The Electoral College:

“What was not discussed in the aftermath of the 2000 election was the little-known fact that the United States came very close to abolishing the Electoral College in the late 1960s. A constitutional amendment calling for direct popular election of the president was backed by the American Bar Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters, and a host of other un-fuzzy-minded pillars of civil society. On Sept. 18, 1969, the House of Representatives passed the amendment by a huge bipartisan vote of 338 to 70. President Nixon endorsed it, and prospects for passage in the Senate seemed reasonably good. A poll of state legislatures indicated that the amendment would likely be approved by the requisite three-quarters of the states.

Senator Strom
Thurmond fought
to preserve the
Electoral College

“The effort ultimately failed — but not because of concerted opposition from the small states. In fact, many political leaders from small states supported the amendment. What blocked the reform movement was a more troublesome cleavage — one involving race and the political power of the South…

“Amendments calling for a direct popular vote had also been introduced as early as 1816, but for most of our history such proposals were doomed by a stark political reality: The South would never accept them. The issue was not small states versus big states but slavery and racial discrimination.

“Before the Civil War, the “three-fifths compromise” in the Constitution meant that slaves counted (as three-fifths of a person) towards a state’s representation in Congress and thus in the Electoral College. Had the president been elected by a popular vote, Southern influence would have shrunk sharply, limited to the number of votes actually cast.

“This system operated even more perniciously during the Jim Crow era (extending into the 1960s), when the white South benefited from what could be called the “five fifths” clause: African Americans counted fully towards representation in Congress and the Electoral College, but they still could not vote. The number of votes actually cast in the South between 1900 and 1960 was tiny in comparison to the size of its electoral vote. A popular election for president, thus, would have dramatically reduced the political power of the South while creating pressure for Southern states to expand the franchise…

“The Senate Judiciary Committee was chaired by James Eastland of Mississippi and counted Strom Thurmond among its members. Both men were die-hard segregationists who had voted against every civil-rights and voting-rights measure that had come before them. Neither wanted to have presidents elected by a national, popular vote.

“In 1969, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to abolish the Electoral College by a huge bipartisan vote of 338 to 70. President Nixon endorsed it, and prospects for passage in the Senate seemed reasonably good. A poll of state legislatures indicated that the amendment would likely be approved by the requisite three-quarters of the states.”

However, Senators Strom Thurmond (R-SC) and James Eastland (D-MS), die-hard segregationists who had voted against every civil-rights and voting-rights measure that had come before them, opposed having presidents elected by a national, popular vote, and fought fiercely to stall the measure for nearly a year, until support for it finally waned.”  read more