Constitution as a Transition Between Old and New Democracy

It is pointless criticizing the Constitution for not establishing a full-scale new democracy when there was no serious call for a full-scale new democracy as we know it today.  Certainly, new democratic ideas were in circulation, and in a few people, most notably James Wilson, they were starting to take shape into an alternative to old democracy. 

But most people felt less an urgent need for a full-fledged new democracy than alarm at the Constitution’s threat to old democracy.  And, indeed, it defied old democratic principles at almost every turn – no annual elections, a mere sixty-five Representatives for a nation of three million people, a six-year term for the Senate, a strong executive without a council, partial eligibility of legislators to executive office, and no bill of rights.  Only two partial vestiges of old democracy remained.  All money bills had to originate in the House, keeping the power of the purse in the hands of the people, but this power was made largely meaningless because the Senate could change money bills.  Election of Senators by state legislatures could be considered an old democratic feature, because state legislatures could more easily instruct and control representatives than the people as a whole, but this, too, was made meaningless by their six-year terms, which allowed them to defy state legislatures with impunity.

Instead of seeing the Constitution as a rejection of old democracy, as its contemporary opponents did, or as a failure to achieve true new democracy, as some people do now, I believe we should see it as an important document in the transition from old democracy to new.   If the Constitution failed in several new democratic aspects, consider all the new democratic elements that it had.

The House was to be elected by the people directly (unlike the Continental Congress under the Articles) and, although there was no national guaranty of the vote, it was placed on the broadest basis that existed in the states.  Seats in the House were to be apportioned by population only, not by wealth (although the three-fifths rule was problematic), and to be reapportioned every ten years to ensure that it remained proportional to population.  Although the Constitution says the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000 inhabitants, it never specifies that each Congressional district must have equal population.  Nonetheless, it seems to have been generally assumed that each district would, in fact, have equal population. 

Under the original plan, the House was supposed to represent the people and the Senate the states.  If this does not appeal to today’s new democratic sensibilities, keep in mind that in many states at the time, the lower house represented the people and the upper house represented wealth, and many delegates to the Convention, including such democrats as George Mason, expected the U.S. Senate to play a similar role.  Representation of wealth plays no part in the Constitution (with the possible exception of the three-fifths rule).   Given the practice of instructing representatives that was common at the time, it is even possible that the delegates foresaw that presidential electors would be pledged to particular candidates, bringing presidential elections closer to the people than it would appear at first sight.  But most remarkable of all, there were no property or religious restrictions on federal office holders (nor restrictions of race or sex either), only restrictions of age and citizenship.  Of all states, only Pennsylvania completely eliminated property restrictions on office, and only Virginia, New York and (probably) Rhode Island did not have religious restrictions. 

In the years following the adoption of the Constitution, new democracy grew and old democracy slowly withered away.  We are taught to remember and honor the rise of new democracy – the end of restrictions on the vote, popular election of presidential electors and later Senators, the proliferation of elective state and local offices, the end of representation by wealth, the secret ballot and the adoption in many states of initiative and referendum.  We do not hear so much about the decline of old democracy – the end of annual elections, the ever-growing ratio of representation between representatives and voters, the end of instruction of representatives, the strengthening of executives, and our loss of fear of standing armies.  Certainly, the federal Constitution has proven to be amenable to new democratic reform, and our old democratic fears have long since been forgotten.

My object in this paper has not been to idealize old democracy (although perhaps I may be accused of it).  Whatever its other merits, old democracy has one irredeemable flaw – it is completely impractical in a society like ours today.  In a society of our scale, it is simply not possible for the voters to assemble to instruct their representatives.  When the great majority of the population is no longer self-employed, the risk of economic coercion in  any system of open voting is all too real.  Representation in a society as large as ours cannot possibly be in the sort of ratio considered necessary at the time the Constitution was adopted.  And to forego standing armies in today’s world would be nothing short of insanity.  But if my intention is not to idealize old democracy.  It is call into question any oversimplified assumptions about what democracy can be, and to discourage any smug assumptions of simple progress, or the belief that our history has been anything so simple as the story of democracy ever increasing.

Having completed the series on the Constitutional Convention, I plan to give this blog a break for a while.  When I return, it will be to discuss the controversy surrounding the adoption of the Constitution.