Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [74]
When the fifty-five delegates met in Philadelphia in 1787 at what became known as the Constitutional Convention, their purpose was not to transform American society but to preserve and protect it. In Federalist 51, James Madison later explained the decisive task this way: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Charles de Montesquieu’s advice guided the Framers. He wrote that laws “should relate to the degree of liberty that the constitution can sustain, to the religion of the inhabitants, their inclinations, their wealth, their number, their commerce, their mores, and their manners.…” (Spirit of the Laws, 1, 1, 3)
The debates between the Federalist and Anti-Federalist camps did not involve fundamental disagreements about the nature of man and inalienable rights, about which there was near-universal consent and for which a revolution had been fought and won, but how best to arrange a government, after the revolution, to ensure the perpetuation of American society. The delegates at the constitutional and state conventions feared above all else the concentration of too much power in the new federal government. In fact, at the Constitutional Convention, the delegates specifically considered and rejected a proposal by Delaware’s Gunning Bedford for a broad grant of power to Congress to pass laws of general interest, or where states might be said to be incompetent, or where state action might be said to disrupt the harmony of the nation. Although the delegates sought to establish a federal government that would overcome the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, Bedford went much too far. Virginia’s Edmund Randolph objected that under Bedford’s scheme, state constitutions and laws would be of no consequence and Congress could intervene at will in state affairs.1 Bedford’s proposal went nowhere.
Not only was there no support for an all-powerful central government, but the delegates at the Constitutional Convention spent most of the summer trying to figure out how to ensure that no office or officeholder in the new federal government would become too powerful. As is well-known, they separated powers between and among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches and enumerated the powers within each branch in considerable detail.
The delegates also opposed majoritarianism in its purest forms for it encouraged factionalism and threatened individual sovereignty, should a group or majority succeed in controlling the government and imposing their will on society. Consequently, the only direct elections would occur in selecting members of the House of Representatives; senators would be chosen by the states; although the people would vote for president, the president would ultimately be elected by members of an electoral college; and judicial candidates would be nominated by the president for confirmation or rejection by the Senate.
The Framers believed they had done what they could, through the Constitution, to fend off tyranny by the few and the many.
Still, the Anti-Federalists were not convinced, and ratification of the Constitution in several states was in jeopardy. Madison and others tried to alleviate the objections. In Federalist 39, Madison argued that the federal government had only “certain enumerated” powers and the states