Loading...
The Inaugural Abraham Lincoln Lecture on Constitutional Law: Electoral College Reform Lincoln-Style
Amar, Akhil
Amar, Akhil
Abstract
OUR STORY BEGINS with a Republican president taking office even though, pretty clearly, more Americans had voted against him than had voted for him.
No, we are not talking about Donald Trump. (But since he does love being talked about, we will talk about him soon enough.) And no, we are not talking about George W. Bush in 2001, although he too will enter our story, stage right, later on. Nor are we talking about Benjamin Harrison in 1889 or about Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. Rather in this, the Inaugural
Abraham Lincoln Lecture on Constitutional Law, it is altogether fitting and proper that we begin with the Inaugural of Abraham Lincoln himself on March 4, 1861.
On that Inaugural Day everyone understood that Lincoln had won a clear majority of duly cast and lawfully counted electoral votes, 180 out of a total of 303. Everyone understood that Lincoln was thus undeniably entitled to give his speech and take his oath and wield all presidential power for the next four years under the Constitution. Yet participants and onlookers that day also understood that the recent November election had been an odd one. Lincoln's democratic mandate, to use a modern term, was
shaky.