And the heat goes on— Good morning to all.

America at 250 - Separation of Powers Part I
ROBERT DUCHEMIN SR
JUL 21

I have often opined that the birth of the United States did not really happen on July 4, 1776. It happened during 1787 and 1788 with the drafting and ratification of the United States Constitution. That was when our country built its foundation.

Interestingly, two of the greatest thinkers and writers of the time were outside of the United States during the Constitutional Convention. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had been dispatched to England and France, respectively, to try to pacify the world’s two greatest powers. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay took advantage of the situation to try to advance their plan for a strong federal government. Little did they know the opposition to their plan was widespread.

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For political reasons, Hamilton met with the Virginia delegation ahead of time and had their young governor, Edmund Randolph, propose what became known as the Virginia Plan. It recognizes the need to have power offset power and establish three branches of government each branch, however, was elected by the popular vote of the people in every colony. This greatly favored Virginia and New York, the two most populated states. There were enough voters in those two states to ensure that they decided the majority in every election.

It did not take long for the delegates of the other states to realize they would be stripped of most of their power. They would not support the Virginia Plan. Nor would they support any plan that had a popularly-elected Congress appoint the members of the other two branches.

As the convention moved into its third week and the hot Philadelphia summer began to take its toll on the delegates cooped up in a closed meeting room, New Jersey proposed a plan to have the state legislatures each appoint two members to a single-chamber Congress. The New Jersey Plan insured that states would each maintain equal power in the federal government. It also ensured that the convention was not going to end anytime soon.

After another couple weeks of debate, the delegates ended up supporting what became known as the Connecticut Compromise or the Great Compromise. We would have two houses of Congress. The House of Representatives would be elected by people based upon population, and the Senate would be elected by members of each state legislature, with each state having the same number of representatives (two).

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This balance of power between the states and the federal government did not end there. Emboldened by their success in defeating Virginia and New York as to the make up of Congress, the delegates from the 11 other states were not going to allow those two states to control the presidency with a popular vote. After another month of debate, they came up with the Electoral College.

The Electoral College would mirror all of Congress in its construction. That gave a slight advantage to the more populated states but not enough of an advantage for New York and Virginia to capture the presidency on their own. In exchange, each state would get an equal vote when confirming presidential appointments by only allowing the Senate to participate in the confirmation process. Again, it was a way to balance power between the states and the federal government.

There is absolutely no chance of us ever getting rid of the Electoral College absent a war-like revolution. To do so through constitutional amendment would require 35 states to agree. If we elected the president by popular vote, 40 states would become irrelevant in the presidential process. All somebody would have to do is win California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and either Michigan or New Jersey and they could win the presidency. The other states are never going to allow that to happen.

When communists keep bringing up that idea they are doing nothing but trying to incite people into making a stupid decision. It is food for revolutionaries but poison for people who want a balance of power in their government.

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The delegates to the Constitutional Convention also feared having too much of their government controlled by popular vote. As the convention lingered on and on, more and more of them studied history and learned that the popular vote could be easily manipulated.

We have proven this today by seeing people like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib get elected. And let us not forget Florida’s 10th district, which elected to the United States House of Representatives a guy who could not earn a college degree after spending seven years in college and had never held a job before becoming a US Congressman. This is somebody no one would ever hire as an employee yet he got elected by manipulated voters.

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© 2026 Robert DuChemin Sr
1440 Place Vendome, Winter Park, Florida