Tag: republic

Constitutional Amendment 17

Post author By David
Post date August 3, 2009
6 Comments on Constitutional Amendment 17

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Following close on the heels of the sixteenth amendment (both in terms of time and impact) comes what may well be the second most fundamental alteration to the public perception and operation of our government through the Seventeenth Amendment.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

This amendment might look fairly innocuous on the surface but it fosters a fundamental shift in the way that the people perceive the structure and function of the representation within the federal government.

I have written about this amendment before and I understand from the comments that some real problems had developed with the original setup of having state legislatures choose the senators. We cannot underestimate however the fundamental shift encoded in this amendment. In my state government I need to pay attention to one senator and one representative in the state government representing me. Before this amendment those two individuals were held responsible for how the state was represented in the United States Senate and then I would pay attention to my representative in the House of Representatives (replacing them if I felt poorly represented). Now the common perception (and the true fact sadly) is that the senators from each state are to represent the people of the state (so I have three people to keep my eye on in the federal level legislative branch besides the two I track in the state legislature) rather than representing the interests of the state as a sovereign political entity and being held accountable by the government of the state directly.

It is no wonder, with this amendment, that people today do not recognize that our structure of government was intended to be a representative republic – with the interests of the people balanced against the interests of each of the states – rather than a democracy.

Tags amendments, Constitution, democracy, documents, history, republic, senate

General

Federalist No. 37

I really enjoyed Federalist No. 37, it was very interesting to have a paper which began to examine the process of creating the proposed Constitution as opposed to simply looking at the provisions of the Constitution itself. As it specifically recommends moderation and deliberation in our political/civic dialog I think that everyone ought to read this paper.

The other thing that I found interesting was a more pronounced and direct reference to assistance by "the Almighty hand than I have ever noticed before:

The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution. (emphasis added)

I found the closing paragraph to be a helpful reminder as well about the process of politics:

. . . we are necessarily led to two important conclusions. The first is, that the convention must have enjoyed, in a very singular degree, an exemption from the pestilential influence of party animosities the disease most incident to deliberative bodies, and most apt to contaminate their proceedings. The second conclusion is that all the deputations composing the convention were satisfactorily accommodated by the final act, or were induced to accede to it by a deep conviction of the necessity of sacrificing private opinions and partial interests to the public good, and by a despair of seeing this necessity diminished by delays or by new experiments.

Party animosities are a natural companion to the discussions of deliberative bodies. We must ever be seeking to rise above such natural animosities and yet we are nto truly rising above them if we fall to the abandonment of our honest principles. In keeping true to those honest principles we will need to recognize the proper instances when we must accept a compromise.

Tags compromise, Constitution, documents, federalist, government, history, republic

National

Federalist Nos. 13 – 14

Federalist No. 13 left me with imagining one of two conclusions based on the following statement:

Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole.

The two conclusions that I can draw from this – one of which must be true – are that Hamilton could not conceive (or did not consider) the incredible waste that could be perpetrated by a central government or else we are extremely lucky not to have the amount of waste we are paying for be multiplied by a number of regional confederacies with independent central governments.

Federalist No. 14 attempts to draw a clear distinction which many people today still do not understand. It is a distinction which is vital to having our government function properly.

The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms . . . is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.

The confusion around this issue is evidence of the fact that Americans must be made – being born in this nation is no guarantee of understanding and promoting the ideas of liberty and limited representative government that brought our nation to its greatness.

What I had never realized before was the fact that there was apparently widespread confusion back in the 18th century concerning the difference between a republic and a democracy. Today we suffer from two problems in our country regarding government. One, many people mistakenly believe that we are a democracy and try to treat government function as such. Two, some people properly recognize the republican form of our government and mistake or ignore the fact that some issues should be decided in a democratic manner by the people rather than placing more expansive powers in the hands of their elected representatives. This is especially true on issues such as congressional pay where there is an inherent conflict of interest on the part of those representatives.

Tags democracy, documents, federalist, government, republic