In the book “A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution” by Carol Berkin she explains the constitution from start to finish from how it all began, to the debates inside the convention and finally the end product. Berkin takes the reader and puts him directly in the middle of the convention of 1786; throughout the book you can feel the excitement, the frustration, the tensions between delegates and the overall commitment to making a new government work for all. The time for a new government came about in times of fear, many men such as William Livingston wondered “if the republic could even survive another decade” for Henry Knox made an excellent point in declaring “Our present federal government is a name, a shadow, …show more content…

The delegates knew that it couldn’t be left to the legislative power to choose and Gouverneur Morris even declared “it would be like the election of a pope by a conclave of cardinals”. To leave the choice to the people alone left the certainty that the people would be led and lied to by “a few active and designing men” as Charles Pinckney put it. Lost and befuddled on what to do, the convention turned the matter over to the Committee of Postponed Matters where after weeks of debate of their own, they came up with something that we know today as the Electoral College. The States were able to elect an amount of electors equal to the number of representatives in the house and senate. These electors were to meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for two people to represent their state. From here their votes would be delivered signed, certified and in a sealed envelope, to Congress, where the results were to be counted in front of congressmen and senators. In the event of a tie, members of the House of Representatives would select which would be the president. It was through this process that our first President, who set the precedent for all presidents to come, was elected. Even when the Constitution had been drawn up and was ready for ratification by the states, which wouldn’t happen for another year after many political battles