The Real Reason the Electoral College Exists. As Americans await the quadrennial running of the presidential obstacle course now known as the Electoral College, its worth remembering why we have this odd political contraption in the first place. After all, state governors in all 5. Experimental Trap Drum Kit more. The quirks of the Electoral College system were exposed this week when Donald Trump secured the presidency with an Electoral College majority, even as Hillary Clinton took a narrow lead in the popular vote. Some claim that the founding fathers chose the Electoral College over direct election in order to balance the interests of high population and low population states. SauronDarkHistory5.jpg' alt='A Dark History' title='A Dark History' />But the deepest political divisions in America have always run not between big and small states, but between the north and the south, and between the coasts and the interior. One Founding era argument for the Electoral College stemmed from the fact that ordinary Americans across a vast continent would lack sufficient information to choose directly and intelligently among leading presidential candidates. This objection rang true in the 1. PNoReWpT' alt='A Dark History' title='A Dark History' />But the early emergence of national presidential parties rendered the objection obsolete by linking presidential candidates to slates of local candidates and national platforms, which explained to voters who stood for what. Although the Philadelphia framers did not anticipate the rise of a system of national presidential parties, the 1. Amendmentproposed in 1. In that election, two rudimentary presidential partiesFederalists led by John Adams and Republicans led by Thomas Jeffersontook shape and squared off. Jefferson ultimately prevailed, but only after an extended crisis triggered by several glitches in the Framers electoral machinery. As-a-trade-town-it-didn%E2%80%99t-take-long-for-Lexington%E2%80%99s-reputation-to-grow.-700x530.jpg' alt='A Dark History' title='A Dark History' />The Dark Knight summary of box office results, charts and release information and related links. The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary You arent alone in your fear of makeupclad entertainers people have been frightened by clowns for centuries. In particular, Republican electors had no formal way to designate that they wanted Jefferson for president and Aaron Burr for vice president rather than vice versa. Some politicians then tried to exploit the resulting confusion. Enter the 1. 2th Amendment, which allowed each party to designate one candidate for president and a separate candidate for vice president. The amendments modifications of the electoral process transformed the Framers framework, enabling future presidential elections to be openly populist and partisan affairs featuring two competing tickets. It is the 1. 2th Amendments Electoral College system, not the Philadelphia Framers, that remains in place today. A Dozen times Pope Francis has Openly Promoted a One World Religion and a New World Order Bush Like Hitler Is Vaticans Best Friend. Get your history fix in one place sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. Virginia emerged as the big winnerthe California of the Founding era. Test your knowledge with amazing and interesting facts, trivia, quizzes, and brain teaser games on MentalFloss. If the general citizenrys lack of knowledge had been the real reason for the Electoral College, this problem was largely solved by 1. So why wasnt the entire Electoral College contraption scrapped at that point Standard civics class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1. At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South The right of suffrage was much more diffusive i. Northern than the Southern States and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves more than half a million in all of course could not vote. El Artesano Sennett Pdf here. But the Electoral Collegea prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speechinstead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count. Get your history fix in one place sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. Virginia emerged as the big winnerthe California of the Founding erawith 1. Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 4. After the 1. 80. 0 census, Wilsons free state of Pennsylvania had 1. Virginia, but got 2. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia or any other slave state bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes. If the systems pro slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 3. 2 of the Constitutions first 3. Virginian occupied the presidency. Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1. Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves. The 1. 79. 6 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the systems pro slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1. Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election. But Thatchers complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election. In light of this more complete if less flattering account of the electoral college in the late 1. Americans should ask themselves whether we want to maintain this odddare I say peculiarinstitution in the 2. Historians explain how the past informs the present. Akhil Reed Amar teaches constitutional law at Yale University. This essay borrows from his recently published book,The Constitution Today. The Dark Origins Of Valentines Day NPRValentines Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody and a bit muddled. A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. A. D. Hulton ArchiveGetty Images. Hulton ArchiveGetty Images. A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. A. D. Hulton ArchiveGetty Images. Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them. Those Wild And Crazy Romans. From Feb. 1. 3 to 1. Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. The Roman romantics were drunk. They were naked, says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile. The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival or longer, if the match was right. The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men both named Valentine on Feb. A. D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentines Day. Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentines Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didnt stop it from being a day of fertility and love. Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatins Day. Galatin meant lover of women. That was likely confused with St. Valentines Day at some point, in part because they sound alike. William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentines Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Perry Castaeda Library, University of Texas. Perry Castaeda Library, University of Texas. William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentines Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Perry Castaeda Library, University of Texas. Shakespeare In Love. As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens du jour in the Middle Ages. Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory made cards in the 1. And in 1. 91. 3, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since. Today, the holiday is big business According to market research firm IBIS World, Valentines Day sales reached 1. But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a sociologist at Rutgers University, says we have only ourselves to blame. This isnt a command performance, she says. If people didnt want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business. And so the celebration of Valentines Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD thats Single Awareness Day way, dining alone and binging on self gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But lets not go there.