Letter: Founders knew inherent evils of democracy

The rationale for electors was explained by Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, when he perceived that "the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choices. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to so complicated an investigation."

It was because of distrust of the mobs that the Founders established the Electoral College and the election of senators by the state legislatures, the latter being banefully overturned by the 17th Amendment in 1913. (That was also the year that the income tax was introduced, as well as the Federal Reserve System, all of which greatly undermined the Republic.) It was because of fears of such evils as incipient democracy that, at the close of the convention when Benjamin Franklin was asked what the delegates had produced, he answered: "A republic, if you can keep it."

CHARLES A. DELZOTTI

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