Wilson. The prospect that George Washington would be the first president may have allowed the proponents of a unitary executive to accumulate a large coalition. Wilson's motion for a single executive passed on June 4. Initially, the convention set the executive's term of office to seven years, but this would be revisited. Election and removal Wilson also argued that the executive should be directly elected by the people. Only through direct election could the executive be independent of both Congress and the states. This view was unpopular. A few delegates such as Roger Sherman, Elbridge Gerry, and Pierce Butler opposed the direct election of the executive because they considered the people too easily manipulated. However, most delegates did not question the intelligence of the voters; rather, what concerned them was the slowness by which information spread in the late 18th century. Due to a lack of information, the average voter would be too ignorant about the candidates to make an informed decision. Sherman proposed an arrangement similar to a parliamentary system in which the executive should be appointed by and directly accountable to the legislature. A majority of delegates favored the president's election by Congress for a seven-year term, though there was concern that this would give the legislature too much power. Southern delegates supported selection by state legislatures, but this was opposed by nationalists such as Madison who feared that such a president would become a power broker between different states' interests rather than a symbol of national unity. Realizing that direct election was impossible, Wilson proposed what would become the electoral college—the states would be divided into districts in which voters would choose electors who would then elect the president. This would preserve the separation of powers and keep the state legislatures out of the selection process. Initially, however, this scheme received little support. The issue was one of the last major issues to be resolved. Resolution was achieved by adjustment to the electoral college proposal. At the time, before the formation of modern political parties, there was widespread concern that candidates would routinely fail to secure a majority of electors in the electoral college. The method of resolving this problem, therefore, was a contested issue. Most thought that the House of Representatives should then choose the president since it most closely reflected the will of the people. This caused dissension among delegates from smaller states, who realized