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The US Electoral College – How the South used slavery for political gain

System to pick the US president was created in 1787, when the South found a way to inflate its numbers – and its political influence.

History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
By Danylo Hawaleshka
Published On 29 Oct 2024

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History Illustrated is a series of perspectives that puts news events and current affairs into historical context using graphics generated with artificial intelligence.

History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
The Electoral College gets explained every time there’s a US presidential election, but its origin story, rooted in slavery and the power politics of the South, is often overlooked.
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History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
Delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 were deeply divided. Some argued Congress should elect the president, others said it should be by popular vote. The compromise struck was a process known as the Electoral College.
History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
How it works is there’s a temporary group of electors equal to the number of members in Congress. Technically, the American people don’t elect their president, the electors of the Electoral College do. The system isn’t perfect.
History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
At the time, slavery was the problem. The number of electors each state gets - and therefore how big a say it has in picking the president — is partly based on the number of House Representatives it has, which in turn is based on a state's population.
History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
In 1787, northern delegates opposed to slavery wanted only free people counted in the census, while southern whites wanted to inflate their numbers- and their political influence - by also counting enslaved Black people.
History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
So they compromised, with the House of Representatives, and hence the Electoral College, both based on a state’s free population - plus three-fifths of its slaves.
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History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
This “three-fifths compromise” gave the South disproportionate influence in presidential elections. For example, Virginia, with 200,000 disenfranchised slaves at the time, controlled one-quarter of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
By protecting the power of slaveholding states, the Electoral College indirectly contributed to the American Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln, a Republican opposed to slavery, won the presidency in 1860, southern states saw their power as waning, and several states seceded.
History Illustrated - The US Electoral College - How the South used slavery for political gain
The US almost replaced the Electoral College with a national vote in 1969, when the House passed a constitutional amendment, only to have it blocked by southerners in the Senate. Today, with the presidential election around the corner, US voters will once again place their faith in a voting system that is anything but black and white.