Senate Reform for the Global Economy: part 2

The Many

“The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.” –Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 22

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison designed America to be a democratic republic, featuring filtered (indirect) representation of the people’s authority and built in monitoring provisions called checks and balances used to prevent political degeneration. Moreover, both men talk of an ‘American Empire.’ The terminology is vague and seemingly conflicting and therefore raises questions about the nature and goals of our republic. Most basically, the United States of America is a democratic republic premised on liberal notions of individual liberty and natural rights, whose power is authorized by a covenant of the people. Thomas Paine explains that,

It is wholly characteristical of the purport, matter or object for which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed, Res-Publica, the public affairs, or the public good; or, literally translated, the public thing. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to be the character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which, himself, and not the res-publica, is the object (Rights of Man 17).

Every government that does not act on the principle of a Republic, or in other words, that does not make the res-publica its whole and sole object, is not a good government. Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively (Rights of Man 17).

Thus, the republic, created by the people, is intended to serve the interests of those people from both a personal and communal perspective. Every American knows, however, that republican government is not that simple. Famously, Madison discussed the problem of factions in Federalist 10, the most basic problem associated with republican governments. He identifies a faction as any “number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (Madison Fed 10). By definition, a dominant or ruling faction cannot be republican in nature, so long as the party offends individual liberties or communal interest (an expression of arbitrary power, usually done selfishly). To account for such factions, Madison offers “two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests” (Madison Fed. 10). In other words, Madison believes that we can only control a faction’s negative effects, and this is best accomplished through checks and balances that monitor representative behavior. Moreover, he writes that,

It is essential to such a government, that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. It is sufficient for such a government, that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people (Madison Fed. 39).

Correspondingly, Madison writes that because the otherwise “accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” the “legislative, executive and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct” (Madison Fed. 47). This implies that a government derived from one particular interest and a tyranny is one in the same; selfish interests are checked by providing those “who administer each department, [with] the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others” (Madison Fed. 51). Theoretically, this enables the government first to “control the governed; and in the next place, obliges it to control itself;” this separation of powers is one of the most fundamental checks and balances upon which our Constitution and our liberties are contingent (Madison Fed. 51).

-Wealthy Americans