"Presidents, Congress, and Courts: Partisan Passions in Motion" by Joyce Appleby, in The Journal of American History (Sept. 2001), 112 N. Bryan Ave., Bloomington, Ind. 47408–4199.

If the Framers encouraged one principle in of power. They were willing to require three electhe presidency, it was the independence of the tions to choose a president: one popular, one in office, even at the expense of a smooth transfer the Electoral College, and, in case of a deadlock, another in the House of Representatives. Yet almost from the beginning, partisanship and political parties have "played havoc with the Constitution and the independence of the president."

Appleby, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles, says the Framers looked with dismay on the state governments created during the Revolution, with their weak executives and large, powerful legislatures that were cauldrons of factionalism and populist sentiment.

The Framers conceived of the president as a leader above politics; they did not imagine the rise of political parties. "So little did the Founders expect candidates for president to compete on the basis of ideology," Appleby writes, "that they conceived of the vice president as a runner-up presidential candidate."

Whatever illusions remained were dispelled by the election of 1800, which resulted in an Electoral College tie between two Democractic-Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Federalists John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney trailed. The decision was thrown into the House of Representatives, with each state casting a single vote. That scheme strengthened the Federalists’ hand, and for 35 rounds of balloting they attempted to elect one of their own. Then, Appleby says, "someone found the courage to act honorably." Representative James Bayard, the sole congressman from Delaware and a Federalist, withheld his state’s vote from Burr, allowing Jefferson to prevail. Bayard explained that he had acted "so as not to hazard the Constitution."

Yet the presidency would never achieve the independence the Founders imagined. For much of the 19th century, Congress more or less ruled the roost in Washington, and until the 1960s the political parties selected their presidential candidates with barely a nod to the public. It was "de facto parliamentarism."

President Richard M. Nixon’s decision to finance his 1972 reelection through an organization separate from the Republican Party "signaled the beginning of the end for party power brokers." Yet this change did not produce political nirvana. Presidential candidates grew more responsive to big campaign donors, and the public turned increasingly apathetic toward politics. Which brings Appleby to the 2000 election, in which she says partisan passions found a new home: the Supreme Court. In a sense,

there is something natural about this: "The issues that Americans cared most about in 2000—abortion, school prayer, environmental protection, Miranda rights, workers’ safety—had already migrated from Congress to the Court." Appleby wishes, however, that the Court had allowed the House to decide the election, acting "so as not to hazard the Constitution."