ABSTRACT
In the 1780s, there was an extensive public debate of the proposed U.S. Constitution by the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The Constitution was drafted and ratified in the face of multiple and competing factional interests. To name a few, there were the debtors versus creditors, small states versus large states, slave states versus free states. As a result, at the Convention and during the ratification debates there was substantial discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed Constitution. Amazingly, some framers at the time, as well as scholars and Americans today, are under the impression that the one institution which escaped scrutiny was the Electoral College.1
