No Popular Vote for President.

What follows is probably a borderline ASB idea, and I understand the plausibility issues involved.

What if the Constitution read:
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
the Legislature of each state shall appoint, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Now assuming that with this alteration the constitution still passes, I don't think things change too much in the short term. Washington is still going to be President under this system in all probability. But where do things go from there? How long would this election by state legislature system last? How does this change the American political system?
 
I do not think that this would fundamentally change the system, it may change some history and many of the people involved in the country's politics but I think eventually an Andrew Jackson sort of figure will come along who realizes the elitism inherent in the current system and proposes to promptly toss said elitist elements in the manure pile.
 
There will probably be more state power.

The outcome of the election of 1796 may certainly be different, assuming no major butterflies beforehand. Jefferson was only three electoral votes behind Adams, and the three states which mostly went to Jefferson except for one EV each -- Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania -- all had systems for choosing electors that was not the state legislature method. Specifically, electors in Pennsylvania were chosen statewide, while Virginia and North Carolina had districts for each elector.

However, Maryland, which was split between Adams and Jefferson 7-4, used the same method as Virginia and North Carolina.
 
Does the minor change in language really prevent the state legislators from saying "Okay, we appoint the slate of electors chosen in this indirect popular vote.", as they ultimately did OTL? Can the Constitution so constrain the rules of state legislature?
 
Does the minor change in language really prevent the state legislators from saying "Okay, we appoint the slate of electors chosen in this indirect popular vote.", as they ultimately did OTL?

It appears to me that it does not.


Can the Constitution so constrain the rules of state legislature?

Yes it can (could), though I find it difficult to imagine that such a constraint would be accepteable to the states in the 1780's.
 
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