Foreword – By Michael A. Peroutka Esq.
Constitution Party Presidential candidate, 2004
Co-Founder, with his brother Steve, of Institute on the Constitution
Martin Luther once made the point that if his preaching and teaching were addressing everything but where, at the moment, the world and the Devil were attacking, he would be a failure: “If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
And that is what is so important about the booklet in your hand by Gary and Carolyn Alder. It gives you ammunition to fight on the right side in an important political battle now raging — the fight to radically alter the form of government given us by our Founders (a Constitutional representative Republic) and change it to a pure democracy. In this battle, the Alders, have not flinched.
In this well-researched booklet ,the Alders make us aware of what the original Electoral College was. They believe it should be restored. They believe such a restoration would play a key role in reinstituting our original American Republic.
I strongly agree with the Alders that the original system our Founders gave us for electing Presidents/statesmen has, indeed, been “perverted, subverted, obscured, ignored and then discarded by the machinations of party politics.” And one of the most insidious, pernicious attempted subversions of our political system is to try to change it to a “pure democracy.”
For example, a “New York Times” editorial headlined “Making Votes Count: Abolish The Electoral College” (8/29/2004) says, ignorantly, that the Electoral College is “a ridiculous setup, which thwarts the will of the majority”…[and] shocks people in other nations who have been taught to look upon the United States as the world’s oldest democracy.”
Well, now. I have no doubt people in other nations and, alas, most people in our own country, have been taught that the United States is a “democracy.” But, our Founders gave us a Constitutional representative Republic. They did not give us a “democracy!” In fact, our Founders hated and feared “democracy.” They often referred to such a system as “mobocracy.”
James Madison, “the Father of our Constitution,” said, regarding “pure democracy” that “such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”
Alexis de Tocqueville said: “Democracy not only lacks that soundness of judgment which is necessary to select men really deserving of their confidence, but often have not the desire or the inclination to find them out. It cannot be denied that democratic institutions strongly tend to promote the feeling of envy in the human heart; not so much because they afford to everyone the means of rising to the same level with others as because those means perpetually disappoint the persons who employ them. Democratic institutions awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy. This complete equality eludes the grasp of the people at the very moment when they think they have grasped it…”
In this excellent booklet, you will learn important details about:
— Direct vs. indirect elections
— “Democracy” vs. Republic.
— The role of independent electors.
— How electoral votes are nominating votes.
— The principle of Federalism.
— How the process has been subverted by political parties.
— How the 12th Amendment institutionalized party usurpation.
— The empty shell we have today.
In their conclusion, the Alders say: “What seems like a small change in the beginning can have large consequences when allowed to go to fruition. The movement of only a few inches of a railroad track at a switch can cause a train to go a completely different direction. What seem like small and insignificant changes to the electoral system have us operating under a completely different paradigm than the Framers of the Constitution intended….In our opinion, having wise men nominate the most qualified presidential candidates is the way to go. The best answer by far is to return to the original design of the Framers as carefully outlined in Article II of the Constitution.”
So true. Our country is, in so many ways, off-the-track and going in the wrong direction. We have ignored God for generations and are reaping that whirlwind (Psalm 9:17). Because we have ignored God, oaths mean nothing anymore to most of those who take them and that means our Constitution is not taken seriously.
Thank God, literally, for folks like the Alders. Thank you, Gary and Carolyn for this booklet.