Presidents' Day 2015

On this Presidents’ Day I thought it would be interesting to share with you John Smilie’s connection to Presidents.

  

John Smilie was elected to the Congresses marked in yellow.  He was elected to the blue 13^th Congress but died before the end of the second session of the 12^th Congress.

His most direct involvement was being a member of Congress during the administration of four Presidents - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.

During the 1^st through the 6^th Congresses the national capital was in Philadelphia.  The House of Representative and Senate met in Congress Hall just east of the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall).  The Philadelphia House chamber is pictured in the center panel of the mast head at the top of this blog.

And then there is electing Presidents.

Presidential election years always generate conversation about the way the United States elects its President.  Though you may not be a history buff or Constitutional scholar, many of you experienced firsthand and remember in the 2000 Presidential election that we chose our President by a Constitutional method where the citizens chose Electors who actually do the voting; not by the popular vote of the citizens.

In 1796 John was one of the members of Pennsylvania’s Electoral College pledged to Thomas Jefferson.

 The 1796 Electoral College votes.[i]

 In the balloting for Pennsylvania’s electors in the 1796 presidential election, John Smilie, pledged to Jefferson, placed 9^th out of 30 state wide candidates.  Fifteen of the 30 were to be elected.  Elected were 13 Republicans (Jefferson) and 2 Federalists (Adams). Greene County’s votes did not arrive in time to be counted.  I have not been able to find Greene County’s returns for electors, but the popular vote for President was Jefferson 210, Adams 44.  Greene County adjoins John Smilie’s Fayette County, so I would have expected that the Jefferson sentiment and ‘favorite son’ effect would have moved him even higher in the returns.[ii]

  

 The 1800 Electoral College votes.[iii]

In the 1800 election John was a member of Congress and not eligible to be an elector, but the Electoral College was tied, throwing the Presidential Election into the 6^th Congress, House of Representatives, where on the 36^th and final ballot 10 states cast their vote for Jefferson, 4 for Aaron Burr, and 2 were blank.

John Smilie directly was involved in 2 presidential elections; you could also say that he directly voted for the President 38 times (2 votes in the 1796 PA Electoral College and 36 times as a Pennsylvania member of the 6^th Congress, House of Representatives) but that’s a nuance of the Constitutional process.

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[i] 1796 US Electoral College, www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/votes/1789_1821.html#1796

[ii] 1796 PA Electoral College, http://elections.lib.tufts.edu/catalog/tufts:pa.presidentialelectors.1796

[iii] 1800 US Electoral College, www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/votes/1789_1821.html#1800