If Barack Obama is elected president, there will be no shortage of ways by which to articulate the utterly revolutionary portent of it. A black man, an African man, a man with a Muslim name, a man younger than all but three prior presidents, a (let me admit it) rather unexamined man, all rolled into one.
But perhaps the simplest twine in this twist of fate is that if Barack Obama is elected president, he will, by definition, win the Electoral College. And the Electoral College was created to appease slave owners.
There are euphemisms employed to defend the Electoral College as necessary to protect the "small states" but when the Constitution was written, "small state" meant "slave state".
The Electoral College gives disproportionate power to the "small states", mirroring the Senate much more than the House.
Since the slave owners did not recognize their slaves as human beings, they could hardly be citizens.
And, since a state's representation and influence in national government was based on the number of citizens in said state, the slave owners tried to have their slaves count as citizens in regard to that state's power in the national government, while at the same time denying those slaves any rights of a citizen or even of a well-heeled dog.
The "compromise"? The 3/5th's clause, which designated each slave as 3/5 of a human being when assigning the "small states" their representation in the national government.
The Electoral College was a compromise necessary to convince the slave states to join the Union during the American Revolution. The only (thin) chance at defeating the British was to have all 13 colonies united, even if that meant ignoring slavery. Even, in fact, if it meant giving slaveowners disproportionate power in national government.
Slavery is gone, of course, but the system which violated one man-one vote by giving disproportionate power to certain states remains our method of selecting our president, even though the genesis of this system was a bribe to slaveholders.
Such compromises are understandable, and only historians infected with a "presentist" attitude could cavalierly denounce that compromise. It was necessary at the time toward what was in fact a greater end.
But after the treason of the Confederacy, and after the United States was spoken of as "is" rather than "are", why do we maintain this antiquated anti-democratic charade? It failed us miserably just 8 years ago, and I leave the reader to entertain the consequences of that.
This is not a post about the evils of the Electoral College; It's a post about the fact that if Barack Obama wins this election, he will do so by rules written to give undue influence to slaveowners. Reminds me of when I went to Berlin and visited the spot of the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. On the sight stood a Chinese restaurant and a gay bar.
If Obama wins the Electoral College, perhaps with some help from Virginia, the former seat of the Confederacy, it will imply a great many things, but given the fact that this African man may win by the rules explained above, we all have ammunition to use against anyone who dares deny the legitimacy of his election or the fact that he won a game governed by rules that were written under the assumption that his ancestors were not human beings.
But perhaps the simplest twine in this twist of fate is that if Barack Obama is elected president, he will, by definition, win the Electoral College. And the Electoral College was created to appease slave owners.
There are euphemisms employed to defend the Electoral College as necessary to protect the "small states" but when the Constitution was written, "small state" meant "slave state".
The Electoral College gives disproportionate power to the "small states", mirroring the Senate much more than the House.
Since the slave owners did not recognize their slaves as human beings, they could hardly be citizens.
And, since a state's representation and influence in national government was based on the number of citizens in said state, the slave owners tried to have their slaves count as citizens in regard to that state's power in the national government, while at the same time denying those slaves any rights of a citizen or even of a well-heeled dog.
The "compromise"? The 3/5th's clause, which designated each slave as 3/5 of a human being when assigning the "small states" their representation in the national government.
The Electoral College was a compromise necessary to convince the slave states to join the Union during the American Revolution. The only (thin) chance at defeating the British was to have all 13 colonies united, even if that meant ignoring slavery. Even, in fact, if it meant giving slaveowners disproportionate power in national government.
Slavery is gone, of course, but the system which violated one man-one vote by giving disproportionate power to certain states remains our method of selecting our president, even though the genesis of this system was a bribe to slaveholders.
Such compromises are understandable, and only historians infected with a "presentist" attitude could cavalierly denounce that compromise. It was necessary at the time toward what was in fact a greater end.
But after the treason of the Confederacy, and after the United States was spoken of as "is" rather than "are", why do we maintain this antiquated anti-democratic charade? It failed us miserably just 8 years ago, and I leave the reader to entertain the consequences of that.
This is not a post about the evils of the Electoral College; It's a post about the fact that if Barack Obama wins this election, he will do so by rules written to give undue influence to slaveowners. Reminds me of when I went to Berlin and visited the spot of the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. On the sight stood a Chinese restaurant and a gay bar.
If Obama wins the Electoral College, perhaps with some help from Virginia, the former seat of the Confederacy, it will imply a great many things, but given the fact that this African man may win by the rules explained above, we all have ammunition to use against anyone who dares deny the legitimacy of his election or the fact that he won a game governed by rules that were written under the assumption that his ancestors were not human beings.
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