JSRG
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- Apr 14, 2019
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Because none of that actually addresses the points I made.
Where precisely did they create a mechanism for referendum?
The existence of the Senate may have been a compromise between large and small states, but if they wanted so badly for the people to have direct control over everything they would've just made it be directly elected by the whole state from the start. They didn't do that.
As for your claim of it becoming corrupt, accusations of corruption in the choosing of Senators appear to have been rather exaggerated, though they sure made good polemics by those who wanted reform. This is not to say the Senate did not run into some serious issues that required an adjustment to how it worked, however. Sometimes state legislatures would deadlock and be unable to choose a Senator. But it seems to me the biggest problem with the Senate is that it eventually turned state legislature races into proxy elections. Just as no one cares who the electors they vote for in a presidential election are so long as whoever they vote for will then vote for the person they want, people started not caring much about who they were voting for in a state congress race and caring far more about the identity of the Senator that person would vote for.
The 17th Amendment did fix those, but unfortunately created some new issues that weren't there before. You mention issues of corruption, but requiring people to campaign statewide probably made them far more beholden to special interests because you need serious cash to be able to reach everyone in a state (the smallest state is nearly 600K, and the largest nearly 40 million people!). There's also how it appears to have played a big role in changing the filibuster from something to make sure everyone got a chance to talk into a blunt cudgel used to prevent bills that had majority support in the Senate from advancing. There's a pretty good writeup here of the ideas behind the Senate, what worked with it, what ended up going wrong with it, and how while the 17th Amendment fixed some of those issues, it did create some new ones:
A Senate, If You Can Keep It
Some Constitutional Amendments #6, Part I: The Senate is dead. We, the People, were found over the body with the murder weapon: democracy.
decivitate.jamesjheaney.com
I think its points are pretty valid. (that said, I can't say I find the follow-up post detailing the author's suggestion on how to fix it particularly feasible)
Regardless, the indirect election of the Senate was a reflection of how the founders were against giving the people too much direct power in government. There's no shortage of quotes from them talking about the dangers of excess democracy, such as this one by John Adams (noted in the above link):
"Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty."
This is why they set up things like checks and balances and the indirectly elected Senate and how the President was (supposed to) not be directly elected. He then uses the government France set up after the French Revolution as an example of excell of democracy gone bad:
"What can I Say of The Democracy of France? I dare not write what I think and what I know. Were Brissot, Condorcet, Danton Robespiere and Monsiegnieur Equality less ambitious than Cæsar, Alexander or Napoleon? Were Dumourier, Pichegru, Moreau, less Generals, less Conquerors, or in the End less fortunate than <him> he was.?"
Now, some people obnoxiously pull out quotes like this to try to win push pedantic claims like "the United States isn't a democracy", which is dumb because the word has expanded in meaning since then and is used to refer to countries like the United States. Regardless, it's still pretty clear that the founding fathers were not particularly big fans of the idea of giving the general public direct and complete power over the government and certainly not that referendums were good ideas (as easily shown by the fact the constitution doesn't give it as an option). Maybe you think they were wrong. Maybe they were. But it's pretty clear their ideas of self-governance did not include or even come close to granting the people the ability to pass laws directly by popular vote.
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