Mixed Government: How Much Democracy Do We Want?

None of this is to deny that the delegates at the Constitutional Convention disagreed only on the definition of democracy.  They also disagreed on the degree of democracy they wanted in their new government.  No one wanted to exclude it altogether.  Everyone agreed that there needed to be a “democratic” branch of the legislature.  Most of them agreed that there should be another branch that was at least somewhat “aristocratic.”  But these were definitely relative terms.

Ever since Aristotle’s time, people have been classifying governments as being by the many, the few or the one.  England’s government in the eighteenth century defied such classification.  It was a “mixed” government, combining government by the one (the king), the few (the House of Lords) and the many (the House of Commons).  Very few delegates disputed that the United States should have a single chief executive (a few wanted a three-man executive) and few disputed that there should be an upper house at least somewhat removed from the people.  But should the President be, in any real sense, a monarch?  Should the Senate resemble a true aristocracy? 

In England at the time, the House of Commons, which supposed represented the many, was elected to seven-year terms by the distinct minority of adult males who met the property requirements to vote.  Property qualifications to hold office were even higher, and members of Parliament did not receive a salary, which excluded all but the rich even without property requirements.  England was divided into boroughs, each of which sent two representatives to Parliament.  At the time the boroughs were originally formed, each had a roughly equal population, but they had never been readjusted, although major population shifts had taken place.  Large cities had grown up that send only two representatives to Parliament.  At the same time, some “rotten boroughs” had very few voters, sometimes one or two, sometimes a few dozen, who were easily bribed.  Some boroughs had no eligible voters at all and a rich man would simply buy the seat.  (No wonder the theory of “virtual” representation was so common; a representative who bought his seat certainly had no other claim to legitimacy!) 

By comparison, every branch of the United States government had better claim to be government of the many.  But was this desirable?  Should the President and Senate check the democratic tendencies of the House by being somewhat less democratic, but still of the people?  Or should we try to create as near to a monarch and a nobility as republican institutions would allow?  Did we want a “mixed” government along the lines of England?

Evaluating delegates on mixed government

One sure sign that a delegate favored mixed government was that he said openly that he wanted to imitate the British system.  Specific positions such a delegate might take would be to favor an executive for life, a Senate for life, Senators appointed by the executive or an absolute executive veto.  Wanting the Senate to represent the nation’s wealth and therefore be apportioned by wealth, or to be required to be wealthy was another sign of favoring mixed government, although many old democrats agreed that the lower house of the legislature should represent people and be apportioned by population, while the upper house should represent property and be apportioned by wealth.

Finally, there is the issue of ineligibility to office.  In England, the King often bribed Parliament by offering appointment to offices.  As noted above, old democrats wanted to bar members of Congress from being appointed to executive office to prevent such bribery.  Favoring an absolute ineligibility was the old democratic position.  Trying to prevent abuses by barring legislators only from offices they create or increase in pay, or by requiring them to vacate their legislative seats upon appointment was a moderate position.  Opposing ineligibility to office was potentially the position of an advocate of mixed government.  And, finally, defending this form of bribery as an appropriate exercise of executive influence marked a delegate as an extreme advocate of mixed government.  To defend this form of executive influence was to defend not only the British government, but its worst and most corrupt feature that was deplored by many Englishmen.  Subsequent events would prove that this kind of executive patronage and corruption could take a democratic, as well as aristocratic form, but the delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not know that at the time.