Jesse Wegman
speaker
281 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 6 Jul
Jesse Wegman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Of course, we need a single executive who has the power to carry out his duties.
And he should be elected directly by the people because anyone who's that powerful –
needs to be in direct connection to the people over whom he has that power.
If he's not, there will be problems.
So Wilson basically is the first person to argue for a direct popular vote for president, which is what we still talk about today.
He's saying it in 1787.
He does not get a lot of support for this.
So they say, you know, James, go home, come up with something a little better.
He comes back the next day and he proposes a system of electors who are chosen by
eligible voters and who then in turn choose the president.
That is remarkably similar to the system that we have today that we call the electoral college.
So this is yet another of the ironies of James Wilson's life is that he ends up proposing the very system that he opposed for choosing the president.
What ends up being adopted is the system that we know today, which is that each state gets a number of electors equal to its representation in Congress.
So that's the number of members of the House of Representatives it has plus its two senators.
So that means smaller states get a real benefit in the electoral college because they have proportionately more electors given their voters.
Again, Wilson was not happy with this arrangement, but he accepted it as the price of business for
And as the convention neared its end in September, I think everyone was so exhausted and wanting just to get this document out the door and ratified that he agreed to it.
You know, at the ratifying convention in Pennsylvania, where Wilson takes a leading role in convincing the delegates to that convention to support the Constitution, you know, he says, I acknowledge this was not the best arrangement.
I would have done it differently if I had had my way.
But we have laid the groundwork for the eventual elimination of slavery in the states.
Showing 201–220 of 281 · page 11 of 15
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