As the federal government has assumed more power, the states have not only lost sovereignty but have become dependent upon federal largess. Federalism matters, and not only over the division of power, but it goes directly to the heart of our constitutional republic. The undermining of federalism continues today by those who not only want to expand federal power but abolish the Electoral College.

When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in 1787, they designed a Constitution with a republican form of government that limited the powers of the federal government. In Federalist Paper 45, James Madison wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” The 10th Amendment further solidified what Madison wrote in Federalist 45. Historian Allen Guelzo correctly points out that the “Constitution never set out to create a streamlined national government.”

The American Founders did not wish the states to have a diminished role under the Constitution. The late constitutional scholar James McClellan wrote that the “entire Constitution is actually honeycombed with provisions designed to protect the residual sovereignty and interests of the states and to give them influence in the decision-making process at the national level.”
 

This also includes the Electoral College. The Founders in considering the election of the executive rejected outright a direct national election. In designing the Electoral College, the Founders wanted to ensure that the selection of the executive was both independent of Congress and included the states. The Electoral College was designed to both protect the interests of the states and the people.

Although the presidential election is viewed as a national election, it is an election conducted by the 50 states. Voters within each state when they cast their ballot for a presidential candidate are voting for that candidate’s electors, who are chosen by political parties. The presidential candidate who wins the state wins that state’s slate of presidential electors.

The Electoral College system safeguards equal representation in presidential elections. This is similar to the United States Senate. The great compromise, the Connecticut Compromise, at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, was based on resolving the disagreement over representation. The legislative branch would be a bi-cameral with the House of Representatives based on population benefiting larger states, and the Senate would have equal representation with each state having two members, thus benefiting smaller states. Interestingly, before the 17th Amendment, members of the Senate were selected by state legislatures.