't realize how the party system would cover that ground (the party conventions ended up doing the work that the framers thought the electoral college would do). Maybe its possible to get them to see how a party system would arise, but I think that is pretty unrealistic. More likely, if they want direct election of the President, they resolve the problem by making only Senators and Cabinet officers and Supreme Court justices eligible for election, something like that.
 
It's a nice idea, but I don't think they trusted the people enough for that. Only the House of Representatives was directly elected. The Senators were appointed by state legislators. And I don't think they trusted political parties either.

I think there would have to be an earlier 18th-century POD in which more influential writers and philosophers emphasize the will of the people above all else. Or, alternatively, a POD where all the founders except the most radical died.
 
Their other concern was that with 18th century communications, the electorate couldn't realistically be expected to have a good feel for who the options were nation-wide and would just end up voting for a local son. They didn't realize how the party system would cover that ground (the party conventions ended up doing the work that the framers thought the electoral college would do). Maybe its possible to get them to see how a party system would arise, but I think that is pretty unrealistic. More likely, if they want direct election of the President, they resolve the problem by making only Senators and Cabinet officers and Supreme Court justices eligible for election, something like that.
Then could they implement direct elections after the 1800 mess? They reformed how the elections worked then to account for the party system rendering the electoral college mostly irrelevant.
 
Then could they implement direct elections after the 1800 mess? They reformed how the elections worked then to account for the party system rendering the electoral college mostly irrelevant.

Possibly, but even in 1800 they didn't like parties and only acknowledged their existence to the extent they had to. Also, 1800 is earlier enough that direct elections still aren't going to happen without a pretty restricted electorate, which too many of the Jeffersonians would oppose. Honestly, I don't see how you get enough agreement on what the electorate would be for this to pass in 1800.
 
I think the electoral college is the lesser of two evils. The bigger danger is that the Democrats in Virginia or the Whigs in New York, for example, might steal enough votes to swing a national election. Having an electoral college limits how much this can be done. And if a state's competitive, there's a sense that each party can take care of itself.

All of which goes to show that national elections takes a fair amount of political maturity on the part of regular citizens, as well as institutions in place.
 
People keep ignoring the big problem with direct election before the ACW: It would drastically weaken the power of southern states where slaves were a large percentage of the population. And you can't get the Constitution ratified without such states.

Incidentally, here is an old soc.history.what-if post of mine on the whole subject:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/jQnBrXSxTyc/oPyV-2GrfXcJ

***


Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, favoring legislative election, argued
that "As the Salary of the Executive will be fixed, and he will not be
eligible a 2d. time, there will not be such a dependence on the
Legislature as has been imagined." He opposed direct election because it
would not only favor the large states but specifically the large
*northern* states; even as large a southern state as Virginia (and by
extension, the whole South), Williamson said, could not elect a President
because "Her slaves will have no suffrage."
http://books.google.com/books?id=n0oWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32 (Of course
theoretically the southern states could have gotten around this problem by
allowing the slaves to vote, confident that in those days of open voting,
the slaves would not dare to vote against their masters' choice. I doubt
that anyone seriously proposed this, though...)

The chief dispute at the Convention was not between advocates of direct
and indirect election of the president, but between advocates of popular
election (either direct or through an electoral college) and legislative
election. One might think that the advocates of legislative election
based their arguments on the idea that the legislature should be supreme,
but that was not really the case. The delegates quickly decided that the
president should be independent of the legislature, but almost until the
end of the Convention the small states still favored legislative election,
which they felt would be more beneficial to their states and, as
Williamson argued, not inconsistent with executive independence, given a
fixed salary for the president and no possibility of re-election. What
was ultimately decided on was a compromise satisfactory to the
legislative-election advocates, not only because the Electoral College was
based on legislative apportionment--with the resulting advantage to the
small states, especially thanks to the two electoral votes each state got
for its Senate representation--but also because it was widely assumed that
in most elections, no candidate would get a majority, and the race would
go into the House, to be decided on a one-delegation, one-vote basis.

Contrary to the widespread belief that the Electoral College was meant as
an "elitist" anti-democratic measure, the most avid supporters of the
Electoral College were the advocates of popular election. They felt that
the Electoral College was the closest one could get to a popular-election
plan that could actually pass the Convention, given that small states had
the balance of power there, and given the practical difficulties posed by
differences in electoral laws and conditions from state to state--and
especially the obvious difficulty pointed out by Williamson on how direct
elections would limit the power of the slave states. James Wilson who as
early as June 1 had called for popular election of the president, on June
2 called for election by electors chosen by the people, "but this was not
meant as a significant change and was never really considered as such by
the leading members of the Convention. The major alternatives were
legislative election versus some form of popular election, either direct
or indirect..." David K. Nichols, *The Myth of the Modern Presidency,* p.
40.
http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA40

Nichols notes that "It is also commonly assumed that the use of electors
was a product of the Framers' distrust of popular opinion. In support of
this claim we are often treated to quotations from delegates to the
convention such as George Mason who said 'It would be as unnatural to
refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people,
as it would be to refer a trial of colours to a blind man.' There is,
however, a major problem with using such statements to show the
antidemocratic character of the electoral college. The delegates who
expressed the deepest distrust of popular votes were delegates who
eventually opposed the Constitution, such as George Mason or Elbridge
Gerry, or those who favored election by the legislature, such as Roger
Sherman, Charles Pinkney, or George Mason...

"But what of Alexander Hamilton's argument in the *Federalist*? There
Hamilton claimed that the electoral college would refine popular opinion,
would prevent the worst aspects of popular opinion from operating in the
election of the President. Some delegates probably supported the
electoral college because they saw it as a check on popular opinion. But
it is interesting to note that Hamilton's argument in the *Federalist*
for the refining effect of the electoral college was not made at the
Constitutional Convention. Instead, Gouverneur Morris argued that the
extent of the nation would serve to refine popular choice. Morris
contended that although persons of dubious character and ability might be
elevated to office in a single district or state, they would be unlikely
to be elected by the nation as a whole. Only worthy candidates would have
a chance of gaining election from so large a constituency. For Morris it
was the size of the nation, and not the judgment of the electors, that
would screen unworthy candidates. Hamilton borrows Morris's language for
use in the *Federalist* but he substantially alters Morris's argument..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA43

Nichols notes that it is ironic that Morris, so often considered a
reactionary aristocrat, anticipates the concept, usually associated with
the Progressives, of a powerful popular executive, arguing in a July 19
speech that the people at large would be the best judge of presidential
performance, and that "The executive magistrate should be the guardian of
the people, even of the lower classes, against legislative tyranny."
http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA44

Morris, as it turns out, was more perceptive than Hamilton (or than many
small-state delegates who wishfully thought that presidential races would
frequently be thrown into the House; Morris correctly predicted that this
would not be the case, arguing that under the new constitution with its
more powerful national government, men with national reputations would be
likely to arise, and people would vote for them rather than waste their
votes on local or regional favorites). The Electoral College never really
"screened" public opinion; the party system did that. Even as early as
1796, the first "faithless elector" provoked howls of outrage ("What, do I
choose Samuel Miles to determine for me whether John Adams or Thomas
Jefferson shall be President? No! I choose him to act, not to think.") and
even further back, in 1792, when the presidency was uncontested, the vice-
presidency was basically determined on party lines, with electors voting
for Adams or Clinton based on which party had the support of the voters or
legislatures that chose the electors. In short, from a *very* early time,
the Electoral College became an essentially popular election (admittedly
in a modified form), and arguably was intended as such from the beginning.
In fact, even the Anti-Federalists conceded the popular nature of the
Presidency. To some, that was part of the problem. Patrick Henry said,
"To me it appears that there is no check in that Government. The
President, Senators, and Representatives all immediately, or mediately,
are the choice of the people."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch11s13.html

(Other Anti-Federalists were alarmed by the prohibition of religious tests for the
presidency: "For my part, in reviewing the qualifications necessary for a
President, I did not suppose that the pope could occupy the President's
chair. But let us remember that we form a government for millions not yet
in existence. I have not the art of divination. In the course of four or
five hundred years, I do not know how it will work. This is most certain,
that Papists may occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it. I see
nothing against it. There is a disqualification, I believe, in every state
in the Union--it ought to be so in this system."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a6_3s26.html)
 

jahenders

Banned
To be done reasonably, you probably have to wait until you have widespread telegraph use in the late 1800s, otherwise, you'd be waiting weeks to find out how many small places voted.

Politically, I think it would have to be some time after the civil war, but even then many small states will oppose for the same balance of power reasons that drove many aspects of our constitutional setup. So, I can't see it getting enough support to be adopted as an amendment.

Also, I think the vice presidency DOES have value, if nothing else as a notionally trained and ready "heir apparent" in case the president dies.

I honestly think the vice president could have more value if he was the 2nd highest vote getter as was originally intended. If handled well, he could serve as an alternative viewpoint in many discussions in the White House, reducing the likelihood of "group think."


On the theme that the vice-presidency is not worth a warm bucket of spit. Or to put it in more earthy terms, not worth a warm bucket of piss.

So, we don't have a parliamentary system, or at least not a full blown one. We have direct election of president, but no vice-president at all. How do we do it?
 
On the theme that the vice-presidency is not worth a warm bucket of spit. Or to put it in more earthy terms, not worth a warm bucket of piss.

So, we don't have a parliamentary system, or at least not a full blown one. We have direct election of president, but no vice-president at all. How do we do it?

I don't see how these two items are related. Regarding direct election of the president, the Founders had very good reasons to create the Electoral College(reasons that I believe are still valid to some extent). The nation could probably have done fairly well without an elected office of vice president, but I don't understand how that impacts whether or not the President is elected directly or by chosen electors from the states.
 
The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power, Jules Witcover, 2014.

" . . . Mondale also was the first vice president to be sent the highly classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), including the latest foreign-policy intelligence. . . "
It's amazing that it took until President Carter (1977-'81) for the vice president to be considered and treated as a full-fledged member of the team.
 
Okay, so with the key distinction of popular vs. legislative election, the president is essentially elected by popular election through the mechanism of the electoral college. This stays the same.

What's different is that the person next in line in succession is the Speaker of the House, which afterall is the legislative body elected by popular election.

And if the Speaker is sometimes from a different party than the President, oh well, that is something we simply accept. For in a similar way OTL, the president and vice-president were often 'balanced' ideologically. For example, Lincoln and Johnson were very different men when it came to Reconstruction.
 
Then could they implement direct elections after the 1800 mess? They reformed how the elections worked then to account for the party system rendering the electoral college mostly irrelevant.


Trouble is, they'd have had to agree on a franchise for the whole country - otherwise each state could increase its influence on an election by allowing more people to vote. Chances of that were zilch in 1800 - and for generations after.
 
Then could they implement direct elections after the 1800 mess? They reformed how the elections worked then to account for the party system rendering the electoral college mostly irrelevant.

Possibly, but even in 1800 they didn't like parties and only acknowledged their existence to the extent they had to. Also, 1800 is earlier enough that direct elections still aren't going to happen without a pretty restricted electorate, which too many of the Jeffersonians would oppose. Honestly, I don't see how you get enough agreement on what the electorate would be for this to pass in 1800.

Besides, the South still has the slave =3/5 person to bulk up their electoral college votes. If they were restricted to actual voters, they'd lose influence immediately and drastically.

Direct election of the President is a total non-starter, probably until after the Civil War.
 
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