Mar
24
Good analysis, bad application
March 24, 2008 |
In today’s Wall Street Journal John Yoo wrote an editorial about the Democrats’ Super Delegate problem. Yoo is essentially correct in his historical analysis of why the Framers rejected the idea of having Congress choose the President.
This delegate dissonance wasn’t anything the Framers of the U.S. Constitution dreamed up. They believed that letting Congress choose the president was a dreadful idea. Without direct election by the people, the Framers said that the executive would lose its independence and vigor and become a mere servant of the legislature. They had the record of revolutionary America to go on. All but one of America’s first state constitutions gave state assemblies the power to choose the governor. James Madison commented that this structure allowed legislatures to turn governors into “little more than ciphers.”
That’s why, during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Framers rejected early proposals to follow any such model. New York delegate Gouverneur Morris explained that if Congress picked the president, he “will not be independent of it; and if not independent, usurpation and tyranny on the part of the Legislature will be the consequence.” Choosing the president would result from the “work of intrigue, of cabal, and of faction.” After weeks of debate, the Framers vested the presidency with its own base of popular support by establishing a national election, saying that the president should represent the views of the entire people, not the wishes of Congress.
Of course not every Framer thought it was a bad idea, but the consensus certainly opposed it. The problem here is that I am not sure we can apply this reasoning to the selection of a party nominee. The Constitution is basically silent on political parties, and if we looked at each Framer they would have different ideas about the nomination process. What’s more, Yoo’s history is a tad suspect.
But the historical record on this is not heartening. During the reign of the Jeffersonians, the progenitors of today’s Democrats, the congressional caucus chose the party’s nominee. It was a system that yielded mediocrity, even danger. Congressional hawks pushed James Madison into the War of 1812 by demanding ever more aggressive trade restrictions against Great Britain and ultimately declaring war — all because they wanted to absorb Canada. It ended with a stalemate in the north, the torching of the U.S. capital, and Gen. Andrew Jackson winning a victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
“King Caucus” finally broke down when the system reached a peak of “cabal, intrigue, and faction.” Jackson received the plurality of the popular vote in the election of 1824, but with no Electoral College majority the choice went to the House of Representatives. In what became known as the “corrupt bargain,” House Speaker Henry Clay, who had come in fourth, threw his electors behind John Quincy Adams in exchange for being appointed Secretary of State. Jackson spent the next four years successfully attacking the legitimacy of the Adams administration and won his revenge in the election of 1828.
There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, the nominees selected by the Jeffersonian Republican caucus-goers were: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. Perhaps these all underperformed as Presidents, but I would hardly characterize any of them as mediocrities. Now, Yoo offers a valid point about the pressures placed on Madison by Congressional Republicans (now Democrats), and that’s certainly something to consider. But I’m not sure that blame for the War of 1812 can be placed upon the Caucus system. Madison bungled the war, but he deserves plenty of personal blame.
Furthermore, though the caucus system was scrapped, the nomination system that developed afterwards was hardly a democratic one. Party conventions may have been open to non-elected party officials, but it was still basically an insider’s game for the better part of the next century and a half. In fact, if ever there was a period of profound presidential mediocrity, it started right about the time after Jackson left office.
Ultimately, while Clinton and Obama might feel some heightened sense of obligation to Congressional Democrats if Super Delegates are responsible for putting them over the edge, they’re still going to have to run a general election campaign. In the end, it will be the people of the United States that actually would be electing them, thus ensuring the sort of presidential independence the Framers desired. I think there are some problems with the Super Delegate method, but I am not convinced we should necessarily be citing the Framers - in this particular case - to highlight this system’s problems.
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