Should we change how we elect our President? To: James Hillhouse From: Your Obedt. Servt, J Marshall

In 1808, Senator James Hillhouse proposed a constitutional amendment to change how we elect our President.

Worried about the effect of party spirit as filtered through presidential elections, Hillhouse proposed picking the President by lot from the class of Senators who were finishing their terms. As explained by Richard Hansen, "Every year the retiring senators would meet and, after being blindfolded, each would draw a ball from a box. The senator drawing the colored ball would be President for the ensuing year."

Hillhouse's proposal went nowhere. He tried to revive it in 1830, thinking that experience with Andrew Jackson may have led people to realize the wisdom of his proposal.

He was mostly wrong.

But John Marshall was among those who saw some value in it, even while recognizing it would go nowhere.

Here's Marshall's 1830 letter to Hillhouse (emphases added). Worth reading now as an example of Marshall's judgment ... including his self-awareness that "[a]ge is perhaps unreasonably timid."

(N.B. Hillhouse was a member of the same military unit as Benedict Arnold and Your Obedt. Servt, A. Burr.)

* * *

My dear Sir

I have just returned from North Carolina and had this morning the pleasure of receiving your letter of the 10th accompanying your proposition for amending the constitution of The United States as to the mode of electing the President, and your speech made on that subject in the Senate in 1808.

I read your speech when first published with great pleasure and attention, but was not then a convert to either of the amendments it suggested.

In truth there is something so captivating in the idea of a chief Executive Magistrate who is the choice of a whole people, that it is extremely difficult to withdraw the judgement from its influence.

The advantages which ought to result from it are manifest. They strike the mind at once, and we are unwilling to beleive that they can be defeated, or that the operation of chusing can be attended with evils which more than counter balance the actual good resulting from the choice. It is humiliating too to admit that we must look, in any degree, to chance for that decision which ought to be made by the judgement.

These strong and apparently rational convictions can be shaken only by long observation and painful experience. Mine are I confess very much shaken; and my views of this subject have changed a good deal since 1808.

I consider it however rather as an affair of curious speculation than of probable fact. Your plan comes in conflict with so many opposing interests and deep rooted prejudices that I should despair of its success were its utility still more apparent than it is.

All those who are candidates for the Presidency either immediately or remotely, and they are more numerous than is imagined, and are the most powerful members of the community, will be opposed to it. The body of the people will also most probably be in opposition; for it will be difficult to persuade them that any mode of choice can be preferable to election mediate or immediate by themselves.

The ardent politicians of the country, not yet moderated by experience, will consider it as an imputation on the great republican principle that the people are capable of governing themselves, if any other mode of appointing a chief Magistrate be substituted for that which depends on their agency.

I believe therefore that we must proceed with our present system till its evils become still more obvious, perhaps indeed till the experiment shall become impracticable, before we shall be willing to change it.

My own private mind has been slowly and reluctantly advancing to the belief that the present mode of chusing the chief Magistrate threatens the most serious danger to the public happiness.

The passions of men are enflamed to so fearful an extent, large masses are so embittered against each other, that I dread the consequences. The election agitates every section of The United States, and the ferment is never to subside. Scarcely is a President elected before the machinations respecting a successor commence. Every political question is affected by it. All those who are in office, all those who want office, are put in motion. The angriest, I might say the worst passions are roused and put into full activity. Vast masses united closely move in opposite directions animated with the most hostile feelings towards each other.

What is to be the effect of all this?

Age is perhaps unreasonably timid. Certain it is that I now dread consequences which I once thought imaginary.

I feel disposed to take refuge under some less turbulent and less dangerous mode of chusing the chief Magistrate.

My mind suggests none less objectionable than that you have proposed.

We shall no longer be enlisted under the banners of particular men. Strife will no longer be excited when it can no longer effect its object. Neither the people at large nor the councils of the nation will be agitated by the all disturbing question who shall be President? Yet he will in truth be chosen substantially by the people.

The Senators must always be among the most alert men [of their states.] Tho’ not appointed for the particular purpose, they must [always be] appointed for important purposes, and must possess a large share of the public confidence.

If the people of The United States were to elect as many persons as compose one senatorial class, and the President was to be chosen among them by lot in the manner you propose, he would be substantially elected by the people, and yet such a mode of election would be recommended by no advantages which your plan does not possess. In many respects it would be less eligible.

Reasoning a priori I should undoubtedly pronounce the system adopted by the convention the best that could be devised. Judging from experience I am driven to a different conclusion.

I have at your request submitted my reflections to your private view and will only add that I am with great and respectful esteem

Your Obedt. Servt

J Marshall