For four months during the summer of 1787, delegates from the thirteen states met in Philadelphia to craft a revised Constitution that would define the government of the United States. It took them nearly the entire time to settle on the method for selecting the President, the Chief Executive. What they came up with is a system of indirect election where the states would select electors who would then cast votes for President and Vice President. Today we call these electors the Electoral College.

In this final episode of our series on Elections in Early America, we explore the origins and early development of the Electoral College and how it shaped presidential elections in the first decades of the United States with Alexander Keyssar and Frank Cogliano.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/287

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King

🎧 Episode 107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention

🎧 Episode 131: Frank Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson's Empire of Liberty

🎧 Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The Making of the United States Constitution

🎧 Episode 179: George Van Cleve, After the Revolution: Governance During the Critical Period

🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson

🎧 Episode 279: Lindsay Chervinsky, The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution

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