After a flurry of motions, some approved, many defeated, the Convention finally agreed on the mode and manner of electing the President and Vice President of the United States.

Rufus King and Elbridge Gerry opened this morning’s session by proposing that Electors chosen to vote for the President may not be a member of the national legislature or hold any office of profit or trust under the United States. It passed readily with no dissent.

Then Gerry proposed that “the legislature,” not the Senate, choose the President if “he should not at the end of his term be re-elected by a majority of Electors, and no other candidate  should have a majority.” This, he said, “would relieve the President from his particular dependence on the Senate for his continuation in office.” King liked the idea. Hugh Williamson thought it “a reasonable caution” against undue influence of the Senate. Roger Sherman took it one step further, proposing that “if the legislature were to have the eventual appointment instead of the Senate, it ought to vote in the case by States,” each State casting one vote.

Then, James Wilson spoke at length. Having “weighed carefully the report of the Committee…and on combining it with other parts of the plan,” he began, he “considered it on the whole as having a dangerous tendency to aristocracy; as throwing a dangerous power into the hands of the Senate.” Under the plan, the Senate may elect the President; approve appointments, including the judiciary; approve treaties; and try all impeachments. By this, he asserted, “the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary powers are all blended in one branch of the Government…According to the plan as it now stands, the President will not be the man of the people as he ought to be, but the Minion of the Senate. He cannot even appoint a tide-waiter without the Senate.”

Wilson was not giving up. In fact, upon the whole, he “thought the new mode of appointing the President, with some amendments, a valuable improvement.”  But he “could not agree to purchase it at the price of the ensuing parts of the Report, nor befriend a system of which they make a part.” (He chose not to remind his colleagues that it was he who had originated the concept of electors weeks ago.)

Gouverneur Morris countered Wilson, defending the role of the Senate while outlining how its powers had already been limited. First, if the Electors fail to choose a President, the Senate is limited to choosing from among the five candidates who received the highest number of electoral votes; the Senate does not choose the candidates. It is similar with appointments. The President nominates, the Senate only approves. Concerning the judges, before the Committee’s recommendation “the Senate had the appointment without any agency whatever of the President.” The same is true with treaties. By the Committee’s recommendations, the Senate now shares those powers with the President. “Wherein then lay the dangerous tendency of the innovations to establish an aristocracy?” he demanded.

Alexander Hamilton has finally returned from New York. “Restrained from entering into the discussions by his dislike of the scheme of government in general,” he began, he is nevertheless pleased with the new proposals devised by the Committee on Postponed Parts. However, he would suggest that the candidate with the most electoral votes, whether or not it be a majority, be elected. As the plan now stands, “the Senate may take the candidate having the smallest number of votes and make him President.”

A series of motions concerning the President’s term of office, meeting place of electors, date of election, and other details were considered, but none as substantial as those offered by Hugh Williamson and Roger Sherman. Williamson formalized his earlier idea that if election of the President should fall to the Senate, voting should be “by States and not per capita.”  Sherman instantly moved that the House of Representatives, not the Senate, elect the President and incorporated Williamson’s idea that “the members from each State have one vote.” Sherman’s motion passed 10 – 1. Only Delaware voted “no.”             

For three months the Convention has been unable to agree on the selection and powers of the executive. In the absence of guidance from the Convention in the form of approved resolutions, the Committee of Detail had attempted to propose a plan. However, it was the Committee on Postponed Parts that devised the final, acceptable solution. As amended after three days of intense focus, “the report relating to the appointment of the Executive stands as follows:” The President and Vice-President will serve terms of four years. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as its legislature may direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State is entitled in the national legislature. No person may be an elector who is a member of the national legislature or holds any office of profit or trust under the United States.

Electors shall meet in their respective States on the same day throughout the United States, as determined by Congress. Each elector shall vote for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State as themselves. The results shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, to be opened and counted in the presence of both Houses of Congress. The person with the most votes (and a majority) will be elected. If more than one has a majority and an equal number of votes, the House of Representatives shall immediately vote one of them President – each State having one vote. If no person has a majority, the House shall choose from the five highest on the list. Two-thirds of the States will constitute a quorum. The person having the second highest number of votes shall be Vice-President. In the event of a tie for that office, the Senate shall decide.

With only a monarchy or corrupt executive administrators as examples of an executive to guide them, the Convention has created an executive based on true republican principles.