I may have misunderstood something, but this is what I found:
The second section gives power to the President, “by and with the advice and consent of the senate, to make treaties, PROVIDED TWO THIRDS OF THE SENATORS PRESENT CONCUR.”
The power of making treaties is an important one, especially as it relates to war, peace, and commerce; and it should not be delegated but in such a mode, and with such precautions, as will afford the highest security that it will be exercised by men the best qualified for the purpose, and in the manner most conducive to the public good. The convention appears to have been attentive to both these points: they have directed the President to be chosen by select bodies of electors, to be deputed by the people for that express purpose; and they have committed the appointment of senators to the State legislatures. This mode has, in such cases, vastly the advantage of elections by the people in their collective capacity, where the activity of party zeal, taking the advantage of the supineness, the ignorance, and the hopes and fears of the unwary and interested, often places men in office by the votes of a small proportion of the electors.
So, as I read this, Madison is saying that the power to make treaties is too important to put in the hands of democracy. He compares the Electoral College to the original Constitutional provision that said that Senators were not to be democratically elected, but rather appointed.
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.E1
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Right, the usefulness of intermediary institutions in “cooling” public sentiment. (What was G. Washington’s dictum — something like the Senate is the saucer that cools the hot tea of the House.)
And lest a reader read too much into Publius’s “anti-democratic” tendencies (which the Progresives did), he argues that the whole of the Constitution is ” strictly republican” in character — that it “derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people” (Fed #39).
Publius’s argument is actually that checks and balances are “pro-democratic” in the sense that we understand it today, i.e., promoting achievement of outcomes preferred by the majority.
It’s just that he did not identify “public will” with any transient impulse of the majority. But he did identify it with the long-run preferences of the majority.
It’s sort of a self protection by increasing transaction costs. Sort of like using automatic withdrawls from a checking or saving account. It’s not as though you can get at the money where it’s ultimately deposited if you really, really want it. But you recognize that in making it somewhat difficult to get to, then you won’t be tempted to withdraw it for transient reasons that you’ll ultimately regret.
Sure, in one sense it’s a limitation on what we can do with our money. On the other hand, we set it up that way recognizing that the limitation actually helps us achieve what is in our long-term interest — our true interest.