It’s usually considered bad form to show up late for a party and then
trash the guest of honor. But at a recent Constitution Day event (held
two days after the actual Constitution Day), Harvard law professor
Michael Klarman attempted not to praise our nation’s governing charter
but to bury it.
“The Constitution provided for far less democracy at the federal level than most Americans had become accustomed to at the state level by the 1780s,” Klarman declared. “In addition, it was ratified in a process that was stacked against democratic deliberation. It’s not obvious why we should want today to pay blind obeisance to a Constitution that was adapted in that way and with those substantive provisions.”
The Founders, of course, weren’t trying to set up a democracy. They aimed to create a republic. What’s the difference? A republic, as James Madison explains in Federalist 10, is a “government in which the scheme of representation takes place.” Unlike a democracy in which the citizens themselves pass laws, in a republic such as ours, citizens rule through the representatives they elect.
Under that republican form of government, the people remain sovereign, but they cede certain carefully delineated powers to elected representatives. Thus the Constitution remains what it has been for more than 225 years: a blueprint to limit the reach and scope of the federal government.
Read more: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/01/the-constitution-and-our-democracy-er-republic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FoundryConservativePolicyNews+%28The+Foundry%3A+Conservative+Policy+News.%29
“The Constitution provided for far less democracy at the federal level than most Americans had become accustomed to at the state level by the 1780s,” Klarman declared. “In addition, it was ratified in a process that was stacked against democratic deliberation. It’s not obvious why we should want today to pay blind obeisance to a Constitution that was adapted in that way and with those substantive provisions.”
The Founders, of course, weren’t trying to set up a democracy. They aimed to create a republic. What’s the difference? A republic, as James Madison explains in Federalist 10, is a “government in which the scheme of representation takes place.” Unlike a democracy in which the citizens themselves pass laws, in a republic such as ours, citizens rule through the representatives they elect.
Under that republican form of government, the people remain sovereign, but they cede certain carefully delineated powers to elected representatives. Thus the Constitution remains what it has been for more than 225 years: a blueprint to limit the reach and scope of the federal government.
Read more: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/01/the-constitution-and-our-democracy-er-republic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FoundryConservativePolicyNews+%28The+Foundry%3A+Conservative+Policy+News.%29
No comments:
Post a Comment