Does America Have “Too Much” Democracy?

How can there be an overabundance of a good thing?  Well, the Constitutional framers certainly thought democracy fell into that category.

The Founders, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, in particular, believed in the desirability of giving voice to the popular will but only with significant constraints.

Today’s general public undoubtedly equates “one man, one vote”, majority rule, as democracy in action.  In a classical Athenian sense, yes, but that’s not the American system.

The very nature of the U.S. Constitution is its limitation upon the popular will.  The Federal Government has three branches.  Consider how their members were to be chosen: 

          Executive:  voters didn’t directly elect the president (and still don’t); members of the Electoral College did and do.

          Legislature:  U.S. Senators were chosen only very indirectly.  Voters selected members of their state legislature which, in turn, named two individuals to serve as Senators.  Only members of the Federal House of Representatives were voted on by what was then a restricted electorate (a would-be voter would have to own land to become one).

          Judiciary:  nominated by the indirectly elected President and selected only with the advice and consent of indirectly chosen Senate members.

That, political philosophers would say, was a representative government, not a democracy, but a republic.

 

The purpose of the structure established in 1787 (clearly set forth in The Federalist Papers, Number 10) was to dilute the “popular will and passion”.  Yet there is another less known reason for a republican form of government, also set forth in Number 10 regarding the advantage “a republic has over a democracy”:

          “Does this advantage consist in the substitution of representatives, whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudice and to schemes of injustice?  It will not be denied that the representatives of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments.”

Has the increase of more voter participation – more democracy – in the ensuing two centuries been a good idea?  U.S. Senators for the past one hundred years have been directly elected (Constitutional Amendment 17).  Do they qualify as more enlightened and virtuous than the general public or less so?

Political filters of the public will may also need to be prevalent in the presidential selection process.  Delegates to national party conventions used to be either hand-selected by party leaders or, again, chosen indirectly in lower elections (regional and county).  Now, of course, primary elections are the rule, with occasional exceptions. 

Has the quality of the candidates changed without minimal screening by those with “enlightened” views (presumably possessing knowledge and experience not available to primary voters)?

Yes, the convention-only system produced Warren G. Harding, of Teapot Dome notoriety.  But in only fifty years, the primary-centric system has spawned major party nominees – Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, both of whom proved to be well out of their depths as Chief Executives.  Whether Donald Trump, another entirely inexperienced Presidential nominee, will join this group remains to be seen. 

Plainly, more democracy is not necessary an unmitigated good for the republic.  The Founders were apparently on to something.