Map of the United States showing state sizes in proportion to their electoral college voting power as of the 2010 census
2 November 2020
In the United States, at least, the term college is usually synonymous with university, an institution of higher education. But we also have the electoral college, an arcane body that actually chooses the president and vice president. It seems odd to apply the same word to both.
College comes from the Old French collége, which in turn is from the Latin collegium, meaning society, brotherhood, guild. One of the word’s early appearances is in a Wycliffite tract from c. 1380 that uses college to refer both to Christ and his apostles and to contemporary religious orders:
And siþ criste and his colage myȝt not be dispensid wiþ ne be exempte fro þe bondis of þe olde lawe in þis mater, I merueyle where þe pryuelegis commen alonde wherby owre colagis of monkis, chanons or eny oþer endowid prestis þat dwellen in siche conventycles claymen to be exempt fro þis bonde of þe olde lawe in this poynte.
(And since Christ and his college might not be dispensed with nor be exempt from the bonds of the old law in this matter, I marvel where the privileges common in this country whereby our colleges of monks, canons or any other endowed priests that dwell in such gatherings claim to be exempt from this bond of the old law on this point.)
And at roughly the same time, the word is used in reference to a university, only in Latin, not English. From the royal patent of New College, Oxford, 30 June 1379 (“new” is a relative term here):
prædictus Episcopus aut Custos et scholares collegii, domus sive aulæ, prædicti sic fundandi,
(the aforementioned bishop or custodian and scholars of the college, house or hall, of the aforementioned thus founded)
Use of college in reference to a university reference is because students and scholars originally lived and ate together, akin to cloistered monks and nuns. And by c. 1387 the word is being used in English to refer to an institution at a university. From Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Reeve’s Tale:
Greet sokene hath this millere, out of doute,
With whete and malt of al the land aboute;
And nameliche ther was a greet collegge
Men clepen the Soler Halle at Cantebregge;
Ther was hir whete and eek hir malt ygrounde.(Surely, this miller has a great monopoly,
With wheat and malt from all the land about;
And in particular there was a great college
That men call the Soler Hall at Canterbury
There their wheat and also their malt was ground.)
By the mid sixteenth century, college is being applied in political contexts. Thomas Eliot refers to the Roman Senate as a college in his 1541 Image of Governance:
And these counsaylors for their age shulde be called Senatours, (for Senes in latyne are olde men) not withstandynge beinge saluted or spoken to, they shulde be named fathers. Also the college or company of theym was incorporate by the name of the senate. Moreouer of this colledge, shulde be elected the great Iudges and offycers in the weale publyke, to whome shulde be committed the determination of Iustyce, the execution of ceremonies and solemne sacrifices, and other authorities, whiche do belong vnto gouernance.
And the term electoral college appears by the mid seventeenth century. This is, obviously, not a reference to the United States, which had yet to exist, but rather to the group of electors who chose the Holy Roman Empire. From a May 1658 letter to Robert Boyle:
The electoral college hath written to the king of Sweden, promising not to proceed to the imperial election, till the Austrians and Poland have first made their peace with him.
The U.S. electoral college was established by the 1787 constitution, but the term does not appear in that document, nor does it appear in the Federalist Papers. The earliest such use of the term I can find is from a 25 August 1800 letter by Representative John Fowler to his constituents in Kentucky, but Fowler is not referring to the U.S. electoral college as we know it, but rather to a super-electoral college that had been proposed to oversee the conduct of the presidential election:
And to shew the length to which the party were disposed to go on, attempt was made to introduce a regulation paramount to the constitution, to create a conservative senate, or electoral college of thirteen members, six from each house and the chief justice to preside, who were to be authorized to investigate the election of the several states for President and Vice-President; and to determine in secret conclave, the legality of the votes, and finally to declare who shall be the next President of the United States. This measure so repugnant to every principle of the constitution, was fortunately defeated.
The earliest use of electoral college to refer to the electors of the U.S. president that I have found is from a month later, in the pages of the Washington Federalist of 30 September 1800:
The object is to elect a President—not to employ this or that instrument to elect him: to vote for a President, not to transmit the vote by this or that man to the electoral college. This object is effected by united the vote of the state. Whether the people shall vote for the President by electors chosen by their representatives in the legislature, or by persons deputed by themselves to the electoral college, the vote will be the same. In either case the vote of the state will be united, and will be given in the same person. The same object therefore is attained by either mode.
Of course, nowhere in this discussion is the idea that people should directly elect the president without the mediation of state legislatures or electoral colleges.
Sources:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Reeve’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales, 1.3987–91. Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer’s Website.
“The Clergy May Not Hold Property.” The English Works of John Wyclif. F.D. Matthew, ed. Early English Text Society, O.S. 74. London: Trübner and Co., 1880, 366. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Eliot, Thomas. The Image of Governance. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1541, 62r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Fowler, John. “Extracts from a Letter of John Fowler, Member of Congress from the State of Kentucky, to his Consitutients.” Impartial Observer (Providence, Rhode Island), 25 August 1800, 1. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Hart, Samuel. “Letter to Robert Boyle” (May 1658). The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, vol. 6 of 6. London: W. Johnston, et al., 1772, 107. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. college, n.
“New College, Oxford: Royal Patent of Foundation” (30 June 1379). Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford, vol. 1. Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1853, 268. Google Books.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. college, n.
“To the People of Maryland.” Washington Federalist (Georgetown, District of Columbia), 30 September 1800, 2. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Image credit: Wes Colley, 2011, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.