According to The Daily Wire:
On Wednesday, CNN, eager to push forward the current agenda of the Democratic Party, which is to abolish the Electoral College so that urban areas, which lean heavily Democratic, can dominate presidential elections, claimed that James Madison, the fourth president of the United States and the man known as the Father of the Constitution, called the Electoral College “evil.”
The Electoral College has been debated since the days of James Madison, who called it “evil.”
So could it actually be abolished? @JohnAvlon explores that in today’s #RealityCheck. https://t.co/lCGCfDTMSL pic.twitter.com/Z1Tct6bMQL
— CNN (@CNN) March 20, 2019
The inaccuracy of CNN’s heavy-handed attempt was pointed out:
This is #fakenews from @CNN, and an absurd distortion of a Madison quote. He didn’t call the EC “evil,” he was talking about elections thrown to the House which awards 2 votes to states of every size. (This is the contingency for when a vote ISN’T decided by the EC). https://t.co/LTvybKmejw
— Jarrett Stepman (@JarrettStepman) March 20, 2019
Here’s some background on Madison and the Electoral College: In 1787, the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia first saw Edmund Randolph’s “Virginia Plan” that urged “a National Executive…to be chosen by the National Legislature” with “a general authority to execute the National laws.” He was countered by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who favored choosing the president by a direct, national vote of the people, as a president chosen by the legislature would be controlled by the legislature. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, agreed, writing:
If the Legislature elect, it will be the work of intrigue, of cabal, and of faction; it will be like the election of a pope by a conclave of cardinals….The Legislature will continually seek to aggrandize & perpetuate themselves; and will seize those critical moments produced by war, invasion or convulsion for that purpose. It is necessary then that the Executive Magistrate should be the guardian of the people, even of the lower classes, agst. Legislative tyranny, against the Great & the wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily compose the Legislative body.
