A WEEKLY COMMENTARY
Year Twenty-One ... Number Twenty-Seven ... July 5, 1974
THE CONTRIVED EVOLUTION
OF REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
PART TEN
THE REPUBLIC IS DEAD,
LONG LIVE DEMOCRACY!
On May 31, 1913, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan announced that a sufficient number of States had ratified it, and that therefore the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was in effect. The vital alteration in the American electoral process is contained in the first paragraph of the amendment:
"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years ; and each Senator shall have one vote .... "
Never before had the people elected United States Senators. Each State determined the manner in which its two Senators should be chosen. And it was the State Legislature, or the State Governor with the advice and consent of the State Legislature, that did the choosing. This was because the Senate was considered to be the House of the States, whereas the House of Representatives was the House of the people.
When the Seventeenth Amendment was enacted, the States lost their control over the Central Government, there were two Houses of the People wherein both Senators and Representatives began to be elected by direct, popular vote. Thus, the Compact Theory upon which the Founding Fathers based our form of government, was destroyed and the Continental -- or strong central government -- Theory was enthroned Or, to put it even more dramatically, our government ceased to be a true Republic, and became a Representative Democracy!
Few historians have touched upon the real significance of this change in the American system of government. Back in 1921 -- over fifty years ago -- a patriot named Harry Atwood was saying this same thing. In a precious little volume which he titled "Safeguarding American Ideals" he wrote:
"Has there ever been a United States history written that makes it clear to the average student ... that during the period of history from the time we wrote the Constitution until we occupied the leading place among the nations of the world, there was little discussion of direct government, but much of representative government; little discussion of socialism or paternalism, but much discussion of individual property rights; little talk of class consciousness and labor unionism, but much of individual freedom in industry and proportionate reward for individual initiative and achievement; little talk of the red flag, but much devotion to the Stars and Stripes; little talk of a democracy, but much talk of the Republic?
"There are comparatively few people who will insist that there has ever been written a textbook on civics or civil government that makes clear to the average student the form of government that was established here under the Constitution.
"There is much talk of democracy in our schools, and yet there is not a democratic thing in the Constitution of the United States, nor the faintest hint of a suggestion that anything under the Constitution would ever be done in a democratic way, even in the creation of the Constitution itself, or its adoption, or its amendment, or its plan of administration, and we still require our public officials to take an oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and that is the only thing they are sworn to do.
"The Constitution provided for a representative government, and the founders called it a Republic. It guarantees to each of the States a republican form of government. .Those who are talking democracy in our schools should turn to the Federalist, the greatest governmental discussion in the libraries of the world, and ask themselves what Madison means in Federalist number X by the following language:
"'Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths .... A Republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking .... '
"Was Madison merely playing with words
when he wrote the above language into the
Federalist at a time when the destiny of
his country hung in the balance, or was he
clearing up a tremendously important distinction
on which the world quite generally
has been disastrously confused during recent
years."
(End of quotation)
This era of progressivism, which culminated in America's entry into World War II, was a planned attack on the American System, and for the first time on a nation-wide scale, the Hegelian formula began to be used. That is, where a change was desired, an attack on the old system was made, the people were told that a national emergency existed and a new plan was offered; and because the old system was made to fail, the new system was installed by popular demand.
In his classic The Economic Pinch, by the Hon. Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., father of the man who gained fame by flying across the Atlantic Ocean, the author refers to one of the ways in which this Hegelian "formula for planned change" was used. His reference is to the maneuvering that brought about the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act, but the movement to remake the U.S. Senate was similar and complementary. He wrote:
"In the early months of 1907 and for some time prior a great number of trusts had, by combination and other means, been formed into larger trusts. We then had what is termed 'a business boom.' The big profiteers saw the strain on our financial system and knew that if they were going to keep expanding to larger dealings and bigger profits they must have not only a finance system of their own, but through it the control of all or at least most of the banks. We too were dissatisfied with the old system. We complained, -- but we as a people are always slow to act, if we ever do decide to act on matters of that kind.
"The profiteers saw this opportunity and staged the 1907 (banker's) panic. That was their way of stirring us up. The city banks refused to pay on demands of the depositors -- they also refused to pay in cash for checks. Many of the country banks did the same thing.... Secretly, the profiteers in New York and elsewhere organized headquarters in Chicago for a Citizen's League: propaganda to demand a new bank system. Speakers were sent to the cities and to most of the country towns, following the 1907 panic and up to 1913. They formed Citizen's Leagues everywhere. The people were induced to demand of Congress that 'some bill' be passed to create a new banking system .... Wall Street had its bill all ready-drafted in 1906 .... "
The same kind of a propaganda campaign was organized when it came time to destroy the United States Senate and make of it just another "House of the People," something totally unnecessary since the House of Representatives was a sufficient "House of the People."
Stories were circulated to the effect that the Senate was simply the instrument of the profiteers and the Big Business People. There was much truth in the claim that many Senators were the paid servants of Big Business and represented the money barons and special interest groups. But this was also true of many Members of the House of Representatives, even as it is true today. However, nobody launched a campaign to clean up the Senate; instead, propagandists demanded that the method of electing Senators be changed (as if that would really help.) The slogan became "property versus people' and the nucleus of the "one man, one vote" theory was launched. Theodore Roosevelt helped when he launched his New Nationalism (progressive) program in a speech he made in Ossawaromie, Kansas on August 31, 1910, declaring: "l stand for the square deal ..; property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth."
A fair sample of the propaganda engaged in in order to reconstruct the Senate, is provided by the book The Big Change, 1900 to 1950, by Frederick Lewis Allen (Harpers, 1952). He writes of that era:
"Railroad companies issued free passes to lawmakers, officials, journalists, and their families. At one state capital after another, corporation lobbyists with well-filled pockets were ready to go into action whenever there was a threat of adverse legislation or a hope of favorable legislation. And as for the United States Senate -- whose members were at that time elected, not by the people, but by amenable state legislatures -- it had become the chief citadel for the defense of privilege. Most of the Senators were either rich men or carefully selected allies and messenger boys of the rich; they could deliver orotund speeches about the 'full dinner pail' for the workman but their hearts were with the big stockholders .... "
Let us concede that there is much truth in the above paragraph, but let us also admit that most Senators are still rich men or the "carefully selected allies and messenger boys of the rich." But this condition has nothing to do with the direct election of Senators. Eternal vigilance, and binding men down by the chains of the Constitution is the way to keep Senators in line. And the Constitution -- in order to provide a Republic and prevent a Democracy -- had declared that "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote .... "
One patriot who recognized what the forces of "progressivism" were trying to do to the Constitution and to the Nation, was Col. Ed. F. Browne, author of the book Socialism or Empire, from which we quoted in a previous letter in this series. One chapter of this remarkable book was captioned The Treason(?) Of The Senate. We should like to quote pertinent parts of that chapter:
The socialistic writers of the times appear to derive great satisfaction in attacks upon the Senate of the United States. One young man made quite a reputation by attacking every prominent conservative member of the Senate, who had conscientiously tried to fulfill his duties as a Senator, and a sensational magazine gave his attacks great prominence. The writer gave evidence that he did not know why the Senate was brought into existence or what it was created for. He assumed that because its action was conservative, that it was not doing its duty, and made an appeal to the people that it should be changed so as to represent the interests of the "common people," as he expresses it.
What are the facts?
When our government was organized in its present form, a great discussion arose over what should vote, i.e., property and the taxpaying interests, or the common people. There was such a disagreement in regard to the class of property and amount which should represent a vote, that in the end the present system of universal suffrage was adopted.
After agreeing upon universal suffrage the framers of the constitution tried to and did provide a check, upon the action of the "common people," to save them from an unwise or hasty use of the power given them. Mr. Madison explained the reason for the formation of the Senate, or second branch of the legislature as it was called, when he said that "the objects are two fold; first: to protect the people against their rulers, and second: to protect the people against transient impressions into which they themselves might be led."
In his speech in the constitutional convention he said: "An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who labor under all the hardships of life and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence; according to the laws of equal suffrage the power will slide into the hands of the former."
He suggested that among other means to check the encroachments of the most numerous, "the establishment of a body in the government sufficiently reputable for its wisdom and virtue to aid on such emergencies the preponderance of justice, by throwing into that scale ...."
Another reason for the Senate's existence was the fact that it was feared that an impulsive House of Representatives would encroach upon the rights of the States. Col. (George) Mason in his remarks on this feature said, "The State Legislatures ought also to have some means of defending themselves against encroachments of the National Government, and what better means can be provided than giving them some share in or rather making them a constituent part of the national establishment?"
The danger of one class obtaining complete control of legislation was fully understood. Mr. (James) Wilson said, "A single legislature is very dangerous; despotism may present itself in various shapes. May there not be legislative despotism if in the exercise of their power they are unchecked or unrestrained by another branch?"
From these extracts taken from remarks made when the Senate was brought into existence, it will be observed that the present socialistic agitation was clearly foreseen, and that the Senate was provided as a definite check on any legislative tyranny attempted by the House of Representatives ....
The quotations show that these statesmen fully expected that in time the House of Representatives would be controlled by the laboring and agrarian elements (or by the welfare recipients in our day-Ed.), owing to a preponderance in number.
Mr. Madison, and, in fact nearly every member of the convention expressed frankly their fear that unwise action on the part of the people was the greatest danger to the Republic, and that as we were the first to give universal suffrage, a safeguard should be prepared which would check socialistic or communistic aggression. History was an open book to them as it is to us today. They knew that the destruction of the first great republic was the direct result of the seizure of the power to originate legislation on the part of the burgess of Rome, swayed by the oratory of the "tribunes" and controlled by a mob. The joint degradation of the Roman Senate by executive usurpation and these democratic influences, removed the check between executive ambition and unwise legislation, and disaster followed ....
Most of the framers of the Constitution lived to see the day when the socialistic mob in France drenched her fair plains with the blood of 1,022,350 innocent victims (over 46,000 of whom were frail women and innocent children) and if those statesmen had thought they had failed to protect our country from such a disaster, they would have amended the Constitution and corrected the error.
The present agitation in favor of the election of the Senate by "the people" is but an attempt to remove the check placed by the organizers of our government to prevent hasty, unwise or oppressive legislative action ....
Mr. (William Jennings) Bryan, one of the foremost agitators for the removal of this check to legislation, said in an open letter to the voters of Colorado, Oct. 21, 1906, "The laboring man ought to remember, too, that no remedial action is possible until we secure the election of Senators by direct vote of the people. If the Senate can be made elective then the gateway will be open to all reforms."
His reforms mean a change in our constitutional payment of tax (income tax-Ed.), an ownership and control of utilities, a seizure of the property of the rich for the benefit of the state and a limitation of profit on capital to suit the views of "the people." He is a student and evidently recites the orations of Caesar and repeats the street-corner talks of Claudius; there is no new thing in his arguments. Human nature is unchanged; it is the same as it was two thousand years ago. Grant undue power to one faction of the community; it but whets its appetite for more ..
If this socialistic agitation succeeds in removing this safeguard provided in our Constitution, how long would the courts be able to withstand the legislative tyrannies attempted?" ...
If Senators are to be elected by the same class as the House of Representatives and represent the same interests, then why not abolish the Senate and increase the membership of the House and thus remove all check to legislation? ...
The only weak point in our political system is the failure to have our State Senates appointed or selected in some other way than direct election by the people. This is the reason we have "freak" laws in various States ....
It is the hope of Socialism to destroy representative government, but this is the political road that leads to anarchy.
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