The Original Intent
The Founding Fathers understood that in order to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their children they would need to create a new form of government; a Representative Republic. They knew that the rights of the people could not be secure in a Monarchy or a Democracy. To announce their intent to make a change, they wrote The Declaration of Independence.
They understood that political power corrupts; they had seen it first hand from King George. They knew that in order to protect their lives, liberty and property, they would need to prevent the government from becoming too large and powerful. They learned from Baron Charles de Montesquieu that in a just government there would need to be a separation of powers. So they created a government with a bi-cameral legislative branch, an executive and judicial branch and a system of checks and balances.
The most hotly contested debate at the Constitutional Convention was on how the House Representatives would be elected. William Paterson of New Jersey proposed all of the states should be equally represented with just one Representative. James Madison proposed that the number of Representatives a State would have would be based on their population. The larger states favored proportional representation, while the smaller states favored equal representation.
Roger Sherman proposed The Great Compromise that would create a bicameral legislature with one chamber based on proportional representation, with Representatives elected by popular vote and a second house based on equal representation by State, with Senators appointed by the legislatues of the State.
This model gave the states the ability to stop the House of Representatives from passing ill-advised or unconstitutional legislation and puts most of the power to create new laws in the hands of the people's House. What the founders created was a Constitutional Republic that would be governed by the Constitution and not the whims of men.
In order to guarantee that states would never lose their vote or suffrage in the senate, an amendment protection clause was added to Article V which stated that "no State, without it's consent, shall be denied it's Equal Suffrage in the Senate." For the 17th Amendment to have been lawfully ratified it would have needed the unanimous support of all 48 States which existed at the time. This is the only Amendment to the Constitution which is required to be UNANIMOUS! Unfortunately, only thirty-six states gave their consent to accept this situation by voting to ratify the amendment, but 12 states refused to give up their "equal Suffrage" in the senate.
The states of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia and Utah have all lost their right to be represented in the senate by choosing their own people, in direct violation of the amendment protection clause in Article V. The ratification of the 17th Amendment has done away with this Article V protection and has turned our bicameral legislature into a unicameral legislature with two houses voted into office by the people. Without the representation of the states we are governed by the will of elected politicians instead of the States having a separate voice.
The second most contentious debate in the Constitutional Convention was on how the President would be elected. The Electoral College was created to prevent a majority of uneducated and uninformed voters from electing the President. The President is not elected by a National Popular Vote, but by the 538 Electors in the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
The states granted themselves the authority to choose their electors in Article I. Initially most of the state legislatures chose two of their electors and the remaining electors were chosen by popular vote, to represent the people in each Congressional District. Sometime after the Presidential Election of 1824 most of the Electors were chosen to represent the people on a state wide basis rather than allowing the people in each Congressional District to choose their own Electors. The Electors should be intelligent men and women of integrity. They should exercise their judgment in voting for President rather than simply voting along party lines.
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