Posted on 02/06/2015 1:16:27 PM PST by Jacquerie
A common solution at FreeRepublic for the ills of our nation is to just enforce the constitution we have. Elect enough Tea Party conservatives and freedom will be restored.
From the moment of our independence, the first question, as posited by Mercy Warren was “what government consistent with the Declaration of Independence can be designed by men too proud for monarchy, too poor for nobility, and it is to be feared, too selfish and avaricious for a virtuous republic?”
Republicanism was in our blood. Despite the efforts of the British Crown, all of the states had evolved from quasi-republican colonies. There was no other choice. The challenge was how to secure republican liberty in a society composed of selfish and avaricious people.
The Declaration specified two criteria for free government. It must be derived from the consent of the governed, and second, it must secure our natural rights. But, there is a natural tension between the two, for like ancient city-states, consent of the governed can be achieved via simple majority rule in a single assembly possessed of legislative, executive, and judicial powers that ignores the minority and jeopardizes their rights. The task for the framing generation was to account for both criteria such that they complimented rather than contradicted each other.
For Mercy Warren, like many freepers, the answer was found entirely in religious belief and virtue. To throw the checks of conscience aside, to let avarice and ambition rule, was to doom America to degeneracy and certain failure.
The framers of a decade later had a different take. Being practical, political men, many of whom served in the confederation congress, they rejected Mercy Warren’s reliance on religion and virtue, the “weaker springs of the human character.” In fits and starts and close calls during the summer of 1787, they developed and relied on the structure of their design to channel and direct ambition and avarice so that they would serve rather than destroy free government.
In their quest to secure liberty, the framer’s plan went far beyond the long recognized horizontal division of power into legislative, executive and judicial functions. Their keystone was the vertical separation of power in which national authority, sparingly doled out in enumerated powers, with the remainder left among the states, was enforced by a senate of the states. They did not rely on what James Madison termed “parchment barriers” alone, such as a Bill of Rights to secure liberty. With power so well divided, so chopped up as never before, they justifiably trusted the natural inclination of men to pursue their interests would prevent the accumulation of tyrannical power in just a few hands. Enforcement of what was to became the 10th Amendment wouldn’t rely on the goodwill of self-interested, popularly derived politicians, nor scotus. Security of state powers would rely on the states themselves.
The framers’ reliance on federalism, of state participation was reflected in the way the constitution was ratified, in the Article V process, electoral college and especially the senate, whose members were appointed by and responsible to, the state legislatures.
Central to understanding why the 17th Amendment must be repealed is recognition that the extensive powers granted to the new government were designed with the assumption that the states would forever participate in it, that no less than thirteen distinct republican legislatures would continually cast watchful eyes over every proceeding of congress, the president and courts. It is why the states agreed to specifically relinquish additional powers in Article I Section 10, and submit to the constitution and its pursuant laws as supreme law of the land.
It is through this gift to mankind, of a new system of confederal republican government, that relied on both the consent of the people and distinct member republics, that liberty could prosper.
History, both ancient and our own since 1913 illustrate the instability of democratic republics.
Our 102 year experiment in representative democracy is a failure. For practical purposes, Article I Section 1, which established the American Republic has been repealed. Legislative power has swirled into the hands of the executive and courts. As in ancient republics, we are doomed to acceleration of the existing anarchy, then by eventual calls for a strongman to “do something,” followed by bare-knuckled tyrannical force.
To restore the republican freedom most of us know only from history texts, the 17th Amendment must go. Since reform will not emerge from those who profit so well from our corrupt system, there is no alternative to an Article V state amendment convention to make this happen.
Ping to Article V supporters and opponents alike.
A good essay on the topic.
Very good.
An article well worth a double ping!
Thank!
Patriots have to wake up state lawmakers, lawmakers who are evidently as constitutionally clueless as the voters who elected them are, to the reality that the corrupt feds are stealing state revenues via constitutionally indefensible federal taxes, taxes which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
I fully support the repeal of 17A. But even that’s going to be ineffective, imo, until voters and state lawmakers are brought up to speed with the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers.
At least start teaching homeschoolers about the fed’s constitutionally limited powers.
Well, I like the title because we need to get away from thinking politicians are our saviors. What guarantees our freedom isn’t slavishly hoping Joe Dokes or Suzie Q will be the right person. Our freedom is guaranteed and protected by the Constitution but it is up to the American People to ensure and demand the Constitution is “preserved, protected, and defended” and throw the bums out who do otherwise.
Beyond that, I’m still not clear on why the 17th Amendment screws us up. I guess on a state level, I’ve never thought that a theoretical representative vote of the state legislature would differ much from a direct vote of the people of the state. Any good examples that show a critical difference in results between these two voting options?
I personally believe that 17A has been the most destructive thing that has ever happened to the Republic. Close second place goes to 19A.
The framers studied history, and were wary of what’s going on before our very eyes.
It is why the states agreed to specifically relinquish additional powers far beyond those in the Articles of Confederation, in Article I Section 10, and submit to the constitution and its pursuant laws as supreme law of the land.
The restoration of our Republic depends on something much larger than politics. Period.
Right but my question is about an apparent critical disparity between the states participating via senators that are elected directly by the people of the state versus elected by the state legislature. Both are state participation in the federal government.
I wanted to know what good, hard evidence there is that the results between the two different voting methods have critical disparity in representing the state.
It's a daisy chain of causes.
First, state legislatures are made up of fewer people who presumably are more well-versed on the issues. These are the people who would oversee the Senate, and likely pay closer attention. It's much easier to fool the people at large who are more focused on living paycheck to paycheck than paying attention to the politicians in Washington DC.
Second, the 17th amendment created new elections where there were none before. Today, that's 33 very expensive, and now mean and nasty, elections every 2 years. Senators now have to worry about campaign financing, when they didn’t have to before. The distraction of raising money takes them away from focusing on representing their states.
And third, the need to raise money causes special interest blocs to form. Candidates align around parties that represent agendas that interest groups are willing to fund. The parties themselves will centralize the interest group donations and disperse them to those candidates whom the party feels will be most effective in advancing the party's, and by extension the donor groups', interests. The candidates for office, and ultimately the incumbent Senators themselves, become beholden to the party's interests over the interests of the state that sent them, if they want that money to continue.
That's why it's important to repeal the 17th amendment and return control of the Senate to the states, because it breaks the money and party cycle by eliminating the elections altogether.
-PJ
Please read the post. It is explained.
I read it but it didn’t seem to directly address my question.
Post #13 helped and makes sense as far as it goes and it sounds like it would help to repeal the 17th Amendment for the monetary and distraction reasons, but not necessarily because state representation suffers critically.
So far the 17th amendment issue doesn’t sound like a top critical issue at this stage of the game the way the 16th Amendment or the hijacking of the 14th Amendment (”Incorporation Doctrine”) does.
They’re bribed out into human trafficking, trafficking of MBS human body Mortgages by “insurance-banking” companies. Selling these off as the new MBS. Trafficking.
Its a good essay, even though I disagree with its conclusions.
A premise you might want to re-examine, though. You indicate that our confederal form of government was a gift. I suspect those who opposed the Federal constitution such as Patrick Henry would have had a different view.
As for article V. I make no secret of my disagreement with it. I just don’t see 3/4 of the states agreeing to anything that would materially change the status quo. So why bother with it? I guess its fairly harmless, but to think that great things are going to come out the process is to set yourself up for disappointment.
What everyone ignores in these discussions of repealing the 17th is why it passed so easily to start with. To start with, a series of scandals had tainted the selection process, and senators were chosen not on merit, or on who would do the bidding of the state legislature, but on who the political machine in the state wanted to reward or, alternatively, who could bribe a small number of state legislators to swing the election.
On the other hand, political deadlocks in the states sometimes led to them failing to name a senator at all. Delaware went four years without a senator. Indiana had a deadlock that went two years. In all, there were 46 deadlocks between 1891 and 1905. In Oregon, in 1897, the minority third of the legislature refused to take the oath of office specifically to block the appointment of a senator, and, coincidentally, to conduct any business at all for a year.
The issue of who the legislature would name as senator came to dominate the state elections, as can be seen in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, with the men campaigning up and down the state for a seat that the legislature, not the voters directly, would choose. The state legislators were reduced, essentially, to senate electors who incidentally also sat in their legislature. Certainly the state issues took second place in those elections.
Amemdments to go to direct elections had been proposed as early as 1826 and passed, and by 1910, thirty-three states had enacted some form of direct election on their own, in the form of party primaries. A few had gone as far as enacting direct elections and more were preparing to do so.
Once submitted to the states, the 17th sailed to easy ratification.
Then take it further.
Suppose a state wants to coordinate a multi-year state legislative action with a federal one. Or suppose a state wants to align action with other states (e.g., compacts that require Congressional approval). The state would need the Senator to act as an "ambassador" to the federal government, to broker deals with the ambassadors from the other states.
A legislature-appointed Senator would be an extension of the statehouse in Washington, there to bring the needs and desires of the state to the rest of the union of states. This relationship would be much harder to foster, perhaps be impossible, if the Senator were to run a campaign appeal to the people that was disconnected from the interests of the state legislatures.
In fact, today we have Senators who switch parties depending on what "slots" are open to run from, who receive funding from out-of-state groups or other Senators. That kind of Senator has no intention of being an ambassador of the state, but rather, is out for themselves or other non-state interests that they feel more aligned with. At worst, they see the role as merely a stepping-stone to other, grander things.
I think a future essay that explores the concept of Senator as ambassador may be a good one. Just as we have an ambassador to the United Nations to represent our country's interests to the rest of the world, the Senate was to be the forum where the states sent their ambassadors to represent their interests to the United States.
The states cannot do that if the Senate is selected by a method that is in conflict with a state's interests.
-PJ
Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee didn’t attend the federal convention to which they were appointed. Perhaps their input would have resulted in a more federal constitution. We’ll never know.
What is certain now, is the federalism they supported is necessary to save the republic.
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