"George Washington was sincerely a friend to the republican principles of our Constitution. His faith, perhaps, in its duration, might not have been as confident as mine;" said Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Martin Van Buren.

Jefferson was near the end of his life, writing in June of 1824, while the country was in the midst of a presidential campaign that closely resembles the present day and its events. The country was prospering. The southerner in the White House had survived a ruinous financial panic in 1819, and had gone forward to a great success, and to create the Monroe Doctrine.

Jefferson stresses to this rising young politician (who will, himself, be elected President one day), that Washington "repeatedly declared to me, that he was determined it should have a fair chance for success, and that he would lose the last drop of his blood in its support, against any attempt which might be made to change it from its republican form."

One of the pillars of that "republican form" cherished by Washington was the Electoral College: in 1824, the Legislature in Van Buren's New York State was still picking the Electors, as were five other States. Twelve of the twenty-four States in the union had by then adopted the method which is presently in use.

Known as the restricted general ticket, it allows voters only one option: to vote for a bloc of electors who represent specific candidates as a presidential ticket.

By the time Martin Van Buren won the presidency in 1836, every State in the union except for South Carolina had adopted the restricted general ticket. Making the popular vote the basis for this "winner take all" strategy - which was an idea detested by the great Federalists like John Adams and Josiah Quincy - is thus a legacy of Slavery days and not a modern or "progressive" idea, at all!

There is no particular reason for every single State - or, for that matter, for any State - to have 'winner-take-all' rules for picking Electors. It certainly nullifies the 'republican' concept that Electors would be prominent citizens chosen for their wisdom, their experience, and their political sagacity.

Indeed, it was during Jefferson's term in office that the last substantial change in the process was proposed: the Twelfth Amendment was issued by the Congress, and ratified by 3/4ths of the several States in the union as of 1804. That provides for settling a failure to obtain a majority in the Electoral College (including a tie), by a vote of the States in the House of Representatives.

Now comes the wild and wooly Election of 2000 A.D., where blundering by the over-paid, over-fed and overly confident titans of the electronic news media has resulted in what can only be described as an electoral fraud - as each 'talking head' sought to be the first one to declare victory for Gore or Bush.

Perhaps the people at large will be more charitable: unless the citizenry judges them to be just plain stupid and lazy, the news producers and the confidence artists at Voter News and all of the other "exit polling" agencies now stand revealed, nay, illuminated, as being cheap swindlers and propaganda artists. As it developed, both the Vice President and Governor were called as winners!

Now comes the incendiaries and the dangerous, modern-day Jacobins -- like Senator Dick Durbin and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both of Illinois - insisting that the Electoral College must be replaced by a direct popular vote. They purport to represent the best interests of that mythical multi-colored beast known as 'the people.' In fact, the Electoral system as originally designed is actually working properly. By revealing the problems in counting the popular votes, it is acting as a republican safeguard - or, in modern terms, a firewall - against the turmoils of democracy, and the unseen viruses of radical emotions.

Everyone who is dissatisfied with the current process as it is, should use the Constitution, as it is: "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" - that is what it says in Article II, Section 1, which creates and defines the office of the President of these United States.

Why are they proposing to change the Constitution? Because Durbin, Clinton, or Jesse Jackson are the unselfish 'Tribunes' of republican virtue? Or because they want a consolidated national system, which is the principal enemy of liberty?

"To effect the same end," writes John Taylor in his book, New Views Of The Constitution, "the commentators who still wish for a consolidated national government have seized upon Mr. [James] Madison's doctrines, endowing the federal government with national powers". As Mr. Taylor observes, neither of these words occur in the Constitution - 'national' or 'consolidated.' The power of the States to change the "Manner" of selection would thus be annihilated.

"They see what every sound understanding must also see, that spheres of exclusive state rights, and their subjection to a national supremacy, are incompatible". Taylor then goes on to charge that these "commentators" are enemies of republican models of government, seeking "a supreme negative over the laws and judgements of the states, for the purpose of destroying the state sovereignties". Those are the very powers that James Madison helped Washington to create in the Revolution, to defend, with the Constitution itself.

This 'plenary' power of the State legislatures to determine "the Manner" of picking Electors, is absolute, full and complete. It is not necessary to amend the Constitution, to enable democratic changes: State lawmakers can act to create Electoral districts, wherein every Elector would stand as a candidate in their own right, with two Electors to be voted upon at large by the whole State. Thus -- every citizen could have separate three votes for President!

This election has seen both major parties soaking the Hollywood aristocracy and the big corporations for "soft money," thus skirting or ignoring the letter of federal laws. Advocates of public financing in State campaigns, could propose that their State provide public forums for Electors, as nominated by any lawfully recognized political party - or as independents!

Or, let them be chosen by voir dire: that is to say, citizens could be called to appear for this duty, interviewed in public by members of a special committee and then appointed by the majority vote of the whole Legislature. Why not let the wise and the fair-minded be chosen for this solemn duty of being Electors? In this manner the necessity for raising and spending millions on the onerous, anti-democratic "dog and pony show" that is the presidential primary can be eliminated. Thus, great women and heroic men will not have to go begging for "hard" or "soft" money. No Governor could veto this proposition and no Court could over-turn it. That alone makes it worth considering.

As a legacy of the arrogance and cruelty of slavery times, the winner-take-all "Manner" of appointing Electors has come back to bite both the Republicans and Democrats: this inherently unfair method of works to disenfranchise millions of voters in each of the population-rich States. Logically speaking, why should a handful of votes swing all twenty-five Electors, in Florida?

When Florida, or California, was newly admitted to the union, Connecticut and Massachusetts were the political giants. Each had three times the number of Electors - but the Electoral College protected these two newcomers - and now California and Florida are the giants.

Now it is the Dakotas and the New England States which need protecting, because if there ever is a "national" or general vote for President, no candidates will want to campaign there. And, thus, this country will have to be renamed "California And Her Forty-nine Little Friends."

Finally, in those days when Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren provided strong leadership for a limited federal government, the law books and the reading books for academies and colleges -- like Lives Of The Heroes Of The American Revolution, published by Phillips & Sampson of Boston -- always contained the Constitution with its Amendments attached, including the original Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited titles of nobility and honour.

The States were powerful but not supreme, and the citizenry was free to engage in its commercial, religious, or academic pursuits without ever having to consult an Internal Revenue Code, or to worry about standing for an IRS audit. That, too, is worthing considering when we hear The First Jacobine, Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling for changes to a document she has never, ever, respected in its entirety -- not once in her whole wretched and celebrated life!

Long Live The Electoral College!

Long Live The Free Republic!