During an 1816 debate over one of the amendments, Abner Lacock, a Pennsylvania senator, suggested abolishing the College outright and replacing it with the national popular vote—the first time this idea was introduced in Congress. Lacock could “see no reason why these agents”—the electors—“should be employed between the people and their votes.”14 Governors are chosen by popular vote, he pointed out, and it works perfectly well in that context. He rejected the idea that direct election “would produce popular fermentation”—or civic unrest, which he considered to be a figment of lawmakers’
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December 25, 2020. Page 98.
