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FEDERALIST No. 68

The Mode of Electing the President
From the New York Packet.
Friday, March 14, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United
 States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence,
 which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the
 slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most
 plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to
 admit that the election of the President is pretty well
 guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to
 affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least
 excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the
 union of which was to be wished for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in
 the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be
 confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of
 making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the
 people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be
 made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the
 station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation,
 and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements
 which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of
 persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass,
 will be most likely to possess the information and discernment
 requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity
 as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be
 dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so
 important an agency in the administration of the government as the
 President of the United States. But the precautions which have been
 so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an
 effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to
 form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to
 convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements,
 than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the
 public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to
 assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this
 detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats
 and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people,
 than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable
 obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.
 These most deadly adversaries of republican government might
 naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than
 one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain
 an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better
 gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief
 magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against
 all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious
 attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to
 depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with
 beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in
 the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to
 be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole
 purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from
 eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be
 suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No
 senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or
 profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the
 electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the
 immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task
 free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their
 detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory
 prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The
 business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a
 number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be
 found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over
 thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which
 though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be
 of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the
 Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all
 but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to
 sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was
 necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This
 advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend
 on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the
 single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by
 the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall
 choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of
 senators and representatives of such State in the national
 government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some
 fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be
 transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person
 who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will
 be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always
 happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit
 less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such
 a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the
 candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man
 who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the
 office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not
 in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
 Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may
 alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single
 State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of
 merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole
 Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary
 to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of
 President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say,
 that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station
 filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this
 will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the
 Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the
 executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or
 ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political
 heresy of the poet who says:
DPA2@@``For forms of government let fools contestτ That which is best
 administered is best,''τ
DPAC1@@yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good
 government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good
 administration.
The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the
 President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in
 respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of
 Representatives, in respect to the latter.
The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President,
 has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has
 been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized
 the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that
 description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of
 the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times
 the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is
 necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And
 to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place
 him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in
 regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent
 vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may
 occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme
 executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of
 election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal
 force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that
 in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made
 would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a
 Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in
 the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor,
 in casualties similar to those which would authorize the
 Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties
 of the President.
PUBLIUS.
1 Vide FEDERAL FARMER.