"New" Democracy, or Democracy as We See it Today

If there is one thing almost everyone takes for granted these days, it is that America at the time the Constitution was written was much less democratic than today, and that our story has overall been one of the growth of democracy.  First Presidential electors stopped using their own judgment in choosing a candidate and began pledging to certain party.  Next, they began to be chosen by the people directly instead of by state legislatures.  The right to vote became broader, as first property, then racial barriers were removed, then the vote was extended to women, and finally the voting age was lowered to 18.  Senators came to be elected by the people directly instead of by state legislatures.  At the state level, more and more offices became elective (Attorney General, Board of Education, numerous other executive officers, judges, etc.) and initiative, referendum and recall were instituted.  A few people may remember the invention of the secret ballot and Supreme Court requirements that both houses of state legislatures by apportioned by population as part of the general growth of democracy.

Yet what we have witnessed is not so much the growth of democracy as the growth of one definition of democracy that is familiar to us today.  If our system is much more democratic in many ways that it was in 1787, in other ways is it less democratic.  If our history has been the history of the rise of one form of democracy, it is also the history of the decline of another form.  But it is the growth of what I call new democracy, not the decline of old democracy, that people notice these days and we mistake the changing definition of democracy for a rise in democracy.*

But how, one may ask, could governments be more democratic in 1878 than they are now?  Slavery was legal (as we have seen) in all states but Massachusetts.  Women were excluded from the vote, and even among white men most states put property restrictions on who could vote.  Still more state put property and religious restrictions on who could hold office.  In most states, the governor was elected by the state legislature instead of by the people directly.  And, not as well remembered, but still significant, most states slanted representation to favor the eastern parts of the state (where the dominant elites, whether planters or merchants) lived, and to deny western farmers their fair share of representation.  Many states had an upper house of their legislature based on wealth instead of population.  Where is the democracy here?

So far as slavery goes, it clearly violates any principle of democracy, old or new and constituted an intolerable blemish on the system.  Contemporaries admitted as much.  But the other criticisms of the system at the time the Constitution was drafted simply reflect our own viewpoints of what democracy is, viewpoints not necessarily shared in 1787.

Our definition of democracy

Probably the best single defining slogan of new democracy is “one man, one vote.”  This slogan implies two things: that everyone should vote and that everyone’s vote should carry equal weight.  This slogan, and the criticisms mentioned above, indicate some of the other elements we consider essential to today’s definition of democracy.

Universal suffrage:  It is considered basic to our definition of democracy that every citizen who is of age should have the vote.  Some people would make an exception for convicted felons, but other than that any restriction on who can vote is assumed to be an intolerable violation of democratic principles, because anyone who is affected by a government should have a voice in it.  The principle of universal suffrage is pushed further in programs such as motor voter laws (laws allowing people to register to vote when they register their cars) or other laws to facilitate voting.

Direct popular elections:  In today’s ideology, it is assumed that more direct elections equals more democracy.  (Hence the criticism of the original Constitution for having a Electoral College and having Senators elected by state legislatures instead of by the people directly).  Direct popular election of both houses of the legislature and the chief executive is the minimum we would consider safe for democracy.  Many states have taken the principle further, with election of the Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Board of Education and numerous other executive officials, a well as state judges.  Counties often take this principle to the point of absurdity and have elective positions such as assessor, surveyor, coroner and county clerk.  Many states and localities take the principle of direct elections further still and have the people vote directly on laws and policies.  On the state level, this may take the form of the referendum, in which the legislature passes a proposed constitutional amendment and then refers it to the people for their approval, or the initiative, in which citizens circulate positions to place a proposed law on the ballot to be enacted or rejected by a popular vote.  On the local level, it can take the form of a local option (a state law in which each county is allowed to vote on whether or not it wants to allow something), a vote on a local issue, or, especially a tax or bond election, on whether to pass a certain local tax or issue of bonds.  Incidentally, certain property tax elections violate the general theory of universal suffrage by restricting the vote to property owners, on the theory that non-property owners are not affected by a property tax.  This principle can be pushed too far, as ballots get loaded with so many candidates and laws that most people cannot keep them all straight.

Representation by population:  This is what most people mean when they say “one man [person], one vote.”  They mean that each election district should have an equal number of inhabitants.  This requires periodic reapportionment of all districts with each ten-year census to insure equal representation.  And “all districts” means Congressional districts, both houses of all state legislatures, any other state officials elected from districts, and districts electing city councilors and county commissioners.  Ensuring equal population often means electoral districts that cut across political divisions such as county and city lines.   Periodic reapportionment can also lead to the practice of “gerrymandering” (named after Convention member Elbridge Gerry) as district boundaries are manipulated to affect political outcomes.

No privileges based on wealth:  This may seem repetitious of the other new democratic principles, but it needs to be emphasized.  It is partly included in the principle of universal suffrage because property restrictions on the vote are repugnant to new democracy.  It is partly included in the concept of representation by population, because the practice, common in 1787, of having representation in at least one house based on property is also repugnant to new democracy.  It is also opposed to the practice, used in almost all states when the Constitution was adopted, of placing property restrictions on office holding.

But opposition to privileges based on wealth goes beyond these things.  Obviously, money talks and no one can prevent money from talking, but new democracy believes that money should not talk.  This was not the general assumption when the Constitution was adopted; it was generally assumed that since government was instituted at least partly to protect property, money should talk.  Giving a rich man extra votes in proportion to his wealth, everyone agreed, would be monstrous, but for a rich man to influence his neighbors was widely accepted.  Madison was not condemning a defect when he said:**

If the law allows an opulent citizen but a single vote in the choice of his representative, the respect and consequence which he derives from his fortunate situation very frequently guide to votes of other to the objects of his choice; and through this imperceptible channel the rights of property are conveyed into the public representation.

He was simply explaining normal, perfectly acceptable facts of life.  Today’s practice of the secret ballot was adopted to prevent the intimidation of voters by their employers or other people with economic power over them.  And, of course, all today’s proposals for campaign finance reform are intended, in one way or another, to prevent money from talking.

Evaluating the delegates on new democracy 

Although new democracy was (for the most part) new at the time of the Constitutional Convention, most of the issues involved did exist at the time, and many were debated.  The most obvious new democracy issues raised at the Convention are direct popular election of House, Senate and President.  Another major issue is the qualifications for office, meaning not only property qualification but qualifications in age and citizenship as well.  Qualification to vote is another important issue that deserves some comment.  There were two basic positions on the qualification to vote.  The new democratic position was that whoever was qualified to vote for the lower house of the legislature in each state should be allowed to vote for the United States House of Representatives.  The less democratic-minded favored additional federal restrictions on the vote that would be uniform throughout the country.  No one proposed a federal expansion in the right to vote, and no one, with one surprising exception, even seems to have thought of such a thing.

            I anticipated these issues from the beginning.  There were a few other new democracy issues that I did not anticipate when reading the Convention notes.  One was whether representation would be by population or by wealth, which has been addressed above.  Another was whether to require reapportionment of the house on regular intervals, or to leave it to the discretion of Congress.  A final new democratic issue, closely related to the issue of reapportionment, was whether to admit the Western (i.e., west of the Appalachians) on an equal basis or whether to guaranty the Atlantic states a majority of representatives in all cases.

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*Here I must acknowledge my debt to Gary Wills in A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, Copyright 1999 by Simon & Schuster as the first description I have read of the working of old democracy and explaining how it can be a thoroughly democratic system.

**It should be noted, though, that he was proposing a hypothetical defense of slave representation.