THE CONSTITUTION A REACTIONARY DOCUMENT
The sweeping changes made in our form of government after the
Declaration of Independence were clearly revolutionary in character. The
English system of checks and balances was discarded for the more
democratic one under which all the important powers of government were
vested in the legislature. This new scheme of government was not,
however, truly representative of the political thought of the colonies.
The conservative classes who in ordinary times are a powerful factor in
the politics of every community had, by reason of their Loyalist views,
no voice in this political reorganization; and these, as we have seen,
not only on account of their wealth and intelligence, but on the basis
of their numerical strength as well, were entitled to considerable
influence.
With the return of peace these classes which so largely represented the
wealth and culture of the colonies, regained in a measure the influence
which they had lost. This tended strongly to bring about a conservative
reaction. There was besides another large class which supported the
Revolutionary movement without being in sympathy with its democratic
tendencies. This also used its influence to undo the work of the
Revolutionary radicals. Moreover, many of those who had espoused
democratic doctrines during the Revolution became conservatives after
the war was over.[15] These classes were naturally opposed to the new
political doctrines which the Revolutionary movement had incorporated in
the American government. The "hard times" and general discontent which
followed the war also contributed to the reactionary movement; since
many were led to believe that evils which were the natural result of
other causes were due to an excess of democracy. Consequently we find
the democratic tendency which manifested itself with the outbreak of the
Revolution giving place a few years later to the political reaction
which found expression in our present Constitution.
"The United States are the offspring of a long-past age. A hundred
years, it is true, have scarcely passed since the eighteenth century
came to its end, but no hundred years in the history of the world has
ever before hurried it along so far over new paths and into unknown
fields. The French Revolution and the First Empire were the bridge
between two periods that nothing less than the remaking of European
society, the recasting of European politics, could have brought so near.
"But back to this eighteenth century must we go to learn the forces, the
national ideas, the political theories, under the domination of which
the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted."[16]
It is the general belief, nevertheless, that the Constitution of the
United States is the very embodiment of democratic philosophy. The
people take it for granted that the framers of that document were imbued
with the spirit of political equality and sought to establish a
government by the people themselves. Widely as this view is entertained,
it is, however, at variance with the facts.
"Scarcely any of these men [the framers of the Constitution]
entertained," says Fiske, "what we should now call extreme democratic
views. Scarcely any, perhaps, had that intense faith in the ultimate
good sense of the people which was the most powerful characteristic of
Jefferson."[17]
Democracy--government by the people, or directly responsible to
them--was not the object which the framers of the American Constitution
had in view, but the very thing which they wished to avoid. In the
convention which drafted that instrument it was recognized that
democratic ideas had made sufficient progress among the masses to put an
insurmountable obstacle in the way of any plan of government which did
not confer at least the form of political power upon the people.
Accordingly the efforts of the Constitutional Convention were directed
to the task of devising a system of government which was just popular
enough not to excite general opposition and which at the same time gave
to the people as little as possible of the substance of political power.
It is somewhat strange that the American people know so little of the
fundamental nature of their system of government. Their acquaintance
with it extends only to its outward form and rarely includes a knowledge
of the political philosophy upon which it rests. The sources of
information upon which the average man relies do not furnish the data
for a correct understanding of the Constitution. The ordinary text-books
and popular works upon this subject leave the reader with an entirely
erroneous impression. Even the writings of our constitutional lawyers
deal with the outward form rather than the spirit of our government. The
vital question--the extent to which, under our constitutional
arrangements, the people were expected to, and as a matter of fact do,
control legislation and public policy, is either not referred to, or
else discussed in a superficial and unsatisfactory manner. That this
feature of our Constitution should receive more attention than it does
is evident when we reflect that a government works well in practice in
proportion as its underlying philosophy and constitutional forms are
comprehended by those who wield political power.
"It has been common," says a late Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, "to designate our form of government as a democracy, but in the
true sense in which that term is properly used, as defining a government
in which all its acts are performed by the people, it is about as far
from it as any other of which we are aware."[18]
In the United States at the present time we are trying to make an
undemocratic Constitution the vehicle of democratic rule. Our
Constitution embodies the political philosophy of the eighteenth
century, not that of to-day. It was framed for one purpose while we are
trying to use it for another. Is free government, then, being tried here
under the conditions most favorable to its success? This question we can
answer only when we have considered our Constitution as a means to the
attainment of democratic rule.
It is difficult to understand how anyone who has read the proceedings of
the Federal Convention can believe that it was the intention of that
body to establish a democratic government. The evidence is overwhelming
that the men who sat in that convention had no faith in the wisdom or
political capacity of the people. Their aim and purpose was not to
secure a larger measure of democracy, but to eliminate as far as
possible the direct influence of the people on legislation and public
policy. That body, it is true, contained many illustrious men who were
actuated by a desire to further what they conceived to be the welfare of
the country. They represented, however, the wealthy and conservative
classes, and had for the most part but little sympathy with the popular
theory of government.
"Hardly one among them but had sat in some famous assembly, had signed
some famous document, had filled some high place, or had made himself
conspicuous for learning, for scholarship, or for signal services
rendered in the cause of liberty. One had framed the Albany plan of
union; some had been members of the Stamp Act Congress of 1765; some had
signed the Declaration of Rights in 1774; the names of others appear at
the foot of the Declaration of Independence and at the foot of the
Articles of Confederation; two had been presidents of Congress; seven
had been, or were then, governors of states; twenty-eight had been
members of Congress; one had commanded the armies of the United States;
another had been Superintendent of Finance; a third had repeatedly been
sent on important missions to England, and had long been Minister to
France.
"Nor were the future careers of many of them to be less interesting than
their past. Washington and Madison became Presidents of the United
States; Elbridge Gerry became Vice-President; Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney and Rufus King became candidates for the Presidency, and Jared
Ingersoll, Rufus King, and John Langdon candidates for the
Vice-Presidency; Hamilton became Secretary of the Treasury; Madison,
Secretary of State; Randolph, Attorney-General and Secretary of State,
and James McHenry, a Secretary of War; Ellsworth and Rutledge became
Chief-Justices; Wilson and John Blair rose to the Supreme bench;
Gouverneur Morris, and Ellsworth, and Charles C. Pinckney, and Gerry,
and William Davie became Ministers abroad."[19]
The long list of distinguished men who took part in the deliberations of
that body is noteworthy, however, for the absence of such names as
Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry and other
democratic leaders of that time. The Federal Convention assembled in
Philadelphia only eleven years after the Declaration of Independence was
signed, yet only six of the fifty-six men who signed that document were
among its members.[20] Conservatism and thorough distrust of popular
government characterized throughout the proceedings of that convention.
Democracy, Elbridge Gerry thought, was the worst of all political
evils.[21] Edmund Randolph observed that in tracing the political evils
of this country to their origin, "every man [in the Convention] had
found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy."[22] These views
appear to reflect the general opinion of that body. Still they realized
that it was not the part of wisdom to give public expression to this
contempt for democracy. The doors were closed to the public and the
utmost secrecy maintained with regard to the proceedings. Members were
not allowed to communicate with any one outside of that body concerning
the matters therein discussed, nor were they permitted, except by a vote
of the Convention, to copy anything from the journals.[23]
It must be borne in mind that the Convention was called for the purpose
of proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation. The delegates
were not authorized to frame a new constitution. Their appointment
contemplated changes which were to perfect the Articles of Confederation
without destroying the general form of government which they
established. The resolution of Congress of February 21, 1787, which
authorized the Federal Convention, limited its business to "the sole and
express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation," and the
states of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut copied this in the
instructions to their delegates.[24] The aim of the Convention, however,
from the very start was not amendment, but a complete rejection of the
system itself, which was regarded as incurably defective.
This view was well expressed by James Wilson in his speech made in favor
of the ratification of the Constitution before the Pennsylvania
convention.
"The business, we are told, which was entrusted to the late Convention,"
he said, "was merely to amend the present Articles of Confederation.
This observation has been frequently made, and has often brought to my
mind a story that is related of Mr. Pope, who, it is well known, was not
a little deformed. It was customary with him to use this phrase, 'God
mend me!' when any little accident happened. One evening a link-boy was
lighting him along, and, coming to a gutter, the boy jumped nimbly over
it. Mr Pope called to him to turn, adding, 'God mend me!' The arch
rogue, turning to light him, looked at him, and repeated, 'God mend you!
He would sooner make half-a-dozen new ones.' This would apply to the
present Confederation; for it would be easier to make another than to
amend this."[25]
The popular notion that this Convention in framing the Constitution was
actuated solely by a desire to impart more vigor and efficiency to the
general government is but a part of the truth. The Convention desired to
establish not only a strong and vigorous central government, but one
which would at the same time possess great stability or freedom from
change. This last reason is seldom mentioned in our constitutional
literature, yet it had a most important bearing on the work of the
Convention. This desired stability the government under the
Confederation did not possess, since it was, in the opinion of the
members of the Convention, dangerously responsive to public opinion;
hence their desire to supplant it with an elaborate system of
constitutional checks. The adoption of this system was the triumph of a
skillfully directed reactionary movement.
Of course the spirit and intention of the Convention must be gathered
not from the statements and arguments addressed to the general public in
favor of the ratification of the Constitution, but from what occurred in
the Convention itself. The discussions which took place in that body
indicate the real motives and purposes of those who framed the
Constitution. These were carefully withheld from the people and it was
not until long afterward that they were accessible to students of the
American Constitution. The preamble began with, "We, the people," but it
was the almost unanimous sentiment of the Convention that the less the
people had to do with the government the better. Hamilton wanted to give
the rich and well born "a distinct, permanent share in the
government."[26] Madison thought the government ought "to protect the
minority of the opulent against the majority."[27] The prevalence of
such views in this Convention reminds one of Adam Smith's statement,
made a few years before in his "Wealth of Nations," that "civil
government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is
in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or
of those who have some property against those who have none at all."[28]
The solicitude shown by the members of this convention for the interests
of the well-to-do certainly tends to justify Adam Smith's observation.
The framers of the Constitution realized, however, that it would not do
to carry this system of checks upon the people too far. It was necessary
that the government should retain something of the _form_ of democracy,
if it was to command the respect and confidence of the people. For this
reason Gerry thought that "the people should appoint one branch of the
government in order to inspire them with the necessary confidence."[29]
Madison also saw that the necessary sympathy between the people and
their rulers and officers must be maintained and that "the policy of
refining popular appointments by successive filtrations" might be pushed
too far.[30] These discussions, which took place behind closed doors and
under pledge of secrecy, may be taken as fairly representing what the
framers of our Constitution really thought of popular government. Their
public utterances, on the other hand, influenced as they necessarily
were, by considerations of public policy, are of little value. From all
the evidence which we have, the conclusion is irresistible that they
sought to establish a form of government which would effectually curb
and restrain democracy. They engrafted upon the Constitution just so
much of the features of popular government as was, in their opinion,
necessary to ensure its adoption.