Nibbling at the Republic

I always asked my political science students in the American Government course to write their first paper on the subject, “did the Founding Fathers believe in democracy?” This was after the first three weeks of class when we had time to study the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention and the foundation document itself.

We had discussed Thomas Hobbes controversial pronouncement in the 17th century that the power of government came from consent of the governed, not from a divine right. We talked about Rousseau and his social contract that really argued against the Ben Franklin assertion that those who would sacrifice basic liberty for some security deserved neither. Rousseau knew that when we enter a social community we are no longer free to act in whatever manner we choose—we do give up liberty for security. The only question is how much liberty for how much security. And, we talked about John Locke and the inalienability of basic rights. We possess our rights; they are not bestowed upon us by a benevolent government. Hence our Bill of Rights which doesn’t bestow, but simply iterates what government can not do with regard to essential rights inherent in our humanity.

We talked about federalists and anti-federalists, noting that the basic concept of federalism is one of delegated and reserved powers. And, I diligently highlighted that if we believe Hobbes and Locke, then we know that the source of any power to delegate or reserve comes from the lowest level, the people.

Part of the classroom discussion would cover the question of political power itself and how those who have it jealously guard it. That would inevitably lead to the consideration of whether a free nation can allow the tyranny of the majority. By that time, little lights could be seen beginning to glow behind the otherwise glazed over eyes of the students. Cliché phrases like “we the people” and “majority rules” and “winner takes all” began to collapse. That would be when I’d introduce the unholy trinity of True Democracy, the universally revered pillars of American political ignorance—initiative, referendum and recall.

For those who have forgotten their sixth grade civics lessons, these three processes are available only to the states. They aren’t part of our Federal constitutional government. There is no national initiative, referendum or recall. It only takes place in some of our states. Most states have at least one of the three and the majority have all of them.

Initiative is the process by which any citizen can write a law in their basement on the rusty old Smith-Corona, then collect petitions to get it on the ballot. A simply majority vote makes the proposal law.

Referendum is the process which frees the legislature from the responsibility of doing their job. When a law is so politically dangerous that they don’t want to deal with the fall-out of voting for that which must be done, the legislators refer the measure to the voters thereby taking the pressure off of themselves. Simple majority makes it the law.

Finally, recall is the process by which we can purge ourselves of folks that we elected just months before without waiting for the next cycle of elections. So, we acknowledge our abject stupidity in placing someone totally intolerable into office. We compound the majority rule process by another majority rule process to correct the first error of majority rule electing someone who would do what we knew needed doing but didn’t want done when it was done. Confused?

Given all of this info, the students then were asked to write a 500-word essay on whether our Founders really believed in democracy. It isn’t an easy question. Can we tell from the Constitution how they felt about power to the people? Does the governmental form which they gave us in 1789 reflect the basic principles of democracy? Does the government of 2005 still reflect what the Framers gave us more than two hundred years ago?

What do you think?