Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:40 pm
The Russian election interference for Trump is grounds for the Electoral College to reject the Republican candidate according to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 68.
The CIA assessment that Russia interfered in the presidential election does more than cast a shadow over the incoming administration.
According to The Federalist Papers, the role of the Electoral College was to prevent a foreign power from gaining control of the union.
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Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68:
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the 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, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
The Electoral College was designed to be a safeguard against exactly what appears to have happened in the 2016 election. If the electors are going to fulfill the role that the Founding Fathers envisioned for them, they must reject the attempt by the Russian government to install their own President Of The United States.
Hamilton’s writings make it clear that what Russia and Trump have done endangers the nation’s sovereignty.
Republicans who view themselves as upholders of our founding principles need to read Hamilton and understand that their duty in this situation is to reject the option that is a threat to the independence of the union.
The reasoning is clear. The path is in front of their eyes. To protect this nation, the Electoral College must reject Donald Trump.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
