User talk:Rccn

Welcome, Rccn!

Welcome to Wikipedia, Rccn! I'm LionmerterTHE, and I've been assigned as your mentor. All new Wikipedia accounts receive a mentor chosen randomly from a list of volunteers. It just means I'm here to help with anything you need! We need to have all kinds of people working together to create an online encyclopedia, so I'm glad you're here. Over time, you will figure out what you enjoy doing the most on Wikipedia.

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Again, welcome to Wikipedia! LionmerterTHE (talk) 01:21, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about Imperial election

If you read the books, you can understand the story. These are academic, obscure, historical works. I own all three books, and have read them thoroughly.

Bruce Ackerman’s book “The Failure of the Founding Fathers” (2007), you understand why the Electoral College was created. *The convention was held in 1787, when the Holy Roman Empire still existed, as did the Kingdom of Prussia. They were abolished in 1806, 1918, and 1947 (East and West Germany), respectively.

The French Revolution occurred in 1789, per the book “1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age.” But in 1787, the French Revolution had not yet occurred. The French Revolution led to the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire.
Prussia itself had existed from roughly 1600 to 1947, as a kingdom from 1701 to 1918.

The Founding Fathers wrote the constitution at a time when the French Revolution had not yet occurred, and most European countries were led by monarchies. Only property-owning white men could vote, in countries that even allowed elections. They had to invent the concept of electing a president, and thus created a version based on what was there at the time, per Ackerman’s book.

You have to understand historical events in the context of their time periods, with the benefit of hindsight. ~2026-19985-81 (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Saying that the Founders could anticipate the French Revolution in 1787 is like saying people in 2019 could anticipate the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. See Hindsight bias for this, and Ackerman discussed this in the book. He specifically mentioned how the Founders wrote the Constitution before the French Revolution. ~2026-19985-81 (talk) 14:53, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As a side-note, I am an academic myself, as a PhD student. I don’t do original research, but I read voraciously. I take sourcing and content-writing seriously. ~2026-19985-81 (talk) 14:54, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for reaching out to me.

While I have no doubt you read Ackerman's book thoroughly, when I looked through it I was unable to find any evidence where he directly states that the Holy Roman Empire's electoral system inspired that of America's electoral college. If you can find a source that explicitly corroborates this claim, then you can feel free to put it in.

Your information about America's electoral college may be factual, but you have not provided any evidence that it was directly inspired by the Holy Roman Empire.

Also I am not sure where your comment about the French Revolution comes from, I did not add anyting about the French Revolution. The current article does not mention the French Revolution in any capacity.

I hope we can reach an understanding and improve the article together. Rccn (talk 14:57, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I did some cursory digging and found that Federalist Paper 19 provides some evidence that Madison may have been inspired by the Holy Roman Empire's electoral system.

https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-11-20#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493290

However, to draw the connection that the imperial elections directly inspired the electoral college would still be conjecture. Of course, I also acknowledge the similarities between the systems, but I cannot find a source that states that the imperial elections were an inspiration for the electoral college. To say so would constitute WP:OR. Can you find a source that unambiguously shows a causal link between the two?

Until you can find such a source, I will add a section to legacy explaining the mention in Federalist Paper 19 and remove some of the more detailed parts of your edits. In doing so I do not mean to disparage you or otherwise insult you, but I merely mean to make the article more accurate. Of course, it may be that you do find a source and in that case you can feel free to add it to the article!

In any event, adding too much detail about a different system that may or may not have been influenced by the one discussed in the article is unnessecary. Perhaps some of your changes may be better suited to the United States Electoral College article.

Thanks again and I look forward to hearing back from you! Rccn (talk 15:20, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, having now read the paper in question in greater detail, it seems to me that Madison was citing the Holy Roman Empire as something to avoid not mimic... Rccn (talk 15:37, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Great work

Hi Rccn, just a quick note to say I really like the consistency and care in your edits. You’re doing great.. keep it up! 𝓛𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓶𝓮𝓻𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓣𝓗𝓔 (talk) 21:08, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! That's kind of you to say. Rccn (talk 09:09, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting Edits

Thanks for your help - I saw you also reverting as I went through :) KingLeonid1 (talk) 10:19, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Rccn (talk 10:26, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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