r several weeks. Wilson said "he
was almost unwilling to declare the mode which he wished to take place,
being apprehensive that it might appear chimerical. He would say,
however, at least, that in theory he was for an election by the people.
Experience, particularly in New York and Massachusetts, showed that an
election of the first magistrate by the people at large was both a
convenient and a successful mode. The objects of choice in such cases
must be persons whose merits have general notoriety." Mason, Rutledge,
and Strong agreed with Sherman that the executive should be chosen by
the legislature; but Washington, Madison, Gerry, and Gouverneur Morris
strongly disapproved of this. Morris argued that an election by the
national legislature would be the work of intrigue and corruption, like
the election of the king of Poland by a diet of nobles; but Mason
declared, on the other hand, that "to refer the choice of a proper
character for a chief magistrate to the people would be as unnatural as
to refer a trial of colours to a blind man." A decision was first
reached against an election by Congress, because it was thought that if
the chief magistrate should prove himself thoroughly competent he ought
to be reeligible; but if reeligible he would be exposed to the
temptation of truckling to the most powerful party or cabal in Congress,
in order to secure his reelection. It did not occur to any one to
suggest that under ordinary circumstances the executive ought to follow
the policy of the most powerful party in Congress, and that he might at
the same time preserve all needful independence by being clothed with
the power of dissolving Congress and making an appeal to the people in a
new election. It is interesting to consider what might have come of such
a suggestion, following upon the heels of that made by Roger Sherman. As
we shall presently see, it would have immeasurably simplified the
machinery of our government, besides making the executive what it ought
to be, the arm of the legislature, instead of a separate and coordinate
power. Upon this point the minds of nearly all the members were so far
under the sway of an incorrect theory that such an idea occurred to none
of them. It was decided that the chief magistrate ought to be
reeligible, and therefore should not be elected by Congress.

[Sidenote: Suggestion of an electoral college.]

An immediate choice by the people, however, did not meet with general
favour. To o