OUTLINE NOTES
CONSTITUTIONAL UNDERPINNINGS
I. The two great questions of politics…Who governs and to what ends?
a. power –
b. A causing B to do C, especially if B is not voluntarily inclined to do C.
c. Authority –
1. formal authority
d. Types of power:
1. reward power –
2. coercive power –
3. legitimate power –
4. referent power –
5. expert power –
II. Definitions of governments with particular distribution of political power – Aristotle
a. oligarchy
b. aristocracy –
c. anarchy –
d. democracy –
1. demos (the people), kratos (authority) – Greek
2. direct democracy –
examples – New England town meeting, initiative and referendum
3. representative democracy
Requirements for representative democracy to work:
q freedom of speech and press
q freedom to organize
q fair access to political resources
q respect for others and their opinions
q belief in the legitimacy of the political system
q economic prosperity??? Some argue this is necessary also
4. authoritarian democracy –
III. Traditional Democratic Theory rests upon several principles:
q Equality in voting – one person-one vote
q Effective participation – citizens must act on their opinions by voting though it is not necessary for voting to be universal. The more who vote, the more representative the government
q Enlightened understanding – democratic society must be a marketplace of ideas, free speech and press are essential to civic understanding
q Citizen control of the policy agenda – citizens should influence the choice of policies acted upon.
q Inclusion – government must include and extend rights to all those subject to its laws. Citizenship must be open to all.
IV. What governments do in the modern age:
a. maintain national defense
b. provide public goods and services
c. have police powers to provide order
d. socialize the young into the political culture
e. collect taxes to pay for public goods and services
V. Power Distribution in American Government
a. beliefs about representation – representatives are 1) supposed to vote as we would want them to vote 2) representatives should vote their conscience and use own judgement
b. Majoritarian politics –
c. Interest group politics –
d. Client politics –
e. Entrepreneurial politics –
VI. The Theory of Elites – in one sense all politics is elitist because all decisions are made by a few rather than by many. Elitist theory however suggests that the same elite makes policy all the time and sometimes even at the expense of the group as a whole.
q Marxist theory –
q elitist theory – C. Wright Mills – related to Marxist view
1. corporate leaders
2. top military officers
3. handful of key political leaders
4. media
These people enjoy great advantages in wealth, status, and position and are enacting policies to benefit themselves
q Bureaucratic elite – Max Weber’s view -
q Pluralist view –
q Hyperpluralism – pluralism gone sour.
VII. Conflict - Ultimately all politics involves conflict. We conduct elections because we disagree about who should represent us in Congress and in the White House. We have a set of rules for turning bills into laws because we disagree on which pieces of legislation will best serve the public interest and we need a way to determine which view has the most public support. When we are angry about government’s policies we write and complain and eventually replace them in the next election.
The roots of this conflict lie in two things:
a. material scarcity – inability of society to meet all its needs
b. disagreements over values – people disagree about the kind of society that they want for themselves and their fellow citizens. US history is full of examples of clashes over values.
Ex. – Civil War, right to vote for women, right to discriminate against minorities and women, involvement in the Vietnam War and Yugoslavia’s civil war.
VIII. The Bottom Line – The bottom line is that political decision-making involves bargaining and compromise that will ensure that most people are somewhat happy with the result.
IX.
X. Government and the State –
a. government –
b. The State –
It’s made up of the following:
q Population
q Territory – the physical boundaries of the State
q Government
q Sovereignty – people have complete power in their own territory
How does the state come into being?
a. force theory –
b. evolutionary theory –
c. divine right theory –
d. social contract theory –
Types of Governments – depends on where the power rests…
q Unitary government –
q Confederation –
q Federal –
WOLL READER: CHAPTER 1
John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
I. State of Nature – all live in the state of nature prior to the establishment of governments.
In the state of nature:
a. we have perfect freedom to act and dispose of our possessions and persons as we see fit
b. state of complete equality
c. What causes man to leave this state of complete equality and freedom?
d. Why is the state of nature not sufficient to meet the need for protection?
II. Legislative power – the establishment of a legislative body as the center of the government is important and no one but the legislative has the power to set laws. This is the first act of a society’s creation. Provisions for continuing this government are established.
The legislative is bound by the following rules:
a.
b.
c.
II. Dissolution of government…
Government may be dissolved if:
a. Who decides whether the legislative trust has been broken?
b. Conclusion:
CHAPTER 2
I. The Political Philosophy of the Founders
a. The goal of the American Revolution was liberty.
b. These liberties are part of the unwritten but well understood British Constitution.
q What are these liberties?
1. Sources of these ideas:
a. Magna Carta (1215) –
b. The Petition of Right ( 1628)
c. The English Bill of Rights – (1689)
d. John Locke – 1690, First and Second Treatises on Government –
e. Jean Jacques Rousseau-
f. Baron de Montesquieu – The Spirit of Laws,
g.
Founders Fears – the Founders feared two things equally:
q All powerful government – they pessimistically believed that human nature creates a need for domination in man
q Democracy – The Founders clearly distrusted aristocracy – rule of the few but also feared democracy – rule by the many.
Many felt democracy was essentially mob rule. Feared that democracy
would be excessively subject to temporary passions and that minority rights
would be insecure.
II. The Articles of Confederation – proved ineffective and dangerous to the stability of the government
Weakness of the Articles of Confederation:
q Could not levy taxes or regulate commerce
q No sovereignty, independence retained by the states
q One vote in Congress for each state and 9 of 13 votes needed to pass any measure introduced
q Delegates picked and paid for by the legislatures
q Very little money coined by Congress
q Army small, dependent on state militias
q Territorial disputes between the states were numerous and the government ineffective in controlling or mediating them.
q No national judicial system to settle disputes
q All thirteen states’ consent necessary for any amendments to the Articles.
III. Incentive for Reform of the Articles: Shay’s Rebellion 1787
Shay’s Rebellion – ex-Revolutionary War soldiers who feared losing their property over their debts prevented courts in Western Massachusetts from meeting to seize their property. The inability of the national government to deal with the rebellion scared many and led to support for revision of the Articles. End of Shay’s Rebellion – Feb. 4, 1787.
IV. Annapolis, 1786
Fear of further rebellion led several states to suggest a national convention to correct problems in the Articles of Confederation. Convention was called in Annapolis, MD but only five of the nine states who accepted the call to convention showed up. A new meeting was called for in May, 1787, in Philadelphia.
V. Constitutional Convention – May 25, 1787- September 17, 1787
q By May 25th there were 29 delegates on hand from nine states. Eventually there would be 55 delegates present representing every state except Rhode Island which refused to attend because it did not want a stronger national government at the expense of state sovereignty.
q Who was there and who was not?
Ø The delegates to the Convention were very different from the delegates who met and drafted the Declaration of Independence. The goals were very different. Only eight of the delegates involved had signed the Declaration of Independence.
Ø Jefferson (in France) and John Adams (ambassador to England) were in Europe. Jefferson, in particular, had misgivings about the plans for the Convention.
Ø Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry refused to come due to objections to the plan to strengthen the national government. All were strong advocates of states rights.
q Characteristics of the Delegates
Ø The majority were college graduates and had congressional experience; well educated, familiar with the writings of Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu.
Ø All were chosen by their state legislatures.
Ø Most were lawyers, bankers, planters, or judges
Ø There were two farmers with small farms
Ø Many, like James Madison had helped draft their state constitutions.
Ø Most were property owners and some owned securities that would appreciate in value with a strong central government
Ø Average age – 42
Ø Twenty-one had worn uniforms in the Revolutionary War, though only Washington and Franklin were war heroes.
Ø Seven were state governors.
Ø Oldest delegate – Ben Franklin at 81
Ø James Madison – author of the Constitution was 36 at the time of its writing
Ø George Washington served as the presiding officer but participated little in the debates
Ø Elbridge Gerry who later became James Madison’s Vice President,, was nicknamed “Old Grumbletonian” because as John Adams once said, he opposed everything he did not personally propose.
Ø George Mason – author of the Virginia Plan was a planter, slaveholder, and was deeply suspicious of all government and ultimately became a prominent leader of the Anti-Federalists.
Ø Marylander Luther Martin was an ardent states rights supporter and his speeches were made even livelier by his frequently drunkenness
Ø All worked 5 to 6 hours a day during the middle of summer with the windows closed so no one would hear the debate.
q James Madison, author of the Constitution – was 36 at its writing, barely over 5 feet tall- frail, shy, studious and a bachelor. He’s been compared to the “Bill Gates” of the period.
Ø He was rejected by his sixteen-year-old fiancée in favor of a medical student.
Ø So reserved that he called his father “honored sir”
Ø Had a high pitched voice that so embarrassed him that he hated to speak in public, especially in debate.
Ø Princeton graduate – wrote 29 of the 85 Federalist papers
Ø We only know what transpired during the debate because of Madison’s diary that was not made public until the 1940’s. Before that, the intentions of the Founders and events that occurred could only be guessed at.
VI. Politics of the Convention
The colonial experience led many Americans to prefer a weak, decentralized national government and to place considerable political power in the state legislatures
a. Members of the Constitutional Convention agreed on three principles:
1. Constitutional monarchy, where the monarch’s powers were limited and where the government included an assembly elected by the people
2. A republic, meaning some form of representative government without a hereditary executive
3. Democracy, which meant either town meeting style direct democracy or simply the direct voice of the people within government
b. Revolutionary struggle had left constitutional monarchy in ill repute, though many leaders including John Adams and Alexander Hamilton continued to think it theoretically the form most likely to insure freedom and good government.
c. Equally discredited was democracy which still meant rule by the passionate, ignorant, demagogue-dominated “voice of the people”.
Therefore in 1787, republicanism was positioned between the two evils and therefore seemed to be the best option.
VII. The Debates – flowed through discernable stages or phases.
a. Phase I – Virginia Plan’s reception largely favorable and the intent to frame a new government instead of reform the old seemed inevitable. For two weeks the delegates debated the following topics:
1. representation
2. executive powers
3. state-national relations
There was surprising support for provisions to strengthen the national government
By mid-June the Convention had adopted 19 resolves largely following the Virginia Plan though the small states bitterly resented the switch from an equal vote for each state in the national legislature to representation based on population
b. Phase II – New Jersey Plan introduced by William Paterson. New Jersey plan retained the equality of states and other provisions closer to the Articles. The introduction of the second plan brought with it impassioned debate and bitterness on both sides. The leaders of the Convention had difficulty preventing the Convention from falling apart at this point.
The two sides:
Proponents of proportional representation: Madison, James Wilson, Rufus King and others, mostly large states’ delegates
Proponents of equal representation: Luther Martin of Maryland and other small states’ delegates
In the middle were the conciliators, mainly Ben Franklin and William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut. A compromise was suggested on July 5. (The Great Compromise or Connecticut Compromise) Lower house would have proportional representation and upper house equal representation. July 16, the Convention approved the Compromise.
c. Phase III – Ten days of important debate on the following topics:
1. the powers and election of the executive
2. the judiciary- powers and election(nomination)
3. the method of ratification
4. the powers of Congress
When these were completed, the first draft was completed.
d. Phase IV – for more than a month, Aug. 6-Sept 10, the Convention debated clause by clause the articles of the draft constitution. Issues argued at length included:
1. slavery
2. commercial regulation
3. presidential powers and its relation to the Senate (How to elect the executive and how he might exercise his veto, and how he might be joined with the Senate in appointing officials and making treaties continued to concern delegates.)
By Sept. 10, after referring several unsettled matters to select committees, the Convention felt it had sufficiently resolved all questions and entrusted the document to a committee on arrangement and style. The actual draft of the final document seems to have been put together by Gouverneur Morris.
It became apparent at this point that three delegates still at the convention, Edmund Randolph and George Mason of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, did not approve of the draft. They complain about many issues but mainly opposed the scope of powers given to the national government.
Thirty nine delegates approved the work and with unanimous consent of the states present, they voted to submit the Constitution to the Confederation Congress and to the people of the states.
VIII. Ratification – began with a clever move of the proponents to call themselves federalists. Sentiment in the country was hostile to the idea of a national government and preferred a confederation or federation. The document is not strictly speaking a federation of states. In Federalist 39, Madison explained carefully that the constitution was a “composite”, partially national in that some powers applied directly to the people (taxation, election of the house) and partially federal in that the states acted as units of the central government (election of the Senate). Taking the word federal to describe the new Constitution gave its backers an important “image” victory for themselves. The word “federal” eventually came to mean the form of government embodied in the Constitution and confederation came to represent the Articles of Confederation and eventually the “Confederacy” of 1861-65.
a. New York – Hamilton and Madison traveled to New York where the Articles of Confederation Congress was in session, to organize the campaign for ratification.
1. Hamilton took the initiative, but Madison and John Jay agreed to write a series of essays for New York newspapers explaining and defending the new Constitution.
2. They used the pseudonym “Publius” for the legendary law giver of the Roman republic and addressed their letters to “People of the State of New York”.
3. Jay became ill soon after and his contribution was limited as a result. He wrote 5 of the 85 essays.
4. Hamilton wrote 51 of the essays; wrote on the need for a strong central government, on the powers of Congress, and on the executive and judicial departments
5. Madison wrote 29 of the essays; explained the nature of the federal system, the formal and informal checks and balances, and the House of Representatives and the Senate.
6. Hamilton and Madison wrote 3 or 4 essays a week for the newspapers between October 27, 1787 and April 2, 1788.
b. Antifederalists appear – At the same time the Federalist essays were appearing in New York and were being sent to other areas of the country, Anti-federalist rhetoric began to appear initially in Philadelphia and New York newspapers and were soon reprinted throughout the country. The first anti-federalist letter to the newspaper appeared only 10 days after the conclusion of the Convention. The author used the pen name of “Cato” to disguise his identity. It is believed that George Clinton either wrote or influenced the writing of the letter. In the letter, “Cato” urged the citizens of New York to reject the new Constitution. The pen names “Brutus”, “The Federal Farmer” and the “Centinel” were all used to write in opposition to ratification.
c. Federalist vs. Anti-federalist thought
1. Similarities: both Federalists and Anti-federalists favored limited government and the rule of law and wanted a written constitution that restricted government powers; both wanted a republic-government by representatives of the people acting on their behalf; both wanted federalism – a division of power between a national government and that of the states; and finally both wanted popular sovereignty-government by popular consent.
2. Differences:
a. On limited government – disagreed on how much to limit the powers of government.
Anti-federalists tended to favor a weak national government similar to Congress under the Articles of Confederation. They feared that a strong national government would threaten the rights of the people and the states.
Federalists wanted a strong national government that could forcefully maintain order, provide security, and guarantee liberty under law. Less concerned about abuses of a strong government.
b. On Republicanism and Federalism –
Anti-federalists preferred the kind of republic established by the Articles of Confederation where the national government is only a creation of the states who retain their sovereignty and independence of action. Believed state government should have more powers and duties because there are closer and more responsive to the people. State and local government is more like the direct democracy.
Federalists favored a division and sharing of powers between states and a national government in which the national government is supreme within its own sphere of action. This meant that states could not defy or contradict laws or actions of the national government that are permitted by the Constitution
c. On popular sovereignty –
Anti-federalists – believed that government by and for the people was best achieved by giving most powers of government to a legislature comprised of members elected by the people. They supported the idea of a legislative branch that was dominant with the states retaining sovereignty. They feared the Constitution gave too much power to the executive at the expense of the other branches.
Federalists- The federalists believed that power should be shared by the legislative, executive and judicial branches and that the people should directly elect only members of the House of Representatives.
d. A Bill of Rights –
Anti-federalists – wanted a bill of rights to guarantee civil liberties (freedom of speech, assembly, press, etc.) against the powers of government officials.
Federalists – argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary, because the national government had only those powers granted to it in the Constitution. Because of this, the government could not deprive individuals of their basic civil liberties.
IX. Ratification battles in the states – It took three years for ratification to occur in all thirteen states. Between 1787-1790 each state met and voted eventually to ratify, however some did not ratify on the first vote.
|
State |
Date |
Vote |
|
Delaware |
Dec. 7, 1787 |
30-0 |
|
Pennsylvania |
Dec. 12, 1787 |
46-23 |
|
New Jersey |
Dec. 19, 1787 |
38-0 |
|
Georgia |
Jan. 2, 1788 |
26-0 |
|
Connecticut |
Jan. 9, 1788 |
128-40 |
|
Massachusetts |
Feb. 6, 1788 |
187-168 |
|
Maryland |
Apr. 28, 1788 |
63-11 |
|
South Carolina |
May 23, 1788 |
149-73 |
|
New Hampshire |
June 21, 1788 |
57-46 |
|
Virginia |
June 25,1788 |
89-79 |
|
New York |
July 26, 1788 |
57-46 |
|
North Carolina |
Nov. 21, 1789* |
184-77 |
|
Rhode Island |
May 29, 1790 |
34-32 |
|
* Second vote; ratification was originally defeated on August 4, 1788 by a vote of 184-84. |
||
The vote in New Hampshire was the ratifying vote, however as New York and Virginia had not yet ratified, the new government could not hope to succeed. Once they had ratified, the new government was assured. The Constitution became effective in March of 1789, however the selection of the President was not accomplished until April 6, 1789.