11/16: Who were the Two Immigrant Founding Fathers Who Conspired to Create the Electoral College?

The four key delegates to the Constitution Convention in 1787 who negotiated the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Electoral College were James Wilson (PA), Pierce Butler (SC), Gouverneur Morris (PA) and James Madison (VA). See the Election Tab for more details and eventually a proposal to reform the Electoral College.

James Wilson.1742-1798 (H7c) was the strongest advocate for the direct popular election of the president. Research indicates that he had a close business relationship with Pierce Butler.1744-1822 (7c) from South Carolina, who was a large owner of property (land and slaves). This website, ElectoralCollege.Org (ECorg), claims that it is highly likely that they negotiated the Three-Fifths compromise that led to the Electoral College and the population conditions on the Direct Tax.

Both Wilson and Butler were immigrants and about the same age. Wilson immigrated from Scotland and Butler from Ireland. Wilson is recognized as the one who originally proposed on June 2, 1787, the popular vote with the number of electors being equal only to the number of representatives to the House. Butler proposed that representation in the House should include the counting of slaves. In return for the full counting of slaves, he proposed that the slave-owning states would be willing to pay more taxes if taxes were based on the value of property, which included the value of land, improvements, and slaves.

Unknown to many scholars were the personal and financial relationships between Wilson and Butler. Both were land owners. Butler was a very wealthy absentee owner in Georgia of Butler's Island for rice and St. Simons Island for cotton. He had homes in South Carolina and Philadelphia. Wilson lived in Philadelphia and was a land speculator who borrowed from Butler. After the convention, George Washington appointed Wilson to the Supreme Court in 1789. Wilson ran into financial difficulty and was unable to pay Butler. Butler pursued Wilson who escaped to North Carolina where he died. in 1798.

An AI search revealed that James Wilson's proposal of the Three-Fifths Compromise, despite his personal opposition to slavery, was a complex decision driven by several factors. Not mentioned as a factor is our presumption of his personal relationship with Pierce Butler. Possibly unknown at the time, was that Wilson owned a household slave Thomas Purcell. Research is needed to determine when Butler loaned Wilson the money to speculate in land.