Mixed Old and New Democrats: George Mason

George Mason’s views were similar to his fellow Virginias'.  His fame as a democrat no doubt owes much to his eloquence in arguing for popular election of the House:

[The House] was to be the grand depository of the democratic principle  of the Govt.  It was, so to speak, to be our House of Commons – It ought to know & sympathize with every part of different parts of the whole republic . . .  He admitted that we had been too democratic but was afraid we sd incautiously run into the opposite extreme.  We ought to attend to the rights of every class of the people.

The people will be represented; they ought therefore to choose the Representatives.  The requisites in actual representation are that the Rep. Should sympathize with their constituents; shd think as they think, & feel as they feel . . . Much he sd had been alledged agst deomocratic elections. . . . But compare these with the advantage of this Form in favor of the rights of the people, in favor of human nature.

Although the primary author of the Virginia constitution whose property restrictions on the vote Jefferson found so undemocratic, Mason opposed restricting the vote to freeholders, saying that the vote should go to anyone with “evidence of attachment to & permanent common interest with Society.”  “Does no other kind of property but land evidence a common interest in the proprietor?  Does nothing besides property mark a permanent attachment.”  

 Like all Virginians, Mason championed the western states.  He favored representation by population, saying that it was a good enough measure of wealth for “every substantial purpose,” which removed any reason for denying full representation to the Western states because they would not be able to make equal contributions to the treasury.  Since representation was to be by population and the north had the majority of the population, he would agree they had the right to preponderate.  But they should not preponderate if they were not longer in the majority.  Since it would obviously not be in the interest of current majority to become the legislative minority, periodic reapportionment should be required or it would never happen.  Mason made it clear that he expected the South to increase in population faster than the north.  His principles, therefore, are certainly democratic, but there is a certain measure of self-interest to them.  As for the western states:

Ought we to sacrifice what we know to be right in itself, lest it should  prove favorable to States which are not yet in existence.  If the Western States are to be admitted into the Union, as they arise, they must, he wd repeat, be treated as equals and subjected to no degrading discriminations. They will have the same pride & other passions which we have, and will either not unite with us or will speedily revolt from the Union, if they are not in all respects placed on an equal footing with their brethren.

Mason was not so new democratic on the issue of qualifications to office.  He was the one who proposed a minimum age of 25 for the House, favored requiring seven, rather than three years’ citizenship for Representatives and fourteen years’ citizenship for Senators, saying that he would have barred immigrants from the Senate altogether, if so many immigrants had not distinguished themselves during the Revolution, nor did he see any reason to make an exception for immigrants currently naturalized by the states.  But more disturbing from today’s perspective were his views on property qualifications:

One important object in constituting the Senate was to secure the rights of property.  To give them weight & firmness for the purpose, a considerable duration in office was thought necessary.  But a longer term than 6 years, would be of no avail in this respect, if need person should be appointed.  He suggested therefore the propriety of annexing to the office a qualification of property.

He later moved for setting qualifications in landed property for the national legislature and disqualifying public debtors and persons with unsettled accounts.  As we have seen, Madison opposed this requirement as unjust to the urban population, and, we shall see, the altogether undemocratic Gouverneur Morris resisted the ban on public debtors and persons with unsettled accounts as barring importing all merchants from office, since merchants regularly posted bond for the tax on the goods they imported and only gradually paid it off as they sold their goods.  He therefore considered Mason’s proposed qualifications “a scheme of the landed agst the monied interest.”  Morris was probably right; Mason probably was trying to promote rural over urban interest.  He probably did not consider this undemocratic, be merely a protecting of the majority of farmers against a merchant aristocracy.

As for old democracy, Mason, like Randolph, was an old democrat on all issues except length of terms.  He favored doubling the House from 65 members to 130, considering 65 members to be too small in absolute numbers and too small to know local interests and have the confidence of the people.   Even 130 members was almost too few.  He favored allowing only the House to originate money bills because only they were “immediate representatives” of the people, because the Senate’s long terms and small numbers made it too “aristocratic” and because the Senate represented the states instead of the people.  He also strongly favored making legislators ineligible to executive office in order to prevent the sort of corruption so prevalent in England, which he regarded as creating an aristocracy, sarcastically commenting that “In the present state of American morals & manners, few friends it may be thought will be lost to the plan, by the opportunity of giving premiums to a mercenary & depraved ambition.”  Mason also feared a standing army.  It was he who first proposed to give the federal government the authority to regulate the militia in order to strengthen it and proposed that this section be preceded 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 also called for a bill of rights, although he also believed that the prohibition on ex post facto laws should apply only to criminal and not civil cases.

            Mason also had an old democrat’s general distrust of the executive.  He favored election of the executive by the national legislature rather than by the people, believing that the people would not know enough about eminent characters outside of their own state and that a designing conspiracy could control the election.  Indeed, “[I]t would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man.”  He originally opposed the creation of a single executive and later came out in favor of a privy council for the President, chosen by the Senate, with two members for the New England, two from the Mid Atlantic, and two from the Southern states.  This counsel, and not the Senate, should assist the President in making appointment.  “[I]n rejecting a Council to the President we were about to try an experiment on which the most despotic Governments had never ventured.  The Grand Signor [Turkish sultan] himself had his Divan.”  He firmly favored making the President impeachable, since no man should be above justice and believed that “maladministration” or at least “high crimes & misdemeanors” should be impeachable, as well as bribery or treason.  He opposed executive appointment of judges as potentially giving the President an improper influence over the judiciary, favored legislative appointment of the treasurer since money belongs to the people and the legislature, as the peoples’ representative, should appoint the keepers of it and opposed allowing the President to pardon treason.  He was of mixed opinions about the executive veto.  Originally he opposed the executive veto, especially in the hands of a single executive, fearing the executive would abuse his veto to extort greater power, until he had the same influence through appointments as the British monarch and would become, in effect, a monarch in all but name.  On the other hand, he favored joining the judiciary with the executive veto to give the executive “confidence” to use his veto, which he believed should be used not only to prevent legislative encroachments on executive power, but to strike down bad laws in general.  He also believed that only two-thirds, not three-quarters of the legislature should be needed to override a veto.

            Mason was less old democratic on length of terms.  He favored a two-year term for the House, saying that one year was inconvenient for states more distant from the capital and two years would synchronize with South Carolina’s electoral cycle.  He did not specify what term he favored for the Senate, but made clear that he favored the relatively long (six-year) term, although he thought it made it dangerous for the Senate to originate money bills.  He also favored two, rather than three Senators from each state to keep the Senate from being too numerous, and, as we have seen, believed that the Senate should secure property and should therefore have property requirements for office.  He favored a seven-year term "at least" for the President with no re-eligibility to ensure his independence from the legislature, although he emphatically opposed an executive for “good behavior” as prelude to a monarchy.

            Mason ultimately refused to sign the Constitution.  Unlike Gerry or Randolph, he did not list his reasons during the Convention.  After the Convention, however, he published a list of his objections that he had apparently written down during the Convention:

            (1)        No bill of rights

            (2)        Insufficient representation in the House (although he considered the last-minute change in ratio of representation from 40,000 to 1 to 30,000 to 1 a significant improvement)

            (3)        The Senate’s power to alter money bills

            (4)        The Senate’s role in appointments and other powers he considered executive

            (5)        The federal judiciary will tend to absorb all state judiciaries and make law too remote, tedious and expensive

            (6)        The absence of a council for the President

            (7)        The Vice President as President of the Senate gives the executive legislative powers

            (8)        The President’s power to pardon treason

            (9)        Making treaties supreme law of the land without requiring concurrence of the House

            (10)      Permitting commercial regulations by a simple majority

            (11)      The power of Congress to make all laws “necessary and proper”

            (12)      No protection for freedom of the press or against standing armies
            (13)      States may not tax their own exports

            (14)      Protection of slave importation

            (15)      Prohibition on ex post facto laws applies to civil as well as criminal laws.

As with Edmund Randolph, some of these objections are to the extent of federal powers, some are attempts to uphold Virginia’s specific interests, and some are old democratic.  Like Randolph, he did not object to the Constitution on new democratic grounds.