Some of Each: John Dickinson

A few delegates occupy a position somewhere between old and new democracy, favoring features of each about equally, and a few mixed government features as well.

John Dickinson (Delaware):  In his first speech at the Convention, Dickinson said:

A limited monarchy he considered as one of the best Governments in the world. It was not certain that the same blessings were derivable from any other form. It was certain that equal blessings had never yet been derived from the republican form. A limited Monarchy however was out of the question. The spirit of the times – the state of our affairs, forbade the experiment if it were desireable.

 Despite his admiration for limited monarchy, Dickinson seems to have accepted that it was out of the question and showed no actual disposition to institute it.  In particular, he believed that the United States lacked an essential ingredient for a limited monarchy – a nobility. 

With regard to the House of Representatives, he considered it essential that it be elected by the people directly and believed that representation should be apportioned by actual tax revenues, rather than by either population or wealth.  Given that the main source of revenue at the time was taxes on imports and exports, this is a surprising position for a delegate from a state without a major port, but he considered such apportionment a useful incentive for states to pay their tax quotas.  He considered the United States too large for annual elections and favored a three-year term for the House, with one third of all members up for election every year.  With regard to the Senate, he wanted it to have some of the functions of a House of Lords, although he did not go as far in making it “aristocratic” as the more extreme advocates of mixed government.  As we have seen, he was the first to propose giving each state an equal voice in the Senate in exchange for proportional representation in the House.  Senators should be elected by state legislatures, both to give states sufficient agency in the central government and to pass Senators through a “refining” process to make them “consist of the most distinguished characters, distinguished for their rank in life and their weight of property,” similar to a House of Lords.   Although he said Senators needed a long terms to guaranty their independence from the state legislatures, although he defined “permanency” as merely a three, five or seven year term.  While many others thought a small Senate would give it greater coolness, Dickinson favored “80 and twice 80” members to balance to lower house.  Only the House should be able to originate money bills because the people should only be taxed by their immediate representatives, and because experience had confirmed the wisdom of such a policy.

Having decided that monarchy was out of the question, Dickinson made no attempt to make the President a monarch; a “firm” executive was not compatible with a republic.  He favored election of the President by the people as the “best and purest source.”  To overcome the difficulty in achieving a majority for any one candidate, he proposed to have the people of each state choose a candidate and either the national legislature or special electors choose among the candidates.  He wanted the executive to be removable by the national legislature upon the request of the majority of states, to have a formal council of advisors, and to wield his veto alone instead of in conjunction with the judiciary, so the people would know who was making the veto and could hold him responsible.

He favored the same odd combination of property restrictions on the vote and lack of property restrictions on office holding that Madison did.  With regard to property restrictions on office holding, “He doubted the policy of interweaving into a Republican constitution a veneration of wealth.  He had always understood that a veneration for poverty & virtue, were the objects of republican encouragement.”  Property requirements would exclude a man of merit who was not rich.  “The best defence (sic.) lay in the freeholders who were to elect the legislature.  Whilst this Source should remain pure, the public interest would be safe.”  But he made it clear that freeholders were “the best guardians of liberty” and only they should vote “as a necessary defence (sic.) agst the dangerous influence of those multitudes without property & without principle with which our Country like all others, will in time abound.”   

In short, Dickinson does not classify easily.  He favors old democratic, new democratic and mixed government features in about equal shares.