17 September 2010

What Were They Thinking? (Part 4)

As this is Constitution Day, it seems fitting to use this as today's topic.

1784, the Constitutional Convention: while discussing term lengths for senators and other elected officials, James Madison stopped to muse on one of the purposes of a Constitution:


In order to judge the form to be given to this institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were first to protect the people against their rulers; secondly to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led. A people deliberating in a temperate moment, and with the experience of other nations before them, on the plan of Government most likely to secure their happiness, would first be aware that those charged with the public happiness might betray their trust.

Does the Constitution serve its intended purpose? Does it serve any purpose? Are the people protected against unscrupulous "rulers" and/or against passing fancies that turn out later to be false or harmful?

Mr. Madison went on to state that a multiple bodies within the legislature* would provide checks and balances:

An obvious precaution against this danger would be to divide the trust between different bodies of men, who might watch and check each other. In this they would be governed by the same prudence which has prevailed in organizing the subordinate departments of Government, where all business liable to abuses is made to pass through separate hands, the one being a check on the other.

Does the system work as designed and intended? If not, how might it be better constituted? What safeguards would you have inserted? If you believe this is not working, what then would you say went wrong? How would you fix it? Can it be fixed?

Discussion?


Part 1 here
Part 2 here

Part 3 here


*We wound up with a bicameral legislature: two houses, the Senate and House of Representatives. Takes notes; there may be a test.

1 comment:

Jenny said...

With the provision that I reserve the right to change my answer as we read more -

1. Does it serve its intended purpose? Does it serve any purpose? Yes, mostly. It is not the rock-hard defensive wall they hoped I think - but it *is* a remembrance wall we return to regularly.

2. Are the people protected..
Again.. imperfectly. But they solved most of the worst problems of their day (unaccountable monarchy), laid the groundwork for the end of the really intractable one (closing the slave trade, albeit after two decades), and built a fairly stable structure for the future.

3. Does it work as designed and intended... not for the last hundred years, give or take. Arguably as far back as Reconstruction, arguably as far back as the twelfth amendment, which legitimized faction politics in law and broke down the original structure which mirrored the dual dictators of Rome (which reminds me, we need to add Republican Rome's constitution and gov't to the list).

4. What safeguards would you have inserted...
I'm partial to the "House of Repeal" idea that's been floating around the blogosphere - what's its history prior to "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" - has it been tried somewhere yet? Failing that, perhaps mimicking the thinking of the Jubilee, in the sense that twice a century so *everything* might expire. I think Jefferson would have liked that one.

But in both cases, I don't feel prepared enough to give a good answer at this point.

5. What would you say went wrong?
We are not a country of angels. Any system devised would have been amended, circumvented, and ignored for the benefit of some at the expense of their neighbors. The exact failure points can be instructive for the future, but any system will have its own failure points. I do not expect perfection, any more than I expect the USS Constitution's hull to stay clean of barnacles for two hundred years while it sits in the harbor.

6. How would you fix it?
Don't feel prepared to answer that yet.

7. Can it be fixed?
They were men, not angels. If they could fight off the best military on the planet, then set to establishing a government based on no examples but the moldering remains of an ancient empire and a few small provinces here and there.... and not only have that continue to stand against the powers of the world, but not fall apart in blood within a generation....
... I think we can manage to scrub the floors clean again.