Talk:Federalist No. 68

The Makeup of Federalist 68
I've only begun working on editing this page, though any help would be gratefully accepted. Among the aspects I want to focus upon that I have not covered yet:


 * The Constitutional Convention's take on the selection of the President (ie how the Framers got to the Electoral College as a means of selection, as this was one of the more controversial points of contention)
 * The Anti-Federalist argument, as outlined in Anti-Federalist 72.
 * Changes in the conception over time (this section may not be needed, though there should be some focus on contemporary research)

Let me know if you can help in any way. Jlove1982 06:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, nice work! Here are some suggestions:

Kaisershatner 15:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * add a second paragraph to the introduction giving an overview of the contents and some context, something like "The convention was arguing about what method to use to select the President, and considered direct election, state-appointed electors, election by the Senate...(etc.). Hamilton forcefully advocated a plan, eventually adopted by the Convention, that essentially became the modern electoral college, winning favor over the competing ideas of John Doe, Frank Doe, etc.  A counter-essay, written by X under the name Y, criticized Hamilton's views as "elitist" (or whatever).
 * change the first section from "History" to "Background." Add information not just about the Convention, but also why they were having a convention and why they cared about choosing the Chief Executive in any particular way.  "Prior to 1788, the young United States was governed under the Articles of Confederation, which proved too unwieldy to allow effective management of the growing nation.  Delegates convened in Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution, however, the anti-royal sentiments that in part had underpinned the American Revolution manifested themselves as opposition to an unduly strong Chief Executive...."

"He argues for our modern conception of the Electoral College, though in the case of a tie, the power would be given to the House of Representatives to vote on the election of the President." The election went to the House whenever either there was a tie among two people with a majority (this was possible in the original system) or when no one received a majority. This happened in the election of 1800, where Burr and Jefferson tied due to a lack of math skills among the founders. The document was remedied in 1804, and our modern electoral college system follows from that (I think it was the 12th Amendment that fixed the problem). Now the same thing happens, but they only say, "when no one gets a majority." 134.126.230.214 (talk) 01:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Copyedit Needed
A pretty significant section was added in December to this article. It needs a pretty heavy edit for grammar and tone. I also am not certain all of this addition belongs here, they seem to mainly critiques on the Electoral College and not Federalist 68, I would think these items might belong there, if they are to remain. I personally find the citations a bit lacking and find the Flaws section in particular to be some pretty heavy editorializing. --WGFinley (talk) 00:52, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. I was just coming here to ask why modern perceptions of the electoral college and someone's opinion of the electoral college were in a page about Federalist No. 68. There's no reason for any of those to be there.--73.18.251.184 (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2016 (UTC)