History helps us to understand that the problems we face each generation are a combination of the new and the familiar. That much of what we struggle with to make our lives better and more fulfilling, our predecessors confronted with varying degrees of success. Take, for example, the matter of electing a president of the United States. Two hundred and fourteen years ago this summer in Philadelphia, a room full of men meeting in secret thought they knew what was best for our future and gave us the electoral college. Just how wise were they and what can we learn from the consequences of their actions? 

At approximately 2:04 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on January 6, 2001, Maryland's ten electoral votes for President of the United States were officially accepted and recorded in a Joint Session of Congress presided over by the Vice President of the United States who happened also to be a defeated candidate for the Nation's highest office. In a slow and deliberate ceremony carried live over CSPAN and a handful of other channels, less than a 

As a service to the school children and teachers of Maryland and to scholars everywhere, the Maryland State Archives is pleased to provide a new addition to its on-line Archives of Maryland on the history and significance of Maryland's Electoral College. Some see the institution as an anachronism. Others argue that it is one of the more venerable and successful of all the innovations in government created by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. While it is not our role to take sides, it is to provide 

quorum of the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States were watched by a small national audience as they performed duties prescribed under the Constitution of the United States designed to bring closure to what was one of the closest elections in American History. The following day, while the New York Times carried a front page photograph of the proceedings, the Baltimore Sun failed to mention them at all. 

There had been close presidential elections before. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison, the winner of the electoral vote, and thus the presidency, failed to carry the popular vote. In 1876 Congress, for the first and last time, entrusted the final count to an Electoral Commission that became embroiled in controversy when it awarded the electoral vote to the loser of the popular vote, Rutherford B. Hayes. In 1824, supporters of Andrew Jackson claimed he had won the popular vote, but because six of the then twenty-four states still chose their Electors in the State Legislature, we will never know for certain. By far the most influential of all close elections, however, was that of 1800 when Maryland's and the Nation's electoral vote was evenly divided between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson. Only after 36 ballots in the House of Representatives was Jefferson elected President. To prevent a similar occurrence from ever happening again, the 12th Amend-ment to the Constitution was adopted whereby electoral votes were to be cast separately for President and Vice President, and electors could not vote for more than one candidate from their home state. More importantly, however, the Election of 1800 marked the beginning of a trend towards direct election of presidential electors by the people and a gradual shift (most notable first in the election of 1824) in favor of the winner of the popular vote in each state determining the allocation of the electoral vote. I say gradual, because Maryland did not require its electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote until 1957. 

While it was clear within a day of the 1904 election that Teddy Roosevelt and his running mate Charles Fairbanks were the winners nationally, the election remained in doubt in Maryland for several days and was not officially resolved until the meeting of the board of canvassers in Annapolis on November 30, 1904. On November 12, the Baltimore American carried the headline "State Hanging in the Balance. It is a Neck and Neck Race in Maryland," and proceeded to announce that it appeared that the electoral vote would be evenly divided between the Democratic and Republican candidates. Voters had some difficulty with the new ballots.  From Cumberland came the report that in Allegany
County the vote for Congress fell behind the 
presidential vote by 400 votes in each party "due to the voter failing to find the name of the congressman on the ballot after he had marked the place for President." Charles County failed to lock one or more of its ballot boxes and  charges of fraud began to surface, although by November 17, the

Baltimore Sun could report "Charles County Quiet. Election Tangle Straightened Out Satisfactorily." 

In the end, the election remained too close to call until the final tally on November 30 when the Board of Canvassers carefully penned a summary of the votes as the official record. By their count, although Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Fairbanks carried the popular vote of the state by a mere 51 votes, only one Republican elector, the well known reformer and advocate of Civil Service reform, Charles Joseph Bonaparte,  survived the tally. The remaining seven top vote getters were Democrats, among whom were two well-known and popular former governors, Frank Brown and Elihu E. Jackson. John Willis attributes the split in electoral vote to the name recognition advantage of the Democratic electors, to better party organization and discipline by the Democrats, and to the Democratic state legislature's efforts to confuse the ballot by removing party symbols that proved so helpful to illiterate voters. Not until 1937 would the names of the electors be removed from the Maryland ballot, leaving the voter to choose only among the candidates for President and Vice President. 

When the electors met in the Old Senate Chamber of the State House on January 5, 1905 to cast their votes, the Annapolis Capital dwelt perfunctorily on the formalities of the occasion, noting that the "noon hour was spent at the Governor's Mansion, where the members of the electoral college inspected a very interesting portion of the residence. In the afternoon the members again met in session. They signed the three vouchers necessary, drew the $50 each allowed for their work and the event was at an end." 

The Baltimore Evening Herald was more philosophical. In an unsigned front page article that has all the characteristics and style of a young

There are more than eighty millions of people in this country, and it is safe to say that much more than 99 percent of them do not know that the election takes place today, or if they knew it, suppose that the electors must simply record the wishes of those who elected them in November. The electors need do nothing of the kind, and it was not intended that they should.

Indeed, so far as the intent and purpose of the law are concerned, they should absolutely ignore any recommendation which the people gave last 
November, and in solemn conclaves should sit as a sort of series of grand juries on the state and nation
and select the two best eligible men in the country to act as President and vice-President. The intention of the fathers and of the Constitution is that they shall absolutely use their own judgment and ignore the public clamor. 
 
 

we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.  ... It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified; otherwise every government in the United States, as well as every other popular government that has been or can be well organized or well executed, would be degraded from the republican character.

While the indirect election of  Maryland State Senators would end in 1837, not until 1957 would 

In all, the value of history lies in the perspective it provides on the pressing problems of the moment. From it, for example, we learn that not all experiments in government undertaken over two hundred years ago are sacred, nor that they are necessarily as in need of change as they may first appear to be. We have survived and coped well with elections too close to call in the past without abolishing an institution whose original mission seems far less relevant than it once did. What we can say with certainty, however, is that regardless of what we as a nation decide is the future of the Electoral College, the story of our journey with it, teaches us that one of our most precious and zealously fought for rights, is the right to vote. This is a right, which, in the words of Speaker Taylor, is up to you to ensure is "encouraged, protected, and made secure through a system of voting that is as accessible, incorruptible, and accurate as it can possibly be."