He wrote, “For my part, I believe that the legitimacy of the constitution ought to derive solely from its utility as an instrument of democratic government—nothing more, nothing less.” (14). This means that if there were a mass movement to change the make-up of Congress, it would take three different elections over six years to do that in the Senate. By design, the Constitution empowers the Senate, the president, and the judiciary to ignore the will of most of the American people. The only institution that was directly accountable to ordinary citizens – the House of Representatives – was not given any role in these appointments. Instead, the founders wanted senators chosen by their respective state legislatures. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. He does not say why more consistent adoption of the numerical majority’s preferred policies would be better, but merely takes it for granted. It does not merely create a, First, many constraints are placed on the national government. Insofar as it does not conduce to the achievement of “a more perfect union,” say, “promote the general welfare,” or “secure the blessings of liberty,” then, the Constitution needs to be changed. There was nothing like it anywhere. This method originated as a way of protecting federalism—and it still does. If we want to understand the democracy gap that exists between the United States and other Western democracies, we need to go back to the founding of our country and the framing of our constitution. For more information contact us at info@libretexts.org or check out our status page at https://status.libretexts.org. Justices were appointed for life – making them effectively unaccountable to no one – and had the power to override acts of Congress and the president. When this threat had little effect, the governor, with money from Eastern Massachusetts merchants, organized a mercenary force of 4,400 men to confront the local rebels. The post-revolutionary war period was a very hard time economically for ordinary Americans as the weakened country fell into an economic depression. Also, a democratic nation is more aligned with the fundamental standard of ‘one man one vote,’ while in a republic, power is vested in the representatives, who in turn are responsible to the people (Dahl 7). Madison, for instance, argued during the Constitutional convention that the Senate “ought to come from and represent the wealth of the nation,” and thus be in a position to block any legislation from the House that would be hostile to the upper class. The U.S. Constitution is Not Democratic”and Why That’s a Good Thing. This is why George W. Bush became president in 2001 even though Al Gore received about 544,000 more votes nationwide, and this is why Donald Trump became president in 2017 even though Hillary Clinton received about 2,900,000 more votes nationwide. Register now! This is a salutary arrangement, especially at a time when public opinion is so deeply polarized, because it forces candidates to create coalitions. As seen on articles on this website, there is no shortage of reform groups who would like to change the Constitution to make it more democratic. Recall Publius in, The Constitution requires the same discipline from citizens. Are we talking about the Constitution as it was written prior to any amendments? Still, the American model of separation of powers does not “fix responsibility on a government to govern and on an opposition to debate the government by offering alternatives” (Hardin 113). This makes it difficult to recognize that this very Constitution is actually one of the main impediments to our becoming a truly democratic nation. A new edition of his textbook, American Government: Enduring Principles, Critical Choices, has recently been published by Cambridge University Press. The Constitution requires the same discipline from citizens. State governments interfered with their neighbors’ commerce, debased the currency, and failed to pay their debts. 2019. The separation is also dysfunctional by the very fact that neither the executive nor the legislative arm exercise significant control or sway on the appointment of the other to office. And House elections would be frequent – every two years – so that citizens could hold their representatives strictly accountable on a regular basis. Boris Johnson was worried, so he, Do you think “free health care for all” is a good idea? Their creed is that the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscations of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. It was not the people in the ratification process who opted for a national, rather than a federal, constitution. Democratic: - All democratic constitutions allow for a executive authority to use Article 48 in times of national emergency. He cited potential developments in England as a warning of the dangers of universal suffrage. If the Constitution had a motto, it would be: “Nothing important should be easy.”. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Many current European constitutions were created in the 20th century when Western political cultures were more committed to democratic norms than in the 18th century. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and 1413739. Although the Constitution was not exclusively envisaged in a void, its creators had very few examples to refer from in attempting to institute a democratic form of government (Dahl 15). Thus, for example, Levinson repeatedly expresses support for the de facto system of constitutional amendment by judges under which Americans have groaned for generations now, even as they were assured that the judges were actually obeying, and not simply ignoring, the Constitution. Do you think “free health care for all” is a good idea? Who can deny that American political life needs improvement? We will write a custom Essay on Democratic and Undemocratic Elements of the Constitution specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page. Any law that contravenes the language of the Constitution is necessarily void. And given the imprudence of the hearings during a pandemic, many suspect that the rush to confirm Barrett before November 3 is because Trump anticipates the election could be decided by the Court. Think there are too many guns in town? Philosophically rooted in democratic ideals 2. Channeling would mean finding ways to discipline human nature, so that human frailties are kept at bay and human virtues can flourish. By that reasoning, the people’s power to amend the Constitution renders it democratically legitimate. It is the purpose of this essay to critically evaluate the ways through which the US original Constitution was both democratic and undemocratic. It is impossible to read, The Constitution aims, therefore, to create a government strong enough to achieve its ends, while controlling for the defects to which popular government is prone. Undemocratic: - Provided President with the right to suspend civil rights and take any action required. In fact, Levinson’s entire case against the federal Constitution actually comes to this: we liberal legal academics, in tandem with federal judges, have succeeded in rewriting much of the federal Constitution to our liking through “interpretation,” but there are some elements of the document that the people ratified in the 1780s of which we cannot rid ourselves in that way, so now we need to adopt more radical measures. Their new constitution eliminated the office of governor because it was thought to resemble too much a small-scale king, and it also rejected the idea of an upper house that would represent wealthy aristocrats (like England’s House of Lords). Cunningham, F. Theories of Democracy: A Critical Introduction. Sanford Levinson, author of Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) is a professor at the University of Texas Law School. While I realize that the title question is a bit counterintuitive (or just silly, depending on your preferences), it becomes an interesting one with a little more context. 1986. The framers assumed that the justices would be well-educated white men from socially prominent upper-class families (which was true until late in the twentieth century) and that they would serve as the last defenders of the rights of property if the mass movement of “levelers” was to somehow take over Congress and the presidency. Julie C. Suk is a professor of sociology, political science, and liberal studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School. There is the added burden of needing a president who would agree with the policy the people support. The Constitution is neither a machine nor a manual. However, their effectiveness is camouflaged by the many instances of undemocratic principles and practices in the same Constitution. Overcoming their opposition to civil rights laws required the construction of a bipartisan majority in the House and in the Senate, and a lengthy debate about the importance of making the promise of equal rights a reality. Most did believe that a government’s legitimacy should ultimately be rooted in the people. But, in fact, the people do not hold the power to amend the Constitution: the amendment rule is one of the Constitution’s undemocratic features. These kinds of undemocratic political strategies would hardly be acceptable today. But it’s not like they didn’t have models for a better way to organize a government. In Federalist 68, Hamilton argued that the “election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of the reason and inducement which were proper to govern their choice.” In short, wise and prudent electors could make sure the “right” president is elected and, if necessary, save the country from the uneducated and overly-passionate public. However, as Garrett Epps has written, our courts still see voting as a privilege: “The ‘privilege’ over the years has been made dependent on literacy, or long residency in a community, or ability to prove identity, or lack of a criminal past. "Democratic and Undemocratic Elements of the Constitution." One could correct for this fact by confining the federal legislature, the Congress, to the powers listed in the Constitution, chiefly in Article I, Section 8, as the Federalists said they would in the ratification debates in Virginia, New York, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York, and as the Tenth Amendment commands. It is because Levinson and Company agree that presidents must have untrammeled authority in foreign affairs and federal judges rightly may legislate that the methods of selecting them established by the Constitution seem inappropriate “ to Levinson and Company. In addition to this separation-of-powers problem, it is undemocratic in the sense that it hinders the peoples’ ability to hold leaders accountable—even after constitutional amendments designed to make the U.S. more of a democracy. He asserted that the founders were merchants, people who had money on loan to others, and people who owned public bonds, and that they pushed the Constitution at the expense of farmers and debtors. In general, the Congress may not do anything not expressly stated in the list of enumerated powers in Article I. What this means in modern times is that no presidential candidate can afford merely to “play to his base”—candidates need to pay at least some attention to parts of the country that they might otherwise be tempted to ignore. And the ratification procedure approved by the framers actually violated what was then the law of the land. The trick in forming a government was to minimize the opportunities for mischief, while maximizing the opportunities for the exercise of virtue, or what Publius referred to as “honorable determination.” What this means institutionally is a limited government, with numerous obstacles placed in the way of impulsive and short-sighted behavior.
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