Mixed Old and New Democrats: Edmund Randolph

Some of the delegates showed considerable openness to both old and new democracy.  Significantly, these especially included Virginians, who were particularly devoted to the new democratic principles of admitting Western states on an equal basis and regular reapportionment to match shifts in population.

Edmund Randolph favored popular election of the House of Representatives, partly because only by making them popularly elected could they be trusted with increased power, and partly because having them elected by state legislatures reduced them to mere ambassadors with no will of their own.  As seen before, he also wanted representation to be proportional to population and firmly resisted giving each state equal representation in the Senate.  He was the foremost advocate of requiring regular reapportionment of the House to match shifts in population, perhaps because he was conscious of the injustice of his native Virginia’s system of representation by counties.  It was Randolph who first proposed requiring reapportionment to be regulated by a periodic census instead of leaving it to the discretion of the nation legislature, originally proposing to require reapportionment by population and wealth, but then changing to agree the rule of representation to all free inhabitants and three-fifths of all slaves.  He favored requiring periodic reapportionment for the same reason that he opposed equality in the Senate:

If equality between great & small States be inadmissible, because in that case unequal numbers of Constituents wd be represented by equal number of votes; was it not equally inadmissible that a larger & more populous district of America should hereafter have less representation, than a smaller & less populous district.  If a fair representation of the people be not secured, the injustice of the Gov’t will shake to its foundations.

Reapportionment could not be left to the discretion of the legislature, or they would always be looking for excuses to postpone alterations to keep power in the hands of those who possessed it.  Setting a strict rule of reapportionment was also the best way to prevent new states from using some other crisis to force a reapportionment.  He also opposed allowing reapportionment by wealth instead of population (with the three-fifths rule) for fear the legislature would set a rule of wealth that would serve the advantage of the people who controlled the legislature.  Randolph also wanted to admit the western states on an equal basis, saying that Congress had pledged faith to admit them on an equal basis, and they neither will nor should accept any other.  Randolph was also generally open to immigrants holding office, favoring seven or at most nine years citizenship rather than fourteen years for membership in the Senate and four, rather than seven, years’ citizenship to serve in the House.  A longer term of citizenship would violate the government’s faith to immigrants. 

Randolph favored many old democratic principles as well.  He considered giving the House sole authority to originate money bills important enough to make it a condition of giving each state equal representation in the Senate.  If the Senate were to be proportional to population, he said, he would not insist on this condition, but giving the House sole authority to originate money bills was a condition of giving states equal representation in the Senate.  Besides, the plan would be more acceptable to the people if the “aristocratic” Senate were denied the power of the purse.  He would also deny the Senate authority to alter or amend money bills.  In response to objections that many economic regulations also involved money, he proposed to give the House sole authority to originate money bills for the purpose of raising revenue.  He believed the people would see the Senate as an aristocracy and the President as little less than a monarch and therefore take alarm if anyone except their immediate representative could originate money bills. The Senate was also more likely to be corrupt or unduly influenced by the executive.  He also wanted to make legislators ineligible to non-military office, for fear of corruption or influence and seconded a motion to preface federal authority to regulate the militia with the words, “And, that the liberties of the people may be better secured against the danger of standing armies in time of peace.”

He favored election of the executive by the legislature and particularly thought it dangerously "aristocratic" to allow the Senate to break deadlocks in the Electoral College. Randolph also had an old democrat’s distrust of the executive.  He originally even wanted a three-man executive, considering a single executive as an embryonic monarchy (the “foetus” of a monarchy were his words.  He believed the people were adverse to the very semblance of a monarchy and would never give a single executive their confidence, and that “felt an opposition to it that he believed he should continue to feel as long as he lived.”  In fact, he appears to have gotten past his opposition to a single executive and even to have supported an executive veto as preventing large states from combining against the small ones.  Although he favored election of the executive by the legislature, Randolph believed that the executive should be eligible for only one term to ensure his independence and particularly to ensure that he would be firm enough to use his veto.  He even favored allowing the President to veto “every order, resolution or vote” to prevent evading his veto. On the other hand, he originally favored appointment of judges by the Senate instead of the executive (later changing his mind to favor appointment by the executive with the advice and consent of the Senate) and opposed allowing the President to pardon treason.

Edmund Randolph’s main rejection of old democracy was in his not sharing the New England fetish with very frequent elections; his main rejection of democracy in general was his view of the Senate.  He was ambivalent about the term of the House, ultimately coming out in favor of a two-year term.  Annual elections were “a source of mischief” in the states, but only because there were not enough other restraints on popular intemperance.  His only reason ultimately for favoring a longer term was one-year terms were inconvenient in so large a country.  His feelings about the Senate were less mixed.  He favored a seven-year term:

The democratic licentiousness of the State Legislatures proved the necessity the necessity of a firm Senate.  The object of this 2^nd branch is to control the democratic branch of the Nat’l Legislature.  If it be not a firm body, the other branch being more numerous, and coming immediately from the people, will overwhelm it.  The Senate of Maryland constituted on like principles had scarcely been able to stem the popular torrent.

He also believed that the Senate should be much smaller than the House to protect it from the “passionate proceedings to which numerous assemblies are liable” and check the “turbulence and follies of democracy.”  Nor did he see any danger in having state executives appoint temporary replacements if a Senate seat unexpectedly fell vacant.  He did oppose Gouverneur Morris’ proposal for a Senate for life appointed by the executive, saying that it could never co-exist with a popular branch.

In the end, as stated before, Randolph refused to sign the Constitution, saying that offering the Constitution on an all-or-nothing basis would be too controversial and might lead to “confusion” and “anarchy & civil convulsions.”  The reasons* Randolph gave for opposing the Constitution were:

(1)        The Senate as a court for trying impeachment of the executive

(2)        The smallness of the House of Representatives

(3)        The lack of limitation on a standing army

(4)        The vague authorization of Congress to make “necessary and proper” laws

(5)        The authority of Congress to pass navigation acts by a simple majority

(6)        The authority of the federal government to intervene in state rebellions upon the application of the state executive as well as the legislature

(7)        The need for a more definite boundary between the general and state legislatures and judiciaries

(8)        The unqualified power of the President to pardon treason

(9)        Congress’s power to set its own pay.

Many of the objections, particularly the smallness of the House, the lack of limitations on standing army, and the President’s unlimited authority to pardon treason are old democratic objections.  Some are objections to the extent of federal power and some are southern (particularly Virginian).  None are new democratic.

Finally, it should be noted that although Randolph refused to sign the Constitution, he later reversed himself again and came out in favor of it at the Virginia ratifying convention.

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*He also listed as reasons the authority of Congress to tax exports and the need for a ¾ majority to override executive vetoes when he would have preferred 2/3.  These two objectionable provisions were changed.