The (Lost?) Vision of the Founding Fathers

Depends on what you mean by "system." Many of the Founding Fathers would be upset about how powerful the Federal Government is and none of them would recognize our system as being Federalist in the way that they proposed.

I think most of them would also be aghast at the enormous powers of the Presidency and how much our country is "connected" (both positively and negative connections) to the rest of the world.

But if you're talking about politics? Well they didn't get through two Presidencies without that being as dirty as we have today. Especially in the 1800 one.....Jefferson was literally accused of wanting to destroy Christianity and of course there were the Alien and Sedition acts during Adams' term. Well and their election made the 2000 one look simple.

If you don't mind bad language this hilariously points out that things "these days" have well, always been there, and often explicitly worse.

No, I'm not talking about politics, or whether the candidates / campaigns are being dirty. Your first two paragraphs are exactly where I want to stay, if it's possible in an election.

Also I'd argue that the 14th Amendment and the 16th Amendment are much more influential than the 17th in the role that the Federal Government plays.

The most important decisions though are not constitutional in nature, but the Court's interpretation of the Commerce Clause in justifying Federal powers. But again, I am not wholly convinced that the expansion of power as made the political climate worse on its surface, even though it makes who is in office more important.

I see the 16th as problematic also, but not so much because it imposed federal income taxes (I think we need national funding for quite a lot of things), but because the concentration of public $ has allowed massive expansion of the federal entity.

To me, though, the 17th minimized (undercut?) the ability of states to promote/protect their voices and interests. This has led, indirectly, to an almost total transfer of legislative power to a single entity / location (Congress), and set the stage for what I see as a terminally corrupt institution.

Polimom is correct in implying that the Founding Fathers would hardly recognize what they wrought. Mikkel is correct that the 14th and 16th Amendments are much more influential.

All that the 17th did was take a powerful patronage tool away from state legislatures and political parties. In my native Delaware, that meant that wealthy landowners and industrialists who weren't necessarily Senate-worthy could no longer bypass "the people."

I should add, btw, that there are surely people here on TMV who will defend the expanded role of the federal government. I'm hoping to hear from you, also!

I'm curious whether people are okay with the direction we've gone / are going...

Hi Shaun -- thanks for your thoughts!

So you don't see a systemic purpose to the 17th at all? Or any reason for the two Houses to represent a different level of focus?

The 17th Amendment is simplicity itself and a logical outgrowth of the Progressive movement, which among other things decried the selection of U.S. Senators by the high and mighty.

I am not aware that an outcome of the 17th was that the Senate and House began to focus differently -- examples being treaties and foreign policy in general in the Senate and fiscal and taxation affairs in general in the House -- but I could be wrong.

Beyond that is something that Bruce Bartlett addressed in a 2006 Real Clear Politics article:

"The Founding Fathers expected the House of Representatives to more fully reflect the will of the people, changing often as public opinion changed. Remember, this was in the days before polling, when elections were the most accurate measure we had of public opinion. The Senate was expected to change more slowly, and this was indeed the case. Party control of the House changed 18 times in the nation's first 100 years, but only six times in the Senate.

"As a result of the rise of population in House seats and gerrymandering, however, it is now harder for the House to turn over, while the impossibility of gerrymandering the Senate has made it easier for that house to turn over."

Polimom,

IMHO, the Founding Fathers deliberately set out to design a system of limited government, with extensive checks and balances designed to keep the central government from getting to powerful. They were more concerned by the prospect the central government would become too strong than they were that it would be weak and ineffective. I expect they would be horrified at how we have allowed the Federal government to expand and intrude into every aspect of our daily lives.

The 16th amendment (allowing for direct taxation on incomes by the Federal government) created a revenue stream for the federal government independent of the wishes and priorities of the state governments.

The 17th amendment (substituting the direct election of Senators for their appointment by state legislatures) removed another key means for state governments to influence the federal government. In effect, it disenfranchised state governments from being represented as separate entities--as you suggest, this was a big deal, though most probably did not see it as such at the time.

Once the income tax revenue stream was harnessed by the federal government, it was put to use in "purchasing the affections" of special interest groups (Madison's "factions"), and later, buying compliance of state governments with federal government wishes/diktats. (Nixon's 55 mph "national" speed limit, for example, came about when the Federal government threatened to withhold highway monies from any state that did not reduce its maximum highway speed to 55.)

In combination, the 16th and 17th amendments had a pernicious effect on the stability of the checks and balances the founders designed into the system. Much more so than either one had by itself.

Perhaps that argues for not passing amendments to the constitution too close together in time (the 16th and 17th were ratified and took effect approximately two months apart in early 1913). The impact of one should be allowed to manifest before another is layered on top of it, since it is so difficult to "erase" a pernicious constitutional change, much more so than repealing a bad law.

I wouldn't particularly want to be on the path that the founding fathers set us on. They didn't think women and blacks should vote and in fact didn't trust the white men entirely as indicated by the original way senators were elected and by the Electoral College. They did want the Senate to be much more deliberative than the House based on the 6 year terms and staggered elections and no doubt were concerned about folks they would classify as incompetent being elected by the masses. We've moved quite a distance from that.

The Founding Fathers would've hung most members of the current administration for high treason by now. Not much to discuss there; pretty open and shut case according to the edicts of the foundation of our country and its laws.

Actually, I think mikkel was pretty much on message with everything he said. As he mentioned, political campaigns even during the dawn of the country often got bawdy and negative. Adams and Jefferson were a case in point, as were those associated with Andrew Jackson. He has a loyalty complex at least as strong as GW Bush. And who could forget Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton?

At any rate, our founding fathers certainly had a healthy disdain for the common rabble, which was why they attempted to limit, or buffer, the connection between those in the government and those they governed. Personally, what I think they didn't count on was how obnoxious and/or mindlessly partisan those in the government could become. The Seventeenth Amendment was instigated because it became increasingly obvious that Senators were often not appointed on merit, but on the basis of who they had in their back pocket. It just didn't work out very well.

The electoral college idea has turned out even worse -- or at least not at all in the way it was originally envisioned. The original idea was to bring together wisened individuals to act as a buffer between the popular rabble and the presidency so as to ensure some crazy idiot didn't end up occupying the White House. The vote of each elector was not supposed to be a foregone conclusion. But it didn't take long before it worked out that way. Now all the electoral college does is enhance the power of less populated states in the process of electing the president. I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

Getting back to the larger question, i.e., whether our Founding Fathers would recognize the system we’re using today... I don't know. More to the point, I don't think many of them were so self-absorbed not to realize that they could not envision the future over too long a time-frame. Rather, they tried hard to make the system they created self-limiting. And in that respect, if they looked at our history from a broad perspective, I think they would be proud. Obviously the system isn't perfect. And there have been significant problems throughout our history. I personally find the present Bush administration's attempts to accumulate power in the executive branch distasteful, arguably even dangerous. I hope it fails in the long run. But I hardly think it's the first challenge of similar magnitude our country has faced.

A while back a friend of mine introduced me to an interesting take on the notion of a political pendulum. The notion itself -- i.e., the idea that popular preference swings from more liberal to more conservative and back over time -- is not new. The wrinkle he introduced to me is the idea that things get most heated and irrational at the extremes of the swings. That's where comity and decorum break down. I never thought of it in quite that way, but the more I think about it the more I think there's a lot to be said for it. And there is an interesting ramification of it: the ultimate inertia cannot be stopped. The pendulum will always swing. But at those times where it's changing directions it's susceptible to influences that are not intrinsic. And that's when things get nastiest. It is also in those times when great leaders are most likely to step forward. That's not a guarantee, it's just a probability statement. Men (speaking generically) don't always make the times, and the times don't always make the men, but the opportunity of one to influence the other shifts with the historical inertia.

jabbo, I absolutely agree with you that the status of blacks and women was a terrible path. I'm not at all trying to say that the original ideas were all flawless and unimpeachable, or that we should return to the original in its entirety. In fact, I believe that if they could re-write anything today, it would for the broader inclusion of all citizens in the Bill of Rights.

I agree with The Master, though, that some of the adjustments made along the way to where we are now had rather more impact than was expected.

I asked this of Shaun, and I guess it applies to you as well, jabbo: you don't think there was any value to a legislative body that was intended to represent the interests of a state (rather than that states' individual citizens)?

Or here's another way to phrase my question: does anybody see a difference between a state's citizens directly electing a Senator, versus that state's legislative or executive branch making the choice?

I think of myself as an American first, a Missourian second.

Part of their vision has been lost because their world has been lost. On a vacation a few years back I took my personal vehicle and traveled from Kansas City to San Francisco, driving through Kansas, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. I then went down the West Coast to Los Angeles and back home through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. All in a matter of a bit over two weeks not a matter of months. I do not personally know anyone involved in agriculture. I use electricity drawn over multiple state lines. The food on my table is only partly grown in this country and no one could tell you how much of it is from nearby though I live in the middle of a huge agricultural region. So much has changed that the founding father's vision, if implemented as they saw it would bring our nation crashing downj.

Well I think we too often wish to treat the founding fathers as a monolithic group.

Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the Republicans would likely be appalled by what this nation has become. They greatly distrusted central power. They would, however, have likely enjoyed the greater voice of the voters today.

Hamilton and Washington and the rest of the Federalists would likely be happy to see that we have a strong central government ruling over a largely unified American people. They would likely not likely the greater rule of the "mob".

The debate between central power against state power has been waged since 1783. The notion that they all uniformly supported strong state rights to central power is a misnomer.

It's a constant struggle I think.

On one hand I believe that one of government's important functions is to ensure equal political and domestic rights for its citizens, and that things like voting and familial matters are sacrosanct. (Not only do I support voting rights for felons, but think that people should be able to setup whatever legalized family structure they want)

Obviously the states have done a terrible job with that and Federal Government interference has helped some -- although I'm somewhat sympathetic to the libertarian-federalist argument that people could just move to where they were treated properly.

Also without a doubt, we would not be a superpower without immense central government powers.

Of course on the other hand it also creates widespread policies that aren't necessarily appropriate for all states. It's also made centralized a lot of waste and made it easier to be irresponsible.

On the other hand some states used to be really corrupt cesspools and there are very ugly incidents in American history of state governments doing awful things. The Colorado national guard gunning down striking workers is an especially chilling example especially as they were being funded by a corporation at that point.

There are several things that I think would knock the wind out of them if they could see us today.

The two party system, which had reared its ugly very shortly after the ink dried on the Constitution, was something they initially had not wanted. I think they would be sickened at the way their early factions wound up carving up power and influence throughout all the levels of government, throwing off the system of checks and balances that was critical to a well-functioning federal republic. If they could observe the political machinations on either side of the aisle today, perhaps they'd consider embracing the two-party system as unavoidable & they'd go back in time having taken into account its detractions and limitations and worked on controlling the potential for abuse; perhaps they would have banned it outright.

Further, I think they would be overwhelmed with the sheer size of the country, the number of people in it today and the laziness & reluctance of many of its citizens when it comes to learning about & participating actively in the democratic process. Especially given the fact that African-Americans and women can now vote, the number of people participating in electing government officials at all levels has dramatically changed since they established electoral processes designed to guarantee that equal representation be maintained in the legislature and elections' outcomes be determined by counting the votes of the whole country, not just large population centers. I believe they would have a hard time coming to terms with the sheer number of eligible voters in the country, and after having wrapped their heads around the idea of women and black voters, would begin burning effigies of dirty dirty officials drawing random re-districting lines around tracts of like-minded constituents to lump and consolidate their powerbases at a whim. Tsk tsk.

Most shocking to them, though, would probably be the events leading up to, causing and resulting from the Civil War, including the severe curtailing of states' rights, the eventual ratification of the 16th amendment on income tax and the resulting overwhelming powershift away from states in favor of the federal government. The federal government holds far too much of the power, weakening state and local governments. Why? Because federal income tax feeds a giant bureaucracy which hordes money and then trades it back to states in return for giving up their rights and subjugating themselves to federal regulations, restrictions and standards. Furthermore, the ghastliness of the Civil War has virtually erased the idea of states having the recourse of secession. The Founding Fathers probably never dreamed secession would happen so soon. I would be most interested to know what they would change in the Constitution to offer states a different yet effective recourse in fighting the federal government's encroachment on their rights (if that is even possible), or whether they would find some of the amendments to the Constitution as incompatible with the ideals of federal government AND strong individual states.

I'm not sure I agree fully. I've read quite a bit of the Federalist's arguments and while I think that you are right in some respects, with others (like certain economic, political and social functions) they seemed to agree whole heartedly with the Anti-Federalists.

On the other hand States' Rights has a different meaning now than it did then so I'm not even sure what the Anti-Federalists would think about that.

Mikkel,

While there were certainly issues they largely agreed upon there were many that were hotly contested. The Federalists were, by and large, anti-slavery. The Republicans were pro-slavery. This was a big issue for both sides and could have doomed the nascent republic.

Politically the Federalists were a loosely organized group of people who generally disliked organized political parties(an attitude that would eventually lead to their doom) while the Repiblicans embraced party politics and used it to gain power.

Economically the Federalists believed in establishing credit, and debt, for the Federal government as well as imposing excise taxes on various goods to increase Federal revenue. The Republicans opposed both and believed that the Federal government should be kept weak at all costs.

The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were a bit of a different group of people. Madison and Jefferson were Federalists whereas most of the anti-Federalists were guys that wound up with little influence in the government after the Constitution was ratified. George Clinton and Patrick Henry made a lot of noise but they lost and wound up having little impact on how the government turned out.

Was Jefferson really a Federalist? I always thought that he was big on limited central powers and wanted the US to remain rather agrarian.

For some reason I didn't know that Madison was both one the main Federalists and later helped Jefferson form his party.

Maybe I'm slightly confused because I'm talking about Anti-Federalist concerns (which the Democratic-Republicans shared a lot of) while they explicitly did not support the Constitution (which Jefferson did). Is that apt? Like "Federalist" meant supporting ratification at one point and later meant a political party...so it's possible to be both Federalist at one point and not at another.

Also while htey obviously disagreed about a lot, I'm not sure the Federalists (the party) would like how strong the executive has become or how much the Federal government regulates intra-state matters. I was under the impression that the Federalists were just a lot larger proponents of being able to have say in foreign contracts and such rather than having it be at the state level, not necessarily that they could tell a state that they couldn't grow certain things like they do now.

Jefferson was a Federalist in the context of Constitution advocacy.

The Anti-Federalists weren't simply pro-states rights. They were predominantly anti-Constitution. They felt the Articles of Confederation were just dandy and there was little need to change them and certainly not in a way that would give the central government any meaningful power.

They shouldn't be confused with guys like Mason, or Patterson, or Gerry that had real concerns with the Constitution but were generally in favor of the Constitution.

It is hard to place a singular perspective on the Federalists. At the very least they broke down into 2 main groups, the Hamilton and Adams wings. The Hamilitonians, which included Rufus Kings, Rush, and Governeur Morris, were decidedly pro-central government. The Adams wing wasn't as devout on the issue but still believed in a much stronger central government than did the Republicans.

This is, of course, the problem when talking about the "founding fathers". There were very few unified positions among them. Opposition to English rule probably being the only absolute one.

People today simply pick the founding father that best fits their agenda and uses him as the spokesperson for all things 18th century.

"The Anti-Federalists weren't simply pro-states rights. They were predominantly anti-Constitution. They felt the Articles of Confederation were just dandy and there was little need to change them and certainly not in a way that would give the central government any meaningful power."

That's exactly how I understand them. I haven't spent much time, though, pulling apart the Federalist factions.

Moving to a different time-frame, though: the era that gave rise to a lot of the changes outlined above -- and in particular the 16th and 17th Amendments -- was a very populist era. I'm seeing quite a large trend toward populism currently, and that's part of what's sparked my introspection.

Polimom-

I'm not sure I can differentiate between the interests of a state and those of its citizens. Before direct elections took place the state legislatures were certainly tied closer with the Federal government, and that may have contributed to the original idea since it would assist ratification of the Constitutiion and state support of other Federal actions. The system had problems though, primarily in dealing with deadlocks in the legislatures that caused delays in sending Senators to D.C., along the constant charges of bribery and corruption that were common and occasionally true.

There certainly are different advantages and disadvantages to the two systems. I tend to side with giving the rabble the power.

Considering the nation has maybe 100 times more people living in it today, and the fact that technology has reached a point that would probably make 99.99% of 18th century heads spin, the system put forth by the Founding Fathers is a miracle, and to this day is largely idiot-proof when the laws are followed. Granted, some amendments are open to debate, but on the whole, the fact that we are still largely cohesive as a country in our allegiance to the Constitution is a cause for minor celebration.

I think the simplicity of it has a lot to do with that.

<cite>?Moving to a different time-frame, though: the era that gave rise to a lot of the changes outlined above -- and in particular the 16th and 17th Amendments -- was a very populist era. I'm seeing quite a large trend toward populism currently, and that's part of what's sparked my introspection.</cite>

The early 20th Century brought the first real push for worker's rights and the recognition of the rights of common folk in this country. For the first time the middle class had a real voice and they wanted it to be heard.

This wasn't happening just in the United States. It was happening across the globe. The rise of Socialism and Communism was taking root due to the new found power of the worker.

That era's populism was driven by the realization by the workers that they could get more by organizing and leveraging their power as a group, be that a labor group or a political group.

Today's populism is born partly due to the explosion of information that has come about because of the Internet. People no longer are beholden to a select group of media and politicians for information. It's giving rise to a more educated voter but not necessarily a wiser one.

The Founding Fathers and many more recent presidents warned consistently about the dangers of big business and collusion between that and big government. It was that collusion, culminating in the Tea Act that led to the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution. Thus, our return to out of control power over governance by big business is largely the result of abuse of the 14th Amendment and the legal fiction of "corporate personhood" that enables it.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection/p...

What a great discussion!!

In the colonial times, there were fairly onerous property requirements for the right to voter. There were also often religious requirements.

Since the Revolution itself was about fair elective representation in government, these came to be seen as very hypocritical. I think that by Washington's first election (or maybe it was his second), religious requirements had ended and voters (all male, of course) just had to be taxpayers. The linked article indicates that it wasn't until 1860 that universal manhood suffrage really became universal. If I remember it correctly, though, by the election of 1826 (won by that proto-populist, Andrew Jackson), universal manhood suffrage was commonplace.

I think in some ways populist movements arise because because elites (I went there!) have suppressed the desires of the unwashed masses (I went there, too!) for too long on some constellation of topics.

Populist movements produce a variety of results. Sometimes excellent results (the 19th Amendment granting women the vote). Sometimes common-sensical results (the 17th Amendment made for direct election of Senators, and I don't see why having Senators elected instead by State Legislatures isn't an unconsionable abridgement of popular sentiment). Somethimes surprisingly responsible results (the 16th Amendment allowing federal income tax). But sometimes terrible results (the 19th Amendment prohibiting alcohol--it's utterly astonishing how much political energy the temperance movement motivated in the nineteenth century, all for a phyrric victory, now long forgotten).

It seems to me that the passage of the Constitution was a triumph of elites over the unwashed, though the gradual extension of the right to vote has placed popularity over elitism.

To that extent, I think the Founding Fathers would be very surprised at our modern political culture--and maybe not too happy. I imagine Thomas Paine and maybe Sam Adams would like it. And I think that ultimate elitist (the wealthiest man of his time) George Washington would probably grow to find it adequate (as the biggest celebrity of his time, he'd appreciate the wisdom of popularity contests).

I hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for, Polimom.

Polimom, the obvious answer is no, they would not. Also, even a nationalist among them like Hamilton would have drawn his sword in reaction to what the Constitution is claimed often to mean now and to the extent that what they intended has been routinely defied. What they might suggest after reviewing history since their passing up to the present time would be much more interesting as a subject of speculation.

The Founders would have been fascinated (and appalled) by some of what happened in the greatest century of the world's history, approximately 1850-1950 (to be more precise, 1848-1947 would be best for this purpose, 1846-1945 second best). In US history, the historical background the Founders would need to be able to understand the modern welfare state and other things the lefties here mentioned, including the change of "liberallism" in the USA from libertarianism to mean something else would extend back to the capital-P Progressives and to the year far lefty Thom Hartmann correctly identifies as a real breakpoint ("if Americans had any sense, there'd be no Republican Presidents after"), 1880. (Could even go back to 1876 and the White House bargain to end Reconstruction, on our nation's centennial, if need be).

The income tax was the worst. Well, unless Prohibition is considered worse.

There's nothing wrong with having the President (and Vice President) selected by the fifty governors (ideally through an approval vote), and possibly letting the President appoint the Vice President, as an alternative to the Electoral College or to direct election. As far as election of Senators and the activist rulings that made most upper state houses illegal but not the US Senate, that was also far from ideal (or even proper).

"The Anti-Federalists Were Right" [tm] in that Washington did become too large and too powerful. That's the first thing the Founders would have noticed today.

I'd like to see Jefferson's reaction to the size of modern metropolitan areas and the concentration of so many citizens in them, as well as his reaction to stories about the greater clout (and in some cases, greater population) the central cities used to have.

* * *

The "destruction of distance" through modern transportation and communications (and with increases in global trade) is real -- I'm probably more familiar with it than most or all on here -- but that's no excuse for ignoring the system arranged by our Constitution instead of amending it to actually _make_ it "up to date" and thereby make so much of what's now done _legitimate_ -- for a change.