Ever since the political establishment was rocked by Hillary Clinton's loss in the 2016 presidential election, the Electoral College has been under renewed scrutiny. It has withstood the charge that it is undemocratic since this accusation was made by the Progressive historians Charles Beard and James Allen Smith early in the 20th century. But it may not withstand the intensifying criticism that is a relic of a Constitution deemed to be “pro-slavery.”
Today's academics almost uniformly accept that the Constitution was “pro-slavery.” In this they follow the critique of the Constitution leveled by radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in the early 1840s. While Garrison focused his criticism on four clauses (the Three-Fifths Clause, the Slave Trade Clause, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the clause promising states federal assistance against insurrection), Garrison's followers have extended his criticisms, and now contend that slavery was behind a dozen or more of the Constitution's provisions, including the Electoral College.
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