The Constitution makes it clear that the nation it governs is to be a federal system, uniting fully sovereign states for purposes common to all, and nothing but those which must be common to all, and toward the end of providing for the General Welfare of every state that has agreed to it.

Today we tend to take the Presidency as a popularly elected, plebiscital office, that the president is some sort of tribune of the people, as was the office of tribune in the Roman constitution — literally, the voice of the tribes into which the citizenry of Rome were divided. This is a mistake. The executive office described in Article 2 is almost entirely magisterial, tasked with “(taking) Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Actual power is given to Congress, in Article 1, wherein said powers are listed one by one, along with implied powers.

For whose benefit is the President tasked with executing Congress’s laws ?

The question is rarely asked. I can’t recall it being raised in the several courses on American history that I took in college and high school. I can’t recall ever reading an answer, so let me provide one: the President sees to carrying out Congress’s laws for the benefit of the people AND of the States. Why so ? Simple. The President is elected State by State, and each State’s decision is given by the voters registered therein. These are the operative sentences :

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

When we tally up the votes for President not by State but as a total, we misread what happens on election night. It may be of note that an aggregate of all voters gives the majority to A rather than B, but the aggregate has no Constitutional significance. It’s beside the point.

This we know; almost all of us fail to understand the reasoning. The actual procedure by which the States elect Article 2’s office holder has nothing to do with aggregation. By empowering the States, each to vote separately, the Constitution encourages local authority to assert ITSELF: freeing each State to pursue its own political objectives — consistent with the Constitution’s prohibitions — because the framers saw power most effective and useful when exercised more locally than not. If that means that the “United States” then becomes 50 sovereign jurisdictions pursuing each its own policies and political shape, is that not what was intended ? The framers did NOT desire uniformity in anything other than the common-market purposes for which the Constitution’s signatories came forward in agreement. But for the exceptions — Equal Protection of the Laws, slavery abolished, citizenship for all who are born within the Federal jurisdiction, etc. — the States are authorized to seek each its own judgement how best to proceed on policy grounds. This is why the election of the national officer entrusted with effecting Congress’s laws receives sanction from the States. Given our current passion for community solutions and community politics, is the State-enabling electoral college more germane than we have come to think of it ?

But for the electoral college, the office of President would be a purely populist electee, unbound by any obligations to regional power centers, an overriding voice of the people — and unchallengable as such because whereas the entire nation knows the President’s name and gait, the entire nation of people knows very little about the Congress. Who can memorize the names of all 535 members of Congress ? Not many. Yet everyone can know the President. By such paths a President becomes the locus of popular aspiration. The Constitution wants nothing of the kind. It wants a power arrangement central only on those matters in which common ground should establish, but locally rules in every other way. That way the office of President is effectively hemmed in, able to act only within its scope, because the States can refuse re-election of even instruct their Congress people to bring a bill of impeachment.

The Constitution made a wise choice. We should learn to act locally, within our State, and add our power of deciding to that of our fellow State citizens and thereby assure that we remain free even as we agree to co-operate nationally on nationwide matters — and ONLY on national matters. May 50 States find 50 separate ways of putting freedom and opportunity into practice. Diversity of views, a multiplicity of choices taken — all gain their political legitimacy from the power given to States by the electoral college manner of choosing.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere