American Roundelay

[LastMcGovernite]

Here's my new timeline, which I intend to take us from 1787 to the present day, if there's enough interest. There are two points of departure from our timeline. One of them is explicit...at the Constitutional Convention, a new wrinkle in presidential selection is formulated- requiring each state to have a turn selecting a president. There's a second departure that I'm going to reveal later, as a surprise.


American Roundelay



It is 1787, and there is an impasse in Constitution Hall. The framers have struggled mightily to reconcile those who favor a robust federal government with the states’ rights advocates. They have tried to make peace between states where enslavement dominates and those where free labor reigns. The persistent, unworkable struggle is that between large, populous states and smaller, less populated states.

Under the leadership of James Madison, large state delegates call for a unicameral legislature where populous states like Virginia and Massachusetts have lots of representatives and smaller states like Georgia and New Jersey have fewer. Those smaller states, led by William Paterson, insist on equal representation for all states of this is to be a truly federal union. Roger Sherman proposes a bicameral legislature- one based on population, another where each state has an equal voice- but it fails to gain traction.

The issue goes to committee, and as often happens in such cases, the answer is needlessly complex and makes no one truly happy while making no one wholly dissatisfied.

John Marshall, a last-second addition to Virginia’s delegation, works with New Hampshire’s John Langdon and Roger Sherman of Connecticut and makes a proposal to the committee. It proffers the following:

1. A unicameral Congress. Every state gets two at-large Congressmen to be decided by the respective state legislatures. These are given the special designation of Senator. Only senators can approve federal appointments, and are appointed to six-year terms. Each state also gets an additional number of Congressmen proportional to its population, with a minimum of one, and chosen by the electorate for two-year terms. Only these congressmen are eligible for the Speakership. Otherwise, both types of representatives work and vote in tandem in one legislative body. Madison’s Three-Fifths compromise remains in effect.

2. Marshall’s genius lies herein: instead of giving small states equal status in Congress in perpetuity, each would have control of the Executive branch…eventually.  Every state must have produced a president before any state gets a second president to hail from its borders. In other words, before a second Virginian can be made president by the electoral college, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut et. Al, must have had a resident (minimum of seven years) elected as chief executive. This section is written in such a way as to allow the same individual to serve multiple terms.

3. Thus each state’s overall representation in Congress matches its value in the Electoral College. When electors gather, each casts two votes, at least one of which can not be from their home state. The winner becomes president, the runner-up vice-president.

Opinion on this solution is divided, to say the least. Delegates from the larger states are not impressed. George Mason dismisses it as “a farcical roundelay, taking turns like some child’s singing game.” Gouverneur Morris grouses, “Heaven preserve us from the day when we shall be compelled to choose for our chief magistrate between a New Hampshire peddler and a Georgia dirt farmer!”

An aged Benjamin Franklin is sanguine. In a Philadelphia tavern after a day’s deliberation, he opines: “A four year term and thirteen states? Why, that’s 52 years if I count correctly. General Washington may come first, of course. Yet, there may be some in this very hall- perhaps our young Mr. Madison here- still alive to see a second Virginian president.”

“But Mr. Franklin— there may be more states that join the Union. And will not some presidents serve more than one term?”

“Then perhaps you will live very long indeed, Mr. Madison.”

Marshall’s idea makes it through committee, and the debate on the Convention floor is lively and contentious.
.Washington gives subtle hints that he finds this version of the Constitution acceptable, and the diverse delegations, with a certain amount of bickering, agree. The Constitution goes to the states for ratification. Small states, realizing they are not viable outside of a union, and relishing a chance to produce a president with real authority, agree with the solution, which becomes known to history as the Marshall Plan.

A sly smile purses John Marshall’s lips as he departs from Philadelphia. He knows that Washington, his fellow Virginian, will be the first president. He, Marshall, may never be president, but in instituting this “roundelay” presidency, as it is increasingly called in places high and low, he has assured that his cousin and enemy, Thomas Jefferson, will not be president either.

The smaller states are the first to ratify the Constitution: Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

The Federalist Papers argue that larger states make out better under this arrangement than they had under the Articles. Their voice in Congress, after all, is much more proportional. To skeptics of federal power, it is argued that this “roundelay” presidency, each state having a turn, is a “rampart against cabalism, against dynasties and oligarchs,” as Madison writes in Federalist 10.

 Maryland, and both Carolinas come next, but the toughest sells are larger states with many presidential aspirants chomping at the bit. When Pennsylvania  ratifies in 1789, the Constitution finally goes into effect, and Massachusetts and New York finally ratify as well.

All seems well….except in the Old Dominion. The convention to ratify is in tumult. Despite powerful arguments from Marshall, Madison, and others, Patrick Henry and his allies persuade a critical mass that the Constitution is a raw deal for liberties, and a raw deal for Virginia.

It is clear that Virginia is not going to ratify the Constitution by the year’s end. In late 1789, the first votes for Congress take place, and the electoral college meets for the first time…without Virginia as part of the Union.

[LastMcGovernite]

Speaker Jeremiah Van Rensselaer gaveled the 1st Congress into session. This was not the first time the Congress had been convened. The last three days had been devoted to setting out its parliamentary rules and establishing committees. Just as importantly, the congressmen from the states sought a chance to know one another, and form friendships, boarding arrangements, and rough alliances. but one of its most important tasks lay before it.

When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia three years earlier, the office of the presidency was created with the tacit understanding that General Washington would be the first man to occupy it. Therefore, this anti-monarchial people felt more comfortable giving great power to its chief executive knowing that a man of honor and trust would set its boundaries and traditions.

But even the wise cannot see all ends. Representatives from small states agreed to abandon their scheme of a chamber with equal representation between the states. But in exchange, they earned a key concession: the electoral college must choose a president from a state which the college had not yet awarded a president— until each state had had a “turn.” Virginia, skeptical of the Constitution even under the best of circumstances, balked at this. The more vainglorious Virginians thought that their state might produce seven or eight men of presidential quality before some states might produce one. As 1789 bled into 1790, the Old Dominion stubbornly refused to ratify the Constitution. There was no choice for the other states to proceed, and hold the 1st Congress under this new Constitution.

A packet of envelopes lay before Van Rensselaer, one from each of the states giving the result of their electors’ votes. Reminding the rambunctious crowd of senators and congressmen to be silent, he opened the first envelope.

“From the state of Connecticut, seven votes for Mr. John Adams, four votes for Mr. Ellsworth, two votes for Mr. Sherman, one vote for Mr. Hancock.”

The congress murmured.  Many had assumed each state would heavily favor a local, a favorite son, and Connecticut had done little to disabuse this notion.

The formidable old patroon went with the next state in the alphabet, Delaware. “Three votes for Mr. Clinton, three for Mr. McKean.”

“From the state of Georgia…” Van Rensselaer began, and he furrowed his brow as he read the spindly handwriting the state’s legislature had sent to New York. “Two electors from the state of Georgia failed to submit their votes by the appointed time. Two votes for….General Washington, one vote for Mr. James Armstrong, one vote for Mr. Clinton of New York, one vote for Mr. William Few, one vote for Mr….” he took out his spectacles to read the unfamiliar name “Edward Telfair.” The speaker shook his head at Georgia’s incompetence. Two invalid electors, and three votes for non-entities. “I remind the electors from the State of Georgia that General Washington is a resident of Virginia, a sovereign state that has not yet ratified our Constitution. I declare the votes for General Washington to be invalid.” The secretary quickly scribbled with his quill.

Maryland: one missing elector, 5 for Robert Harrison, Washington’s aide; 4 for Clinton; 2 for Samuel Adams, 2 for Benjamin Franklin, 1 invalidated vote for Washington.

Massachusetts: 8 each for John Adams and John Jay, 2 each for John Hancock and Roger Sherman.

New Hampshire: 5 for John Adams, 3 for John Jay, 1 for John Hancock, 1 for Benjamin Pierce.

New Jersey: 6 for John Jay, 4 for George Clinton, 1 for John Adams, 1 invalidated vote for George Washington.

New York: 8 for George Clinton, 7 for Samuel Adams, 1 for Benjamin Franklin.

North Carolina: 7 for Samuel Johnston, 5 for George Clinton, 2 for Robert Harrison.

Pennsylvania: 5 each for George Clinton, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. 2 each for Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Mifflin, 1 for Samuel Adams.

Finally, South Carolina. 7 for John Rutledge, 6 for John Adams, 1 for Robert Harrison.

Van Rensselaer read the totals.

32 for John Adams
30 for George Clinton
17 for John Jay
10 for Samuel Adams
8 for Robert Harrison
7 for Johnston and Rutledge
5 for Wilson and Franklin
4 for Hancock, Ellsworth, and Sherman
3 for McKean
2 for Mifflin
1 for Pierce, Armstrong, Few, and Telfair

“With no candidate appearing on votes from a majority of electors,” intones the patroon, “a contingent election between the five candidates with the most votes will take place, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the Constitution.” As the gavel is slammed onto the desk of the presiding officer, the First Congress is adjourned for the day, with no president, and no clear sense of the final outcome.

[LastMcGovernite]

Just in case I don't come back to this, here's the list of presidents from this timeline.

Over the long years, a few clarifications and amendments are made. Presidential and Vice-presidential electors are decoupled early in the 19th century as in our time. In the 1850s a further change: if the presidency becomes vacant, the vice-president is allowed to finish that term, even if he or she is from a state that already produced a president. Such a scenario doesn’t take up a state’s turn in a future election, unless that new president is elected to a term/terms in their own right. An example: Michigan’s Gerald Ford finishing Nixon’s term wouldn’t preclude, say, Gretchen Whitmer from becoming president.

Got all that?

Here’s the list of presidents from that universe:

1. George Clinton (1790-1793) of New York
2. George Washington (1793-1799) of Virginia (x)
3. John Adams (1799-1805) of Massachusetts
4. Benjamin Rush (1805-1813) of Pennsylvania
5. William Laurens (1813-1820) of South Carolina (x)
6. Jonathan Dayton (1820-1821) of New  Jersey
7. Andrew Jackson (1821-1829) of Tennessee
8. Stephen Decatur (1829-1841) of Maryland
9. John McLean (1841-1845) of Ohio
10. Zachary Taylor (1845-1849) of Louisiana
11. Levi Woodbury (1849-1851) of New Hampshire (x)
12. William Rufus King (1851-53) of Alabama (*)(x)
13. David Atchison (1853) of Missouri
14. William A. Graham (1853-1857) of North Carolina
15. Sam Houston (1857-1860) of Texas (x)
16. Hannibal Hamlin (1860-65) of Maine (war)
17. Schuyler Colfax (1865-1873) of Indiana
18. Benjamin Butler (1873-1877) of Nebraska
19. John Logan (1877-1881) of Illinois
20. James Weaver (1881-85) of Iowa
21. John Logan (1885-1886) of Illinois (x)
22. Daniel Henry Chamberlain (1886-89) of South Carolina
23. George Dewey (1889-1897) of Vermont
24. John W. Griggs (1897-1899) of New Jersey (x)
25. Charles Grosvenor (1899-1901) of Ohio
26. George Dewey (1901-1905) of Vermont
27. Theodore Roosevelt (1905-13) of Dakota
28. Harry Lane (1913-1917) of Oregon
29. Theodore Roosevelt (1917-21) of Dakota
30. Herbert Hoover (1921-29) of California
31. William McAdoo (1929-33) of Franklin 
32. Will Rogers (1933-39) of Oklahoma ( x)
33. Sherman Minton (1939-41) of Indiana
34. Edsel Ford (1941-43) of Michigan (x)*
35. Carl Vinson (1943-49) of Georgia
36. Henry Luce (1949-57) of Connecticut
37. Omar Bradley (1957-61) of Missouri
38. Hubert Humphrey (1961-64) of Minnesota (x)
39. John F. Kennedy (1964-65) of Massachusetts
40. William Proxmire (1965-73) of Wisconsin
41. Louie Nunn (1973-77) of Kentucky
42. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (1977-83) of Washington (x)
43. Reubin Askew (1983-85) of Florida
44. John Chafee (1985-93) of Rhode Island
45. Gary Hartpence (1993-1995) of Colorado (r)
46. Bill Clinton (1995-97) of Arkansas
47. Connie Mack (1997-2005) of Florida
48. Joe Biden (2005-2013) of Delaware
49. Mitt Romney (2013-2021) of Utah
50. Virginia Soriano (2021- ) of Santo Domingo

x = died in office; r = resigned.
* Ford’s vice-president Charles McNary predeceased him, and the office devolved to Vinson, the Speaker of the House