1. Thread.

In light of tomorrow's congressional session to record the electoral votes, and for conservatives and Republicans who claim to look for guidance to the Founders, a short thread from Federalist #68.

2. "It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any pre-established body...

3. "...but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture...It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder...But the precautions which have been so happily concerted...

4. "...in the system under consideration promise an effectual security against this mischief...As the electors, chosen in each state, are to assemble and vote in the state in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less...

5. "...to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place. Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption...

6. "They have not made the appointment of the president to depend on any pre-existing bodies of men who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to the immediate act of the people of America...

7. "...to be exerted in the choice of persons for temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office. No senator,...

8. "...representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States can be of the number of the electors...Another and no less important desideratum was that the executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all...

9. "...but the people themselves...This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the special purpose of making the important choice."

END