What was the significance of the holy roman emperors being elected?

>>2077182
No, actually, I was told by /his/ that the HRE was not in fact, a precursor to USA.

USA was based solely on Enlightenment ideas. The HRE had nothing to do with it, sadly.

File: 1463748909528.jpg (596KB, 1387x786px) Image search: [Google]

596KB, 1387x786px

>>2077182
>
>
>

>>2077203
actually the Federalist Papers talked about the HRE as a negative example because the authors considered it an unwieldy federation that could not protect itself from foreign interference. I suppose the anti-federalists might have seen it in a more positively as a system that curbed the power of the executive.

>>2077182
It wasn't significant to the US, but it was a major achievement in its own right. By determining the Emperor through elections, the HRE effectively curbed the bloody and costly succession struggles of earlier centuries. Keep in mind that the original Roman Empire never achieved the same, so you could say that this was when the HRE surpassed them (suck my balls Voltaire).

>>2077182
The Emperor wasn't elected. The King of Germany was elected. And the King of Germany was then usually crowned Emperor by the Pope following the tradition of Otto the Great.