Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/58

 power above the national interest in free and fair elections. Several delegates were explicit on this point when the topic arose at the Constitutional Convention. By then, the Framers had created the Electoral College. They were "satisfied with it as a tool for picking presidents but feared that individual electors might be intimidated or corrupted." Impeachment was their answer. William Davie led off the discussion, warning that a President who abused his office might seek to escape accountability by interfering with elections, sparing "no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected." Rendering the President "impeachable whilst in office" was thus "an essential security for the good behaviour of the Executive." The Constitution thereby ensured that corrupt Presidents could not avoid justice by subverting elections and remaining in office.

George Mason built on Davie's position, directing attention to the Electoral College: "One objection agst. Electors was the danger of their being corrupted by the Candidates; & this furnished a peculiar reason in favor of impeachments whilst in office. Shall the man who has practised corruption & by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt?" Mason's concern was straightforward. He feared that Presidents would win election by improperly influencing members of the Electoral College (e.g., by offering them bribes). If evidence of such wrongdoing came to light, it would be unthinkable to leave the President in office— especially given that he might seek to avoid punishment by corrupting the next election. In that circumstance, Mason concluded, the President should face impeachment and removal under the Constitution. Notably, Mason was not alone in this view. Speaking just a short while later, Gouverneur Morris emphatically agreed that "the Executive ought therefore to be impeachable for … Corrupting his electors." Although not articulated expressly, it is reasonable to infer that the concerns raised by Davie, Mason, and Morris were especially salient because the Constitution—until ratification of the Twenty-Second Amendment in 1951—did not limit the number of terms a President could serve in office. A President who twisted or sabotaged the electoral process could rule for life, much like a king.

This commitment to impeaching Presidents who corruptly interfered with elections was anchored in lessons from British rule. As historian Gordon Wood writes, "[t]hroughout the eighteenth century the Crown had slyly avoided the blunt and clumsy instrument of prerogative, and instead had resorted to influencing the electoral process and the representatives in Parliament in order to gain its treacherous ends." In his influential Second Treatise on Civil Government, John Locke blasted such manipulation, warning that it serves to "cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very