tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/alexander-hamilton-19755/articlesAlexander Hamilton – The Conversation2023-08-14T17:44:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114902023-08-14T17:44:40Z2023-08-14T17:44:40ZTommy Tuberville reportedly doesn’t live in Alabama − should he still be its senator?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542482/original/file-20230813-42160-9mvwcr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4811%2C3205&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alabama voters elected Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Nov. 3, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020SenateTuberville/ee9266cbcd5d4529b2c7a043281f85b4/photo?Query=Tuberville&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=596&currentItemNo=178">AP Photo/Butch Dill</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville has come under scrutiny following reports that he <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/08/can-tommy-tuberville-represent-alabama-in-us-senate-if-he-lives-in-florida.html">recently sold</a> the last remaining properties he owns in the state that he represents in the U.S. Senate. Instead, Tuberville <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/10/tommy-tuberville-floridas-third-senator/">appears to live almost full time</a> at his beach house in the Florida panhandle.</p>
<p>Although details are still emerging about Tuberville’s precise living situation, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/10/tommy-tuberville-floridas-third-senator/">The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has reported</a> that the Auburn, Alabama, address Tuberville listed when he declared his candidacy for Senate in 2019 is co-owned by his wife and son. Kessler’s review of campaign finance reports and property documents related to Tuberville “indicate that his home is actually a $3 million, 4,000-square-foot beach house he has lived in for nearly two decades in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.”</p>
<p>Why does this matter? </p>
<p>Because Tuberville is running up against one of the oldest constitutional requirements that apply to anyone running for Congress: that <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S3-C3-1/ALDE_00013345/">candidates must live in the state they represent</a> by the time they take office. </p>
<p>But whether Tuberville’s situation actually violates the Constitution – or matters to voters – is another question. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large white building with a dome atop it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To serve in Congress, the U.S. Constitution requires that a member must be an inhabitant of the state they represent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressDebt/15da08cb69a24b598addbce1b25df374/photo?Query=U.S.%20Congress%20building&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=864&currentItemNo=24&vs=true">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Residency requirements in Congress</h2>
<p>The legal requirement that candidates and members of legislative bodies live in the place they represent is not new. In the case of Congress, it was <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_808.asp#1">debated heavily</a> during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. </p>
<p>The framers decided that members of both the House and the Senate would be required only to be “an inhabitant” of the state they represent. Strange as it may sound, this means that House members don’t even need to live in their specific district – just their home state. In fact, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/21/at-least-20-members-of-the-house-are-registered-to-vote-outside-their-districts/">2017 report from The Washington Post</a> found that about 5% of all House members don’t live in the districts they represent. </p>
<h2>Legal consequences for nonresidency</h2>
<p>In Tuberville’s case, it’s possible that he doesn’t meet the constitutional minimum of state residency. Whether he might face any consequences for this potential violation, however, is unclear. </p>
<p>Courts and congressional committees have looked into similar violations in the past. They have generally opted for a wide interpretation of what is called “<a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41946.html#_Toc410112355">inhabitancy</a>,” often settling for evidence that a member paid taxes in or was registered to vote in the state, even if it was at an address that the member spent little to no time in.</p>
<p>Officials at state and local levels, however, where <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/eligibility-requirements-to-run-for-the-state-legislature">residency requirements can be stronger</a>, have paid the price for being a nonresident. A <a href="https://law.georgia.gov/opinions/2001-3-0">2001 legal opinion</a> from the Georgia attorney general found that if a state legislator “moves his permanent residence outside his district, the office will become vacant as a matter of law,” meaning that the lawmaker would disqualify themselves from serving. </p>
<p>This is precisely what happened in my hometown of Boise, Idaho, when a city councilwoman was <a href="https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/boise-city-council-president-holli-woodings-details-process-of-councilmember-sanchez-losing-her-seat/277-cec1eaff-2f4d-408b-8412-df26f4cff95b">legally forced out of office</a> after she inadvertently moved out of the district she was representing.</p>
<h2>Why have residency requirements?</h2>
<p>Although it can be inconvenient, there are good reasons to establish legal residency requirements. </p>
<p>The framers discussed many of them: <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0205">Alexander Hamilton argued</a> that because of the residency requirement, representatives in Congress “will not only bring with them a considerable knowledge of its laws, and a local knowledge of their respective districts.” In other words, representatives with local ties would be more likely to understand the unique needs of their constituents and thus how to best represent them.</p>
<p>But these requirements aren’t without their drawbacks. For instance, <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/_files/ugd/a6ee68_17c414c6c2754735a1e2ba32a6b55f44.docx?dn=Residency%20Requirements%20Preprint.docx">my own research suggests</a> that in states with stricter residency requirements, their state legislative districts as a whole are more gerrymandered – that is, districts are drawn for the purpose of benefiting the election of a particular legislator or party. Why? Because state legislatures that decide their states’ redistricting processes appear to go out of their way to draw misshapen districts to include the homes of incumbents.</p>
<p>Residency requirements also pose a significant hurdle to candidate quality. That’s because, unlike in Congress, states often set even stricter standards for offices like governor and state legislator, in some cases requiring many years of residency before qualifying for candidacy. The more onerous the residency requirement – for example, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/eligibility-requirements-to-run-for-the-state-legislature">requiring five rather than two years</a> of residency before holding office – the more otherwise qualified citizens the law excludes from serving. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/_files/ugd/a6ee68_17c414c6c2754735a1e2ba32a6b55f44.docx?dn=Residency%20Requirements%20Preprint.docx">my own analysis</a> of gubernatorial residency requirements, I found that many states prevent as much as one-fifth of their residents from serving as governor as a result of residency requirements and <a href="https://www.elections.alaska.gov/doc/forms/H05.pdf">more than 30% in Alaska’s case</a>.</p>
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<p>At a time when <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/running-from-office-9780199397655?cc=us&lang=en&">fewer and fewer Americans show any interest in running for office</a> – even while they disapprove of politicians more and more – this is a serious concern for citizens and lawmakers to reckon with. </p>
<h2>Will Tuberville pay for carpetbagging?</h2>
<p>Even if Tuberville doesn’t face legal trouble, it could become a political liability for him, and the political science research bears this out. In my book, “<a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/12157973/home_field_advantage">Home Field Advantage</a>,” I found that candidates who were born and raised in their home districts consistently outperform so-called “carpetbaggers” – those with few to no ties to their districts – in congressional elections. </p>
<p>This has also played out in high-profile ways in the real world. <a href="https://theconversation.com/dr-oz-should-be-worried-voters-punish-carpetbaggers-and-new-research-shows-why-188569">During 2022’s midterm elections campaign</a>, the news buzzed with Pennsylvania voters’ ridicule for Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz’s attempts to come across like a regular Pennsylvanian while – among other mishaps – <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oz-accused-filming-pennsylvania-campaign-ad-at-new-jersey-home-2022-7">recording campaign videos</a> at his home in New Jersey and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ozs-viral-crudite-video-sums-up-campaign-fetterman-pennsylvania-rcna43992">mispronouncing the name of a local grocery store</a> chain. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kDsFjrXWnnI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the 2020 U.S. Senate race, Tuberville’s GOP primary rival questioned whether he lived in Alabama or Florida.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of Tuberville’s rural-state colleagues, like Montana Democrat <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/leading-montana-gop-senate-candidate-matt-rosendales-thick-maryland-accent.html">Jon Tester</a> and West Virginia Democrat <a href="https://rollcall.com/2018/11/06/west-virginias-joe-manchin-stays-put-in-trump-country/">Joe Manchin</a>, have also vastly outperformed their party’s expectations in their states, thanks in part to deep local ties and authenticity.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Tuberville is a Republican in GOP-dominated Alabama and <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2022/11/tuberville-sticking-with-trump-he-doesnt-have-to-learn-the-ropes.html">a loyal soldier for former President Donald Trump</a> in a state where Trump is popular. Plus, although Tuberville was born and raised in Arkansas, he became a hero in Alabama in the 2000s as a <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30253791/former-college-football-coach-tommy-tuberville-wins-alabama-senate-seat">successful head coach</a> for the Auburn University football program. </p>
<p>Tuberville also has plenty of time to clean up this mess, as he is not up for reelection again until 2026. However, unless he can show some more concrete evidence of residency, a lawsuit challenging his local credentials may not be out of the question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The framers decided that members of both the House and Senate would be required to be “an inhabitant” of the state they represent.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2079702023-07-14T12:47:28Z2023-07-14T12:47:28ZWhy Trump’s prosecution for keeping secret documents is lawful, constitutional, precedented, nonpartisan and merited<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537108/original/file-20230712-19-nac50i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C4861%2C3233&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to reporters on June 9, 2023, in Washington about the investigation of Trump's retention of classified records.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumpClassifiedDocuments/b427a9a0bd424a6dbac9b8ea0ce105a7/photo?Query=Jack%20Smith&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1957&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump and his allies have responded with a variety of objections <a href="https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/06/trump-indictment.pdf">to his federal indictment</a>, brought in June 2023 by <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sco-smith/speech/special-counsel-jack-smith-delivers-statement">special counsel Jack Smith</a>. The federal charges – the first against a former president – listed 37 counts of obstruction of justice and wrongful retention of classified documents after Trump left office in January 2021. </p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-indictment-miami-court-e9412bb71b63ab1b7cfb8e8b122e9809">Trump pleaded not guilty</a>.</p>
<p>The objections made by Trump and his allies: The former president simply cannot be charged, the indictment is political “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/25/trump-rails-against-federal-charges-and-accuses-biden-of-weaponizing-justice-department">weaponization</a>” of the justice system, the charges are <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65868294">groundless</a> and the <a href="https://www.local10.com/news/politics/2023/06/12/rep-carlos-gimenez-says-trump-is-being-targeted-unfairly-in-federal-case/">charges are unfair</a>. The unfairness claim often involves <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/14/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-classified-documents/index.html">a comparison to Hillary Clinton</a>, Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent, who was not charged in an investigation into her handling of government documents.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2687223">scholar of secrecy law</a> and a <a href="https://moritzlaw.osu.edu/dakota-s-rudesill">longtime national security practitioner</a>, based on all that is known, I do not see merit in those claims. </p>
<h2>A former president can be charged</h2>
<p>Trump and his allies have argued that it is completely inappropriate for the former president to be charged.</p>
<p>But no part of the Constitution, no statute and no Supreme Court precedent sets a former chief executive above the law. Alexander Hamilton, writing in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed69.asp">The Federalist Papers</a>, stated the founders’ view that a former president is “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Hamilton added that a former president would be no different in this respect from a state governor. </p>
<p>American history is replete with criminal charges against <a href="https://www.illinoispolicy.org/4-of-illinois-past-10-governors-went-to-prison/">state officials</a>, vice presidents – a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-great-trial-that-tested-the-constitutions-treason-clause">former one</a> during the founding era, and a <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/vice-president-agnew-resigns">sitting one</a> in the 1970s – <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/congressman-george-santos-charged-fraud-money-laundering-theft-public-funds-and-false">members of Congress</a> and <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/former-ohio-house-speaker-sentenced-20-years-prison-leading-racketeering-conspiracy">other prominent politicians</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cardboard boxes piled up in a bathroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537116/original/file-20230712-23-wtdmyh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Trump federal indictment includes this photo of boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXTrumpClassifiedDocuments/2d076c18d4c6444987df88fcf14ea542/photo?Query=Trump%20mar%20a%20lago%20documents%20bathroom&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1&currentItemNo=0">Justice Department via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Not a partisan prosecution</h2>
<p>Trump is right that his is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186926582/trump-asks-the-judge-to-delay-the-start-of-his-classified-documents-trial">inevitably a sensitive case</a> because of his continued presence in the political arena. </p>
<p>What he does not acknowledge is that maintaining the bedrock legal principle of equal justice requires avoiding twin hazards: politically motivated prosecutions and exempting elite politicians from the law. </p>
<p>Navigating these shoals is challenging because under the U.S. Constitution, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-executive-branch/">the executive branch</a> is headed by the sitting president, and it includes the Justice Department. That means there will always be at least a potential risk of “weaponization” of prosecution – or just the risk of that allegation – when the defendant is in a different party from the president.</p>
<p>But if a former president who is a political adversary of the current president cannot be charged, then that former president can commit any federal crime they please. That is the opposite of the founders’ intent, and not the law.</p>
<p>Sorting this out requires careful analysis of the facts and law. </p>
<p>Here, the “weaponization” allegation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/weaponization-committee-house-republicans.html">lacks substance</a>. All it has are the circumstances of President Joe Biden’s position atop the executive branch, and Trump’s challenge to Biden’s candidacy. In contrast to President Thomas Jefferson’s <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-great-trial-that-tested-the-constitutions-treason-clause">detailed direction of the prosecution</a> of political adversary and former Vice President Aaron Burr, there is no credible evidence that Biden is telling the prosecutor what to do.</p>
<h2>The charges have merit</h2>
<p>Trump claims that he had an “<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-crowns-presidents-absolute-docs-044612947.html">absolute right</a>” to take the documents. In reality, when Trump left office <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/13/1117297065/trump-documents-history-national-archives-law-watergate">he lost the presidency’s authority</a> to possess presidential records and national security documents. The indictment presents strong evidence that the documents Trump held on to contained <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/86887/national-security-implications-of-trumps-indictment-a-damage-assessment/">extremely sensitive secrets</a>, including U.S. war plans, and that Trump knew it and worked to block recovery of all of them by the government.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html">By law</a>, documents of former presidents and national defense information must be stored by the National Archives or other federal agencies. Instead, the indictment alleges that the former president stored classified information at the busy Mar-a-Lago resort in a room accessible from the pool, an office, ballroom stage, bathroom and shower. </p>
<p><a href="https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/06/trump-indictment.pdf">The indictment</a> lays out clear evidence of Trump’s knowing refusal over many months to comply fully with lawful requests, and a subsequent court-issued subpoena, for the return of all the documents. It includes pictures, and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/new-trump-audio-recording-classified-documents-case-3f3963a35a5d8ccae407ea4ab9f93082">a recorded statement</a> in which Trump checks all the boxes for criminal liability: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">knowing possession</a> after leaving office of documents he calls “secret” and showing of those documents to people not authorized to see them – plus admitting that he could have declassified them while president but did not. </p>
<h2>Not comparable to Biden, Pence or Clinton</h2>
<p>That recording and other contents of the indictment will be powerful evidence at trial of Trump’s state of mind. </p>
<p>The law concerning <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1519">government documents</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">national defense information</a> requires willfulness for criminal liability – basically, keeping documents you know you should not. Other statutes criminalize <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001">lying to investigators</a>, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512">other obstruction of justice</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2">getting others to commit crimes</a>. </p>
<p>It is Trump’s alleged knowingness and obstruction that make complaints of unfairness fall flat. </p>
<p>President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/15/trump-documents-case-biden-clinton-pence.html">both instructed aides to return documents</a> with classification markings after such records were discovered in files that had been quickly packed and went home with the former vice presidents at the end of their terms as veep. </p>
<p>A federal investigation of Pence <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/justice-department-wont-bring-charges-over-classified-documents-found-at-pences-home">was dropped in June 2023</a>. One of Biden likely will be, too. Both former vice presidents wrongfully retained national defense information, but not knowingly. Neither was obstructive. </p>
<p>In Trump’s 2016 campaign, he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/23/trump-falsely-compares-hillary-clintons-emails-his-document-hoard/">criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton</a> for her use of private email systems, including to send emails with classified information. The FBI concluded that she had been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/28/careless-but-not-criminal-what-the-fbi-has-said-about-hillary-clintons-emails/">extremely careless rather than knowing or obstructing</a>. </p>
<h2>Echoes of Reality Winner and Edward Snowden</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A blond-haired woman in an orange shirt with 'INMATE' printed on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537124/original/file-20230712-19-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Reality Winner, who leaked a classified report to a reporter, was sentenced to five years in prison for violating one of the same Espionage Act provisions under which Trump has been charged.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaHackingAccusedLeaker/8e5d698c1f864098a517f29adfc73365/photo?Query=%22Reality%20Winner%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=9&currentItemNo=0">Lincoln County, Georgia Sheriff's Office via AP</a></span>
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<p>The evidence of Trump’s knowing retention of secret documents and obstruction makes his case quite like many in which people have faced fines or prison. Those include cases in which people once had lawful access to secrets but knowingly stole and shared them to make political points. </p>
<p>A junior Air Force linguist, Reality Winner, unlawfully removed one top-secret document and sent it to the media because she thought the public should know about it. Winner was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-government-contractor-georgia-charged-removing-and-mailing-classified-materials-news">prosecuted during Trump’s presidency</a> and sentenced to five years in prison. The law in question? One of the same <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">Espionage Act</a> provisions under which Trump has been charged with over 30 counts. </p>
<p>Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who in 2013 leaked tens of thousands of classified documents to inform the public about secret U.S. surveillance activities, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-snowden-with-espionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html">was also charged</a> under another very similar section of the same statute before fleeing to Russia. </p>
<p>Trump’s case also looks a lot like those of other senior officials who have been prosecuted for knowingly mishandling secret documents, plus lying and other obstruction. </p>
<p>The indictment alleges that Trump, after leaving office, showed classified information to a biographer. That recalls <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/petraeus-plea-deal-over-giving-classified-data-to-lover.html">then-CIA Director David Petraeus’ giving his biographer</a> – who was also his lover – top-secret papers. </p>
<p>Both Trump and Petraeus were charged under the same <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">Espionage Act</a> sections and the same law criminalizing <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001">lying to investigators</a>. After being fired as CIA director, <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20170307_R41404_81a5dd34df4194e25f492f9ac3a7ee0ab5a41eb3.html">Petraeus pleaded guilty</a> to a lesser charge, paid a fine and got two years’ probation. </p>
<p>Trump’s situation strikes me as worse than Petraeus’. Trump’s documents are more numerous. Prosecutors allege that Trump’s were viewed by more people and were stored less securely. Trump’s obstruction also appears far greater. </p>
<p>A final category of cases also suggests Trump is in big trouble: the prosecutions of hoarders. There are multiple instances of U.S. intelligence personnel having been indicted, like Trump, for keeping troves of secret documents at home. Their mental health defenses failed. During Trump’s presidency, sentences in these cases included <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-nsa-employee-sentenced-prison-willful-retention-classified-national-defense#:%7E:text=Nghia%20Hoang%20Pho%2C%2068%2C%20of,of%20classified%20national%20defense%20information.">five years</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/19/743345689/ex-nsa-contractor-who-stole-top-secret-documents-sentenced-to-9-years-in-prison">nine years in prison</a>. </p>
<p>Despite all of that, Trump and his allies will likely argue that indictment of a former president violates an important tradition against such prosecutions.</p>
<p>The real tradition is that former presidents tend not to break the law. The considerable evidence of the former president’s hoarding of secret documents and obstruction have forced the justice system either to exempt an elite politician from the law – or proceed with the well-merited prosecution that is now underway.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author has worked inside the U.S. intelligence community and extensively handled classified information. Almost 30 years ago, he ran for the state legislature as a Democrat, and from 1995 to 2003 worked for a Democratic U.S. Senator. Over the years he has volunteered for, contributed money to, and voted for Democratic, Republican, and Independent candidates for public office. His scholarship and teaching are non-partisan and focus on civic values, law, and professionalism. </span></em></p>A former national security staffer, now a scholar of secrecy law, says criticisms of Trump’s federal indictment for hoarding classified documents are unfounded.Dakota Rudesill, Associate Professor of Law; Senior Faculty Fellow, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031342023-04-05T12:36:09Z2023-04-05T12:36:09ZTrump’s indictment is unprecedented, but it would not have surprised the Founding Fathers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519432/original/file-20230404-28-pony0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C34%2C7634%2C5307&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former U.S. President Donald Trump sits with his attorneys for his arraignment at the Manhattan criminal court on April 4, 2023, in New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-president-donald-trump-sits-with-his-attorneys-news-photo/1479825853?adppopup=true"> Pool/ Getty Images News via Getty Images North America</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much has been made of the unprecedented nature of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/04/trump-arraignment-ny-indictment-live-updates/">the April 4, 2023 arraignment</a> on criminal charges of former President Donald Trump following an indictment brought by <a href="https://www.manhattanda.org/meet-alvin-bragg/">Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg</a>. But a closer look at American history shows that the indictment of a former president was not unforeseen.</p>
<h2>What the Constitution says about prosecuting a president</h2>
<p>The Constitution’s authors <a href="https://texaslawreview.org/prosecuting-and-punishing-our-presidents/">contemplated the arrest of a current or former president</a>. At several points since the nation’s founding, our leaders have been called before the bar of justice. </p>
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-3/">Article 1, Section 3,</a> of the Constitution says that when a federal government official is impeached and removed from office, they “shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.” </p>
<p>In his defense of this constitutional provision, <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed69.asp">Founding Father Alexander Hamilton noted</a> that, unlike the British king, for whom “there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected,” a president once removed from office would “be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Trump has been impeached twice, but not removed from office. </p>
<p>As a scholar with <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/16032/history_memory_and_the_law">expertise in legal history</a> and <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=20093">criminal law</a>, I believe the punishment our Founding Fathers envisioned for high officeholders removed from office would also apply to those who left office in other ways. </p>
<p>Tench Coxe, a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress from 1788–89, <a href="https://archive.csac.history.wisc.edu/pa_1.pdf">echoed Hamilton</a>. He explained that while the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013300/#:%7E:text=They%20shall%20in%20all%20Cases,questioned%20in%20any%20other%20Place.">Constitution’s speech and debate clause</a> permanently immunized members of Congress from liability for anything they might do or say as part of their official duties, the president “is not so much protected as that of a member of the House of Representatives; for he may be proceeded against like any other man in the ordinary course of law.”</p>
<p>In Coxe’s view, even a sitting president could be arrested, tried and punished for violating the law. And, though Coxe didn’t say it explicitly, I’d argue that it follows that if a president can be charged with a crime while in office, once out of office, he could be held responsible like anyone else. </p>
<h2>The indictment of Aaron Burr</h2>
<p>Hamilton’s and Coxe’s positions were put to an early test soon after the Constitution was ratified. The test came <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0281">when jurors in New Jersey indicted</a> Vice President Aaron Burr for killing Hamilton in a duel in that state.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white illustration showing Aaron Burr, in black top hat and coat, shooting Alexander Hamilton in a wooded area. Two eyewitnesses stand in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519384/original/file-20230404-24-lfq6bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An artist’s depiction of the Burr–Hamilton duel on July 11, 1804. Hamilton was mortally wounded, and Burr was indicted for his death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/duel-between-burr-and-hamilton-royalty-free-illustration/489170896?adppopup=true">Ivan-96/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The indictment charged that “Aaron Burr late of the Township of Bergen in the County of Bergen esquire not having the fear of God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil … feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did make an assault upon Alexander Hamilton … [who] of the said Mortal wounds died.” </p>
<p>While Burr’s powerful friends subsequently <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57580/what-did-aaron-burr-do-after-shooting-alexander-hamilton">interceded and persuaded state officials to drop the charges</a>, their success had nothing to do with any immunity that Burr enjoyed as an executive officer of the United States.</p>
<p>Indeed, Burr’s legal troubles were not over. In February 1807, after his term as vice president ended, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aaron-burr-arrested-for-treason">he was arrested</a> and charged with treason for plotting to create a new and independent nation separate from the U.S. This time, he stood trial and was acquitted. </p>
<h2>The Strange case of Ulysses S. Grant</h2>
<p>Fast forward to 1872, when the incumbent president, Ulysses S. Grant, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/22/ulysses-s-grant-arrest-speeding-horse-drawn-carriage">was arrested in Washington, D.C.,</a> for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage.</p>
<p>The arresting officer <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/330876502/?clipping_id=121285615&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjMzMDg3NjUwMiwiaWF0IjoxNjgwMzc2MzkzLCJleHAiOjE2ODA0NjI3OTN9.v6vBKQxZHqtZ9LJ6QFO290LwcrzOnYYMgg7bSCMZSKM">told Grant</a>, “I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation, and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest.” </p>
<p>As The New York Post recently <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/31/trump-will-be-first-president-arrested-since-ulysses-s-grant-who-was-busted-for-speeding-in-1872/">recounted the story</a>, Grant “was ordered to put up 20 bucks as collateral.” But he never stood trial.</p>
<h2>20th and 21st century precedents</h2>
<p>A little over a century later, Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html">had a more serious brush with the law</a> when he was accused by the Department of Justice of a pattern of political corruption starting when he was a county executive in Maryland and continuing through his tenure as vice president.</p>
<p>On Oct. 10, 1973, Agnew agreed to a plea bargain. He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/11/archives/judge-orders-fine-3-years-probation-tells-court-income-was-taxable.html">resigned his office</a> and <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/vice-president-agnew-resigns">pleaded no contest</a> to a charge of federal income tax evasion in exchange for the federal government dropping charges of political corruption. He was fined US$10,000 and sentenced to three years’ probation. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Surrounded by Secret Service agents, Spiro Agnew speaks to reporters outside a federal courthouse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519392/original/file-20230404-903-w07obb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Spiro Agnew leaves a Baltimore federal courthouse on Oct. 10, 1973, after pleading no contest to tax evasion charges and resigning as vice president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/spiro-agnew-flanked-by-secret-service-agents-leaves-federal-news-photo/515575060?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Richard Nixon, the president with whom Agnew served, <a href="https://theconversation.com/watergate-at-50-the-burglary-that-launched-a-thousand-scandals-185030">narrowly escaped being indicted</a> for his role in the Watergate burglary and its cover-up. In 2018, the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/investigations/watergate/roadmap">National Archives released</a> documents, labeled the Watergate Road Map, that showed just how close Nixon had come to being charged.</p>
<p>The documents <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/politics/richard-nixon-watergate-national-archives-mueller/index.html">reveal</a> that “a grand jury <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bribery">planned to charge Nixon with bribery</a>, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371">conspiracy</a>, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/obstruction_of_justice">obstruction of justice</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1510">obstruction of a criminal investigation</a>.” But an indictment was never handed down because, by that time, Hamilton’s and Coxe’s views had been displaced by a belief that a sitting president should not be indicted.</p>
<p>Nixon was later saved from criminal charges after he left office when his successor, President Gerald Ford, <a href="https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/740061.asp">granted him a full and complete pardon</a>.</p>
<p>Another occasion on which a president came close to being charged with a crime
occurred in January 2001, when, as an article in The Atlantic notes, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-indicment-president-prosecution-nixon-clinton/673503/">independent prosecutor Robert Ray considered</a> indicting former President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with <a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/multimedia/timeline/9809/starr.report/narrative/n2.htm">former White House intern</a> Monica Lewinsky.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Ray decided that if Clinton publicly admitted to “having been misleading and evasive under oath … he didn’t need to see him indicted.” </p>
<p>And in February 2021, after President Trump had left office, Republican Senate Minority Leader <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcconnell-trump-is-still-liable-for-everything-he-did-read-full-speech-11613254884">Mitch McConnell acknowledged</a> that the former president, who had escaped being removed from office twice after being impeached, would still be legally “liable for everything he did while he was in office … We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”</p>
<h2>What history teaches about Trump’s indictment</h2>
<p>This brings us to the present moment.</p>
<p>For any prosecutor, including Alvin Bragg, the indictment and arrest of a former president is a genuinely momentous act. As Henry Ruth, one of the prosecutors who was involved in the Nixon case, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-indicment-president-prosecution-nixon-clinton/673503/">explained in 1974</a>, “Signing one’s name to the indictment of an ex-president is an act that one wishes devolved upon another but one’s self. This is true even where such an act, in institutional and justice terms, appears absolutely necessary.” </p>
<p>For the rest of us, this nation’s history is a reminder that ours is not the first generation of Americans who have been called to deal with alleged wrongdoing by our leaders and former leaders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The arrest of a former American president is unprecedented, but the nation’s founders anticipated the day would come.Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997232023-02-17T14:48:51Z2023-02-17T14:48:51ZDo we need political parties? In theory, they’re the sort of organization that could bring Americans together in larger purpose<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510700/original/file-20230216-26-x493yz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5973%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech, many Congressional Democrats stood and clapped, but the GOP did not.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/StateoftheUnion/25a1f757fb5c4ebbac967772a8e2aea1/photo?Query=state%20of%20the%20union&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=10744&currentItemNo=84">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 27 million people who watched President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/heres-how-many-watched-bidens-state-union-major-tv-networks-2023-02-08/">on Feb. 7, 2023</a>, witnessed <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155495296/the-state-of-the-union-and-a-house-narrowly-divided">the spectacle of a family divided</a>, with boos and cheers perfectly arranged along party lines. </p>
<p>Are political parties <a href="https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/party-competition-linked-to-public-investment-503262/">getting in the way of the nation’s well-being</a>? For the approximately 40% of those polled in January 2023 by the Gallup Organization <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx">who say they are neither Democrats nor Republicans, but independent</a>, as well as any viewers of the State of the Union speech, the answer is likely “yes.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An antique portrait of a partly bald man wearing a dark coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin wrote that, in public affairs, very few ‘act with a View to the Good of Mankind.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://loc.getarchive.net/download-image?src=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn4.picryl.com%2Fphoto%2F1900%2F01%2F01%2Fbenjamin-franklin-head-and-shoulders-portrait-d2c2d2-1600.jpg&name=benjamin-franklin-head-and-shoulders-portrait-d2c2d2&ext=.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
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<p>As a historian who has spent years studying <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men">America’s early political leaders</a>, I can say with confidence that today’s Americans are not the first to fret over the potential harm that parties can inflict. And yet, facts indicate that it wouldn’t be wise <a href="https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2021/role-of-political-parties-democracy">to turn away from traditional political organizations</a>.</p>
<h2>‘The greatest political evil’</h2>
<p>Distrust of parties has a long history. </p>
<p>“The great Affairs of the World, the Wars, Revolutions,” a young Benjamin Franklin wrote, “are <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22the%20Wars%2C%20Revolutions%2C%20%26c.%20are%20carried%20on%20and%20effected%20by%20Parties%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">carried on and effected by Parties</a>.” In 1731, when Franklin wrote that sentence, the American nation hadn’t even been born and the young printer was styling himself as a proud member of an expanding British empire.</p>
<p>But he feared that parties’ particular agendas would eventually thwart the general interest. In public affairs, Franklin sadly concluded, very few “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22the%20Wars%2C%20Revolutions%2C%20%26c.%20are%20carried%20on%20and%20effected%20by%20Parties%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">act with a View to the Good of Mankind</a>.”</p>
<p>During the 18th century, the term “party” simply meant “faction.” It automatically conjured the specter of inner division, fragmentation and social chaos.</p>
<p>In his 1796 Farewell Address, President George Washington, for example, warned against “the baneful effects of <a href="http://www.liberty1.org/farewell.htm">the spirit of party generally</a>.” Parties, for him, were like a “fire.” While a fire can be useful, when unquenched it will burst “into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.” Finding ways to moderate “the fury of party spirit” was for Washington pivotal to the survival of the entire nation.</p>
<p>In 1780, the Articles of Confederation, the feeble <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation">first American constitution</a>, was about to be enforced. John Adams had already made a strong case against the excesses of parties.</p>
<p>“There is nothing I dread so much, as a division of the Republick into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension is to be dreaded as <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22dreaded%20as%20the%20greatest%20political%20evil%20under%20our%20Constitution%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">the greatest political evil</a>,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Adams, apparently, was an oracle of sorts.</p>
<h2>‘Mischiefs of faction’</h2>
<p>Americans have always had the sense that parties, by and large, can grow to be a tumor on society.</p>
<p>In order to convince the states to switch to a proper constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay authored the <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1404/1404-h/1404-h.htm">Federalist Papers</a>, to date one of the most influential collections of essays in political theory.</p>
<p>They gave their full attention to parties. The Constitution, they argued, should be ratified precisely to curtail the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">mischiefs of faction</a>,” as Madison said in Federalist #10. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray-haired man in a frilly blouse and brown jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Adams wrote, ‘There is nothing I dread so much, as a division of the Republick into two great parties.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.75.52">Painting by John Trumbull from National Portrait Gallery.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>And in Federalist #15, Hamilton stressed the same argument: The Constitution would be the best answer to the spirit of faction, “which is <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed15.asp">apt to mingle its poison</a> in the deliberations of all bodies of men.”</p>
<p>But poisons, as it happens, can be remedies as well. The authors of the Federalist Papers never suggested that Americans should get rid of parties entirely.</p>
<p>While parties often are local groups attempting to advance their narrow agendas, Madison, Hamilton and Jay insisted that those forces could be harnessed to promote the common interest.</p>
<p>Their recipe was to enlarge the nation. In a big nation, they claimed, many competing interests would naturally appear, and it would be much harder for any given “factious leader” to rise to power. </p>
<p>Any group, or lobby, would have to build on general principles and shared values, not on a narrow agenda. Any faction would thus morph into a political party in a positive sense.</p>
<p>Let the nation expand: “The influence of factious leaders,” Madison wrote in Federalist #10, “may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">through the other States</a>.”</p>
<h2>Democracy ‘unthinkable’ without parties</h2>
<p>Modern political science acknowledges <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.243">the value of political parties</a>. Some scholars have also said that parties are the “makers” of democratic governments: “Modern democracy is <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/504857">unthinkable save in terms of the parties</a>,” wrote American political scientist Elmer Schattschneider in 1942. Not everyone agrees on this, of course, but parties today can be a bulwark against the pettiness of <a href="http://books.imprint.co.uk/book/?gcoi=71157100106600">identity politics and tribalism</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, parties can still provide culture. As the authors of the Federalist Papers assumed, they can be a good substitute for family, clan, club, team. And just like a team or a family, they can move people’s hearts, not just their brains.</p>
<p>In Federalist #17, again, Hamilton recognized the issue. </p>
<p>“It is a known fact in human nature, that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed17.asp">distance or diffusiveness of the object</a>.” A person, Hamilton explained, “is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large.”</p>
<p>Parties can be the solution to this very problem. They can be the cement of society. People wave their party flags, or sip their coffee in their party mug, because they are passionate. But the passion that their party elicits can overlap with the general interests of the nation, or the world.</p>
<p>Parties can be at once the source of personal identity and the wings that take citizens to the sky. </p>
<p>Parties have repeatedly let people down. They have stifled the “cords of affection” while fomenting division – and they keep doing this. But they can also act to promote the common interest. </p>
<p>Nothing is decided yet. As Madison stated in Federalist #14, “Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed14.asp">no longer live together as members of the same family</a>.”</p>
<p>They still can. And political parties can help them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Americans are not the first to fret over the potential harm that parties can inflict. But parties can also promote the common interest.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878952022-07-29T12:22:14Z2022-07-29T12:22:14ZA new third party for US politics – 3 essential reads on what that means<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476572/original/file-20220728-33778-3g1vdk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C8%2C2991%2C1980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Andrew Yang, losing candidate for president and New York City mayor, is one of the founders of the Forward Party.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/andrew-yang-new-york-city-mayoral-candidate-talks-with-a-news-photo/1324433973?adppopup=true">Rob Kim/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June 2022, Gallup asked participants in a U.S. survey about their party membership. “In politics,” pollsters asked, “as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?”</p>
<p>The largest segment of participants – 43% – said they were independent. Republicans and Democrats represented 27% each.</p>
<p>Note the lower case “i” in independent. That means it’s not a party, as the Democrats and Republicans are. Actual political parties have policies, they have big bank accounts, they have organizations in every state, and they have a place on the ballot in elections. </p>
<p>But if the leaders of a new, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-new-third-us-political-party-2022-07-27/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">centrist political party whose formation was announced on July 28, 2022,</a> accomplish their goal, the “Forward Party” will attract many voters who no longer identify as Democrats or Republicans and it will become a force for moderation - and an institution - in U.S. electoral politics. </p>
<p>“How will we solve the big issues facing America?” the founders said at a news conference. “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”</p>
<p>Here are three stories from The Conversation’s archives that analyze the chances of third-party success at changing the U.S. political system.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four men from the 18th century, with three sitting at a table and one standing up near a fireplace." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Founding Fathers didn’t think highly of political parties, with Alexander Hamilton, second from right, saying they were a ‘most fatal disease.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/illustration-of-four-of-the-united-states-foundign-fathers-news-photo/145890547?adppopup=true">Stock Montage/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>1. Don’t count on it</h2>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m_RGUrgAAAAJ&hl=en">Alexander Cohen</a> of Clarkson University acknowledges that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-two-party-system-is-here-to-stay-132423">the U.S. two-party system has long been “besieged</a>.” Critics of party politics in general date to the country’s founding.</p>
<p>“Alexander Hamilton called political parties a ‘most fatal disease,’” Cohen writes. “James Madison renounced the ‘violence of faction,’ and George Washington feared that an overly successful party would create ‘frightful despotism.’”</p>
<p>Still, parties persisted as the vehicles of electoral politics in the country, evolving into the current two-party system from a variety of parties that emerged and died over the past 200 years. An upstart third party is unlikely to dislodge the status quo, Cohen says.</p>
<p>“The modern Republicans and Democrats are unlikely to go the way of the Whigs, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, regardless of recent political earthquakes.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-two-party-system-is-here-to-stay-132423">The two-party system is here to stay</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>2. It’s hard to end the party</h2>
<p>A third party, writes Indiana University political scientist <a href="https://polisci.indiana.edu/about/faculty/hershey-marjorie.html">Marjorie Hershey</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trump-is-more-likely-to-win-in-the-gop-than-to-take-his-followers-to-a-new-third-party-156001">simply doesn’t have an advantage in the U.S. political system</a>.</p>
<p>“The American electoral system is the primary reason why the U.S. is the sole major democracy with only two parties consistently capable of electing public officials,” writes Hershey. “Votes are counted in most American elections using plurality rules, or ‘winner take all.’ Whoever gets the most votes wins the single seat up for election.” </p>
<p>But in many other democracies, Hershey says, multiple political parties can thrive because of a different system of electing representatives. For example, Hershey writes, there are widely used systems that award seats proportionally to the percentage of votes a party wins. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The 1852 Whig Party presidential campaign poster. Within 10 years, the party was no more.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b50367/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
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<p>“In the Netherlands, for instance,” writes Hershey, “even a small ‘third’ party called the Party for the Animals – composed of animal rights supporters, not dogs and cats – won 3.2% of the legislative vote in 2017 and earned five seats, out of 150, in the national legislature.”</p>
<p>If that system existed in the U.S., that would mean even a small party would be smart to run Congressional candidates, because even if the party only got 5% of the vote, “they could win 5% of the state’s U.S. House seats.”</p>
<p>But a caveat: Those voters who call themselves “independent,” or say they’re disappointed by or disillusioned with political parties, are still influenced by vestigial party sentiment. Pollsters find, writes Hershey, “that most of these ‘independents’ actually lean toward either the Democrats or the Republicans, and their voting choices are almost as intensely partisan as those who do claim a party affiliation.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trump-is-more-likely-to-win-in-the-gop-than-to-take-his-followers-to-a-new-third-party-156001">Why Trump is more likely to win in the GOP than to take his followers to a new third party</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>3. Winning isn’t everything</h2>
<p>Not everyone sees failure at the ballot box as the final judgment on U.S. third parties. Winning elections isn’t necessarily the goal.</p>
<p>“The most successful third parties in U.S. politics don’t typically rise to dominance but instead <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-third-parties-can-rein-in-the-extremism-of-the-two-party-system-162403">challenge the major parties enough to force them to change course</a>,” writes political scientist <a href="https://www.valdosta.edu/about/directory/profile/bitamas">Bernard Tamas</a> of Valdosta State University.</p>
<p><iframe id="sX4JK" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sX4JK/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Tamas, who has written a book on U.S. third parties, says that they tend to emerge when Democrats and Republicans are politically polarized – something that has happened periodically since the Civil War. That polarization between parties means “larger groups of voters end up being not represented by either one, and the intense contention between them also increases political dissatisfaction.”</p>
<p>For the 50 years after the Civil War, the two parties were very polarized. Third parties were “aggressive and strong” during that period, Tamas writes.</p>
<p>But their aim wasn’t to make themselves an institution in a new, multiparty democracy – as the Forward Party’s leaders hope now.</p>
<p>For example, the Greenback Party in the 1870s and the Populist Party in the 1890s both aimed, via electoral victories, to force the major parties to adopt policies supporting “poor farmers and opposing business monopolies.” The Populist Party was especially successful in pressing the Democrats to embrace those positions. </p>
<p>Tamas predicted in 2021 that a new, centrist third party would emerge – very much like the party that made its debut on July 28. He noted that challenging the Trump-influenced GOP would be a main focus of such a party.</p>
<p>“The new party could gain strategic advantages by fielding candidates in local and state elections in more moderate places where some Republican candidates have nevertheless chosen to follow their party to the extreme,” he writes. </p>
<p>But even if the Forward Party raises money and fields successful candidates, it may not be long in the U.S. political landscape.</p>
<p>“The Progressive Party existed for less than a decade, for example,” Tamas writes. “But by strategically winning the votes of moderate conservatives and thereby undermining Republicans’ electoral goals, even if briefly, a new third party could stop the GOP from hurtling farther down an extreme and undemocratic path.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-third-parties-can-rein-in-the-extremism-of-the-two-party-system-162403">US third parties can rein in the extremism of the two-party system</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
There’s a new party in town – but it may not last long.Naomi Schalit, Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1787092022-03-11T13:20:35Z2022-03-11T13:20:35ZThe American founders could teach Putin a lesson: Provoking an unnecessary war is not how to prove your masculinity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451355/original/file-20220310-27-stamzr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C7%2C4700%2C3136&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are lots of official photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin shirtless, including this one from August 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-sunbathes-during-his-news-photo/826469180?adppopup=true">Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Vladimir Putin of Russia loves shows of machismo. He constantly pumps up his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/dec/16/the-gunslinger-gait-of-vladimir-putin-walk-video">swagger</a>. He is wont to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vladimir-putin-cnbc-sexist-pipeline-b1938528.html">disparage women</a>. And he has repeatedly appeared on the public stage <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-defends-shirtless-photos-i-see-no-need-to-hide-2018-6">bare-chested</a> or as a formidable judo athlete. </p>
<p>Putin likely carries out such performances for a series of reasons: to reassure himself that he belongs to a group of famous <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/strongmen">strongmen</a>; to demonstrate his theory that a good leader is one who thrives on flamboyant, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/lawless-masculinity-gop/620732/">unchecked virility</a>; and to show his constituents – <a href="https://krytyka.com/sites/krytyka/files/sperling_0.pdf">including many international acolytes</a> – that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504220920189">male authority isn’t really under threat</a>.</p>
<p>You might laugh at such childish and cartoonish convictions and attitudes. But attitudes sometimes are not just a matter of personal style or political opportunism; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/03/09/putin-ukraine-invasion-militarized-masculinity-psychology/9426237002/">they can lead to dramatic global consequences</a>, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>Looking at Putin, you could make the case that <a href="https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/leaders-toxic-hyper-masculinity-results-in-war/">machismo results in war</a>: For these types of men and leaders, a war seems to offer the ultimate test in masculinity.</p>
<p>As a historian who has spent years writing a book on <a href="https://press.prod.jhu.mindgrb.io/books/title/12786/first-among-men">George Washington’s leadership and masculinity</a>, I have no qualms about stating that, for that long-gone generation that created an independent country, wars didn’t feed their egos.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in white judo costumes with one man throwing the other onto the floor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vladimir Putin (top), then Russia’s prime minister, takes part in a judo training session during a visit to St Petersburg on Dec. 18, 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-prime-minister-vladimir-putin-takes-part-in-a-judo-news-photo/1223813355?adppopup=true">Alexey Druzhinin/RIA NOVOSTI/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>On the battlefield</h2>
<p>The American founders were often misogynists and racists. They could be reckless and brutal. But they didn’t crave wars just to prove that they were real men.</p>
<p>It’s true that Alexander Hamilton once made a shocking confession to a friend, “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0002">I wish there was a War</a>.” But that’s precisely the point: He was a 12-year-old boy when he wrote that, not yet a man. </p>
<p>None of the founders were <a href="https://archive.org/details/halfwaypacifistt0000stua">pacifists</a>. Together they built a navy and an army. They studied the art of war by reading <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Caesar-Roman-ruler">Julius Caesar</a> or <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Treatise_of_Military_Discipline.html?id=xHtUAAAAYAAJ">Humphrey Bland</a>, author of a popular “Treatise of Military Discipline.” They all accepted wars as a necessity, especially when every other option was impractical.</p>
<p>Moreover, they saw war as inevitable because they didn’t trust human nature: “This pugnacious humor of Mankind,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “<a href="https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-04-02-02-2840">seems to be the law of his nature</a>.” </p>
<p>“So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities,” James Madison had already declared, that “the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">their most violent conflicts</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dead body lying under a bloody white cloth, with a suitcase next to it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A local volunteer lies dead after the the Russian army shelled an evacuation point in Irpin, Ukraine, on March 6, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/local-volunteer-lies-dead-on-the-ground-after-the-shelling-news-photo/1381188012?adppopup=true">Diego Herrera/Europa Press via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The majority of the founders also didn’t shelter in their palaces, as Putin has done, seated at an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-ukraine-russia-crisis-long-table-kremlin-memes-rcna16670">impossibly long table</a>. “I had 4 Bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under me,” George Washington wrote after the <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-the-monongahela/">battle of the Monongahela River</a> in 1755. “Death was levelling my companions on <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-01-02-0169">every side of me</a>.”</p>
<p>Washington, Hamilton and others could be easily found on actual battlefields where <a href="http://holgerhoock.com/books/scars-of-independence/">countless horrors took place</a>.</p>
<p>On May 31, 1777, William Martin, lieutenant of Oliver Spencer’s Additional Continental Regiment, for instance, was ambushed by a British-Hessian unit near Bound Brook, New Jersey. Wounded, he asked for clemency, but to no avail. He was “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0588">butchered with the greatest cruelty</a>,” wrote one observer. He was bayoneted about 20 times. His nose was cut off and his eyes yanked out.</p>
<p>Washington ordered some soldiers to bring Martin’s body to his headquarters. He had the body washed and shown as proof of the enemy’s inhumanity and lack of virility. Eventually, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0588">he sent the body to the British commander, General Cornwallis</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An antique letter in flowery handwriting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘It is with infinite regret, I am again compelled, to remonstrate against that spirit of wanton cruelty, that … influenced the conduct of your soldiery,’ Gen. George Washington wrote to British Lieutenant General Cornwallis on June 2, 1777.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw4.042_0079_0080/?sp=1">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Never crave wars’</h2>
<p>In the 18th century, the soldier was a good example of a truly virile man, but only provided he kept acting soldierly.</p>
<p>Look at our enemies, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-18-02-0029">Washington exclaimed</a> in a letter to Patrick Henry; look at the spectacle of recklessness they offer. They only bring “devastation,” whether upon “defenceless towns,” or “helpless Women & Children.” His conclusion was clear: “Resentment & unsoldiery practices” have “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-18-02-0029">taken place of all the Manly virtues</a>.”</p>
<p>Walking the razor-thin line between real and pretended masculinity isn’t easy. But 18th-century leaders knew what had to be avoided at all costs. Only “Unmanly Men,” <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-11-02-0012">Benjamin Franklin realized</a>, would “come with Weapons against the Unarmed.” They would “use the Sword against Women, and the Bayonet against young Children.”</p>
<p>Manly men, in fact, put up with wars; but they never crave wars, let alone provoke wars, according to the American founders. A virile man, especially a soldier, must be propelled by the vision of an intellectual, cultural and moral refinement: “I must study Politicks and War,” John Adams once wrote, so that “my sons may have liberty to study <a href="https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17800512jasecond">Mathematicks and Philosophy</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine">Thomas Paine</a>, the author of influential political pamphlets, would articulate the same idea: “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm">that my child may have peace</a>.”</p>
<p>That inspiring image of children reaping the fruits of peace — definitely at odds with Putin’s shows of bravado through the years — is taken from the Bible. But the image has a political bent and doesn’t belong to any specific religion: People shall “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%202%3A4">shall they learn war any more</a>.”</p>
<p>Washington, a man and a leader graced with a hefty dose of masculinity, agreed completely: “That the swords might be turned into plough-shares, the spears into pruning hooks — and, as the Scripture expresses it, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-06-02-0202">the nations learn war no more</a>.”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A leader’s machismo can lead to war, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has long displayed his version of hyper-masculinity. A historian says that for America’s founders, wars never fed their egos.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1721792021-12-03T13:49:44Z2021-12-03T13:49:44ZPolitical rage: America survived a decade of anger in the 18th century – but can it now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434806/original/file-20211130-15-g42urh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=109%2C18%2C3922%2C2758&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting a whiskey tax during George Washington's presidency.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-depicting-the-whiskey-rebellion-a-tax-protest-in-news-photo/174124728?adppopup=true">Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108868303">an anger problem</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/RcmNNtOwIQg">People rage at each other</a>. They <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58014719">are angry at public officials</a> for shutting down parts of society. Or for the opposite reason because <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/anger-control-protests-masks-coronavirus/2020/06/29/a1e882d0-b279-11ea-8758-bfd1d045525a_story.html">they aren’t doing enough to curb the virus</a>. Democrats vent their rage at Republicans. And Republicans treat Democrats <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/10/most-republicans-see-democrats-not-political-opponents-enemies/">not as opponents, but as enemies</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the American founders are being literally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/nyregion/thomas-jefferson-statue-nyc.html">taken off of their pedestals</a> in a rejection of the history they represent. And, of course, a violent mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in early 2021, trying to disrupt that most fundamental of U.S. institutions, the peaceful transfer of presidential power.</p>
<p>But public rage and hysteria in America aren’t new. The 1790s, as well, were a period of political violence. </p>
<p>Over that entire decade, political opponents pelted each other with the accusation that they had lost the true American principles. Just as today, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2710783">delusion stood in place of reality</a>.</p>
<p>Despite that decade of rage, however, America came together as a nation. Today’s rage-filled country may not end the same way. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trump supporters and police, clashing as they push barricades and storm the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434807/original/file-20211130-17-y9bp9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A pro-Trump mob storms the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trump-supporters-clash-with-police-and-security-forces-as-news-photo/1230455457?adppopup=true">Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Strong passions, angry mobs</h2>
<p>Following a <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/whiskey-rebellion">1791 tax on whiskey</a>, western Pennsylvania was set ablaze. Angry mobs torched buildings. Federal tax inspectors were beaten up, stripped naked and <a href="https://revolution.h-net.msu.edu/essays/irvin.feathers.html">tarred and feathered</a>. A few people died.</p>
<p>Political discourse was similarly inflamed. Passions were strong. Articles appeared in newspapers that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1996/09/11/when-politics-was-really-ugly/dd3cd4b8-5e85-44de-a795-36e211c1a032/">portrayed President George Washington as a scoundrel, a swindler, the king of all Pied Pipers</a>.</p>
<p>“If ever a nation was debauched by a man, <a href="https://washingtonpapers.org/fake-news-newspapers-and-george-washingtons-second-presidential-administration/">the American nation has been debauched by WASHINGTON</a>,” read the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser from December 1796. “If ever a nation has suffered from the improper influence of a man, the American nation has suffered from the influence of WASHINGTON.”</p>
<p>One could also hear Virginians drinking to the toast “<a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/impeach-president-washington">A speedy Death to General Washington</a>.”</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson noticed that times had changed. He had seen warm debates and high political passions before, but never such levels of bigotry: “Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0357#TSJN-01-29-0363-fn-0015">lest they should be obliged to touch their hat</a>,” he wrote in June 1797.</p>
<h2>America as family</h2>
<p><a href="https://unito.academia.edu/MaurizioValsania/CurriculumVitae">As a historian of the early republic</a>, I offer that if Americans have always been so angry and ready to snap, it is because they care – at least at some level, at least instinctively. Popular despondency and disillusionment would be much worse. </p>
<p>They may not admit it, but Americans care because the United States is like a family – and in the family, passions are strong.</p>
<p>This is no sentimentalism: Americans have long defined themselves as a family. They’ve done it from the birth of the republic.</p>
<p>A quick reading of <a href="https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm">the Constitution</a> shows that the nation has never been treated as a contract among strangers, a deal that could be severed at short notice. It was conceptualized as an expansive family, a living organism, the truest embodiment of “We The People.”</p>
<p>In the late 18th century, the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers">framers of the Constitution</a> saw affection as the defining trait of the American experiment; but the main problem, for them, was to build and sustain affection.</p>
<p><a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed14.asp">Do not listen, framer James Madison averred</a>, “to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire.” </p>
<p>During the years of the Revolution, it was relatively easy. An external enemy, the British, was a sufficient incentive for Americans to love one another.</p>
<p>With independence gained, things got murky. <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed17.asp">Alexander Hamilton, the most famous among the framers, was uncomfortable</a>: “Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large, the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the government of the Union.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The presidential portrait of James Madison, white-haired, wearing a white shirt and black jacket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434811/original/file-20211130-24-kosxck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Founding father James Madison described Americans as ‘knit together … by so many cords of affection.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-4th-united-states-president-james-madison-news-photo/803358?adppopup=true">National Archives/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sticking together</h2>
<p>Devising practical methods to boost attachment and counter rage was the big challenge of the 1790s. As professor of government <a href="https://www.cmc.edu/academic/faculty/profile/emily-pears">Emily Pears</a> points out, 18th-century political leaders suggested <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-3278-7.html">three main approaches to achieve this</a>.</p>
<p>The first was building a better federal administration that could deliver personal and material benefits to its citizens. Providing funding for infrastructure, creating efficient networks for commerce or levying equitable taxes would eventually win people’s attachments.</p>
<p>The second was forming shared cultural practices. Making citizens feel that they have the same political values, and that there is a common history and tradition they are part of, would generate pride and comradeship. Symbols like flags, songs, toasts or parades would help develop these connections.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<p>The third was trying to increase participation. Through the process of voting, citizens would get closer to one another and to their representatives. Participation would make connections stronger, thus fostering affection.</p>
<h2>Can the center hold?</h2>
<p>Whether any of these three approaches is still viable today is unclear.</p>
<p>The first, the utilitarian approach, depends on leaders’ ability to tackle issues of social justice and inclusion: Who are the beneficiaries of the federal government? Who are its citizens?</p>
<p>The second, the cultural approach, is obviously marred by the “other side” of national history, slavery. The question is unavoidable: Whose history, whose traditions are Americans talking about?</p>
<p>And the third, the participatory approach, is discouraged by the very parties that put obstacles in place. Is there a way to get rid of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-voting-districts-fair-to-voters-not-parties-162651">gerrymandering and other barriers</a> to full representation?</p>
<p>And yet, finding strategies that would enhance emotional bonds is crucial to any nation. Especially today. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/02/two-populist-movements-sanders-trump/">Rage is on the rise</a>. Eventually, popular despondency and disillusionment may come. </p>
<p>Family will be broken.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172179/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like today, passions were strong and political discourse was inflamed in late 18th-century America. Angry mobs torched buildings. Virginians drank a toast to George Washington’s speedy death.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1699242021-10-21T12:45:18Z2021-10-21T12:45:18ZThe American founders didn’t believe your sacred freedom means you can do whatever you want – not even when it comes to vaccines and your own body<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427319/original/file-20211019-18-atnfa9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C5298%2C3766&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests against mandates and quarantines get the Founding Fathers' ideas wrong.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/small-group-of-approximately-50-people-hold-open-solvang-news-photo/1222462576?adppopup=true">George Rose/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/us/politics/biden-mandates-vaccines.html">Joe Biden has mandated vaccines</a> for a large part of the American workforce, a requirement that has prompted <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/14/metro/new-hampshire-protests-over-covid-mandates-roil-state-local-governments/">protest from those opposed to the measure</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a similar move in New York City to enforce vaccinations has resulted in more than <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/10/09/over-a-dozen-businesses-fined-for-flouting-nyc-vaccine-mandate/">a dozen businesses’ being fined for flouting the rules</a>.</p>
<p>The basic idea behind the objections: Such mandates, which also extend to requirements to wear masks and quarantine if exposed to COVID-19, are a breach of the Constitution’s <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">14th Amendment</a>, which states that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” </p>
<p>The objectors ask: Aren’t mandates un-American?</p>
<p>As a scholar who has spent decades trying to unravel the hurdles that mark the beginning of this nation, I offer some facts in response to that question – a few very American facts: Vaccination mandates have <a href="https://www.governing.com/now/the-long-history-of-mandated-vaccines-in-the-united-states">existed in the past</a>, even though they have similarly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/us/politics/vaccine-mandates-history.html">sparked popular rage</a>. </p>
<p>No vaccination foe, no latter-day fan of the Gadsden Flag’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/yellow-gadsden-flag-prominent-in-capitol-takeover-carries-a-long-and-shifting-history-145142">DONT TREAD ON ME</a>” message, would ever gain the posthumous approval of the American founders.</p>
<p>George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and the rest of the group cultivated different visions about America. But they agreed on one principle: They were unrelenting on the notion that circumstances often emerge that require public officials to pass acts that abridge individual freedoms.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A print of Gen. George Washington standing among his fellow Revolutionary War generals." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427287/original/file-20211019-19-2btmux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gen. George Washington, center, ordered smallpox inoculations for his soldiers, saying there was ‘no possible way of saving the lives of most of those who had not had it, but by introducing innoculation generally.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lccn.loc.gov/2006691571">Ritchie, Alexander Hay, engraver; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Keen sense of civic duty</h2>
<p>Most of the founders, to begin with, were slave owners, not especially concerned about trampling over and <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">abridging</a> the rights of the persons they held in bondage. But even when they dealt with those they deemed to be their peers, American citizens, their attitude was rather authoritarian – at least by today’s standards.</p>
<p>In 1777, during the American Revolution, Washington had his officers and troops <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/video/view/7O5xE5hMNkU?pid=PLr40fFkNNADFEgbM2t-CG0kGnHRDHZoje">inoculated against smallpox</a>. The procedure was <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/inoculation">risky</a>. But for Washington, the pros outweighed the cons. It was an order, an actual mandate, not an option that individuals could discuss and eventually decide. </p>
<p>“After every attempt to stop the progress of the small Pox,” Washington explained to the New York Convention, “I found, that it gained such head among the Southern Troops, that there was no possible way of saving the lives of most of those who had not had it, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22After%20every%20attempt%20to%20stop%20the%20progress%20of%20the%20small%20Pox%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">but by introducing innoculation generally</a>.”</p>
<p>During the summer of 1793 an epidemic of yellow fever <a href="https://www.history.com/news/yellow-fever-outbreak-philadelphia">struck Philadelphia</a>, then the American capital. It shattered the city’s health and political infrastructure. Food supplies dwindled; business stopped. Government – federal, state and municipal – was suspended. Within just three months, 5,000 out of nearly 55,000 inhabitants died of the infection.</p>
<p>Public hysteria took off. Philadelphians at first pinned the outbreak on the arrival of refugees from the French colony of Saint-Domingue who were escaping that island’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution">slave revolution</a>. </p>
<p>But there was also heroism. Black clergymen <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Allen">Richard Allen</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalom_Jones">Absalom Jones</a>, for example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-philadelphias-black-churches-overcame-disease-depression-and-civil-strife-153374">tirelessly transported the sick, administered remedies and buried the dead</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/philadelphia-under-siege-yellow-fever-1793">Urged on by Gov. Thomas Mifflin</a>, the Pennsylvania state Legislature imposed sweeping quarantines. And almost everyone complied. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Knox">Henry Knox, then the U.S. secretary of war</a>, didn’t object. Knox had fought during the Revolution. He had risked his life on many battles. He had developed a keen sense of what “civic duty” means: “I have yet six days quarantine to perform,” he wrote to President Washington, “which of the choice of evils <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22I%20have%20yet%20six%20days%C2%A0quarantine%C2%A0to%20perform%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">is the least</a>.”</p>
<h2>‘Without a flinch’</h2>
<p>The epidemic didn’t abate as quickly as expected. By September 1794 <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/fever-major-american-epidemics-of-yellow-fever/">the yellow fever lingered in Baltimore</a>, where it had spread from Philadelphia. In 1795 it reached New York City.</p>
<p>One John Coverdale, from Henderskelfe, Yorkshire, England, wrote President Washington a long letter. He advocated more drastic measures, including three weeks of quarantine and policemen strategically placed in every corner to hinder people from passing from zone to zone; and he wanted people “to carry with them <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22certificates%20either%20of%20their%20coming%20from%20places%20not%20infected%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">certificates</a> either of their coming from places not infected or of their passing the line by permission.”</p>
<p>In other words, a quarantine, lockdown and vaccine passports. </p>
<p>No politician we know of at the time considered such measures un-American. In May of 1796, Congress adopted, and President Washington signed, the <a href="https://archive.org/details/lawsofunitedstat03unit/page/314/mode/2up?view=theater">first federal quarantine law</a>. There wasn’t much controversy. In 1799, Congress passed a second and more restrictive <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.22401000/?sp=1">quarantine law</a>. President Adams signed it without a flinch.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A head-and-shoulders portrait of Alexander Hamilton." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427271/original/file-20211019-19-a5pf9z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Founding Father Alexander Hamilton stated, ‘It shall never be said, with any color of truth, that my ambition or interest has stood in the way of the public good.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2016816335/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Ambition’ vs. public good</h2>
<p>So apparently it’s not certificates, quarantines and vaccine mandates that are un-American, <a href="https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1434978332513292291">as some maintain today</a>. </p>
<p>The argument that individual rights trump the greater good is un-American, or at least out of step with American tradition. It’s an attitude that the founders would have put under <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300182804/ambition-history">the encompassing banner of “ambition</a>.”</p>
<p>“Ambition” comes when individuals are blinded by their little – or large – egotisms and personal interests. They lose track of higher goals: the community, the republic, the nation. In the most severe cases, ambition turns anti-social.</p>
<p>Ambitious individuals, the founders were sure, are persons stripped of their membership in a community. They choose to relegate themselves to their solitary imagination. They have become slaves to their own opinions.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton">Alexander Hamilton</a> was tired of being turned into the butt of endless accusations: “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22my%20ambition%20or%20interest%20has%20stood%20in%20the%20way%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=2&sr=">It shall never be said</a>, with any color of truth, that my ambition or interest has stood in the way of the public good.”</p>
<p>When facing a quarantine, a mandate, or similar momentary abridgments of their liberties, many Americans today react the same way Hamilton did. Like Hamilton, they look beyond themselves, their opinions, their interests. They don’t lose sight of the public good.</p>
<p>Others remain ambitious.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>._]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Founding Fathers were unrelenting in their commitment to the idea that circumstances can arise that require public officials to take actions abridging individual freedoms.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1686002021-09-28T19:04:06Z2021-09-28T19:04:06ZThe Supreme Court’s immense power may pose a danger to its legitimacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423333/original/file-20210927-27-11bt8b3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C8155%2C5464&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supreme Court has no army to enforce its decisions; its authority rests solely on its legitimacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-u-s-supreme-court-is-shown-june-21-2021-in-washington-news-photo/1324719634?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-the-supreme-court-starts-on-the-first-monday-in-october">The first Monday in October</a> is the traditional day that the U.S. Supreme Court convenes for its new term. Analysts and soothsayers carefully read the signals and forecast the direction the court will take. This year the scrutiny seems a little more intense, as the court takes up several highly charged cases. </p>
<p>Alexander Hamilton famously thought the judiciary would be the weakest branch of government. <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp">He recognized that the Supreme Court lacked “the sword and the purse”</a> and could not enforce or implement its own decisions. Rather, it would need to rely on the good offices of the other branches.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=utLMvy4AAAAJ&hl=en">As a student of</a> the Supreme Court, I have examined how the power and authority of the Court have waxed and waned over the centuries. The modern Supreme Court, dating back to <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483">Brown v. Board of Education in 1954</a>, is one of the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691141022/political-foundations-of-judicial-supremacy">most powerful tribunals in the world and across history</a>. </p>
<p>That immense power has arguably made the court a leading player in enacting policy in the U.S. It may also cause the loss of the court’s legitimacy, which can be defined as popular acceptance of a government,
political regime or system of governance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six Black schoolchildren involved in the Brown v. Board of Education case, dressed up and standing in a line." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423338/original/file-20210927-15-a3bji5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court ruled that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. These are the children involved in the landmark case.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-the-children-involved-in-the-landmark-civil-news-photo/88533848?adppopup=true">Carl Iwasaki/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>May it please the Court</h2>
<p>When the founding fathers designed U.S. government, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/13/the-president-was-never-intended-to-be-the-most-powerful-part-of-government/">Congress was supposed to be the most powerful institution</a>. But gridlock has sapped its vitality. Presidents, who have enormous power in foreign affairs, are often constrained in domestic politics. The limits on the Supreme Court - no army, no administrative enforcers - may be real, but the judiciary, with the Supreme Court at its apex, has become in the view of some, the most powerful branch of government. </p>
<p>One of the lures of the Supreme Court is that a victory can be etched in stone as a precedent that can be used for decades.</p>
<p>The U.S. government, states, corporations, unions and interest groups are among the so-called “<a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2960277">repeat players</a>” who strategically use the courts – including the Supreme Court – to supplement their lobbying efforts and further their policy objectives. </p>
<p>An interest group like the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/about/aclu-history">American Civil Liberties Union</a> might go to the Supreme Court to protect a bookseller’s free expression. The <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/national-association-advancement-colored-people-naacp">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People</a>, now called simply the NAACP, might challenge state or national legislation that is perceived to suppress voting rights. The U.S. government might prosecute a defendant charged with violating an indecency act. <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/publications/appellate_issues/2019/winter/judicial-courage-judicial-heroes-and-the-civil-rights-movement/">Civil rights advocates famously used the judicial branch</a> because Congress, the president or both were not responsive. </p>
<p>Groups, of course, might use the courts because the judiciary is the most appropriate venue to defend the rights of unpopular groups or ensure protections for defendants. The courts might <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3621952.html">better protect against tyranny of the majority</a>. Groups might bring a case to protect the free exercise of religion by Muslims or challenge aid to religious schools as favoring one religion over another. </p>
<h2>The ultimate resource: legitimacy</h2>
<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/316817/approval-supreme-court-highest-2009.aspx">The Supreme Court’s public approval</a> annually hovers around 50% to 60%, which is much better than Congress and typically better than the president. But that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/09/22/supreme-courts-approval-rate-plunges-amid-abortion-debate-poll-finds/">approval is at its lowest ebb in decades</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-nominations-us-history-amy-coney-barrett-2020-10">controversy over recent nominations</a>, threats to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/democrats-introduce-bill-expand-supreme-court-9-13-justices-n1264132">pack the court</a>, and whispers that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-precedent-dozens-of-times-in-the-past-60-years-including-when-it-struck-down-legal-segregation-168052">certain precedents are about to be overturned</a> have held the court up to more attention and threaten its legitimacy. And the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/curbing-the-court/97B607067A2E7392C2223EF7E642FC7A">court’s ultimate authority rests on its legitimacy</a>. If the court is seen as too political, it will bleed this precious resource. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court has almost complete discretion over the cases that it hears. It annually gets <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-supreme-court-compendium/book244744">7,000 to 8,000 petitions for its attention</a> and it routinely takes about 85 cases for full review. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Anti-abortion activists holding signs in front of the Supreme Court." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423345/original/file-20210927-21-3wsgeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Supreme Court will take up a case this term that challenges the constitutional right to an abortion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AbortionBattlegrounds/78ad9c6eb1ee40a3b0064f1e5de97c3a/photo?Query=U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20protest&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=340&currentItemNo=31">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The court takes cases <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Supreme-Court-in-a-Separation-of-Powers-System-The-Nations-Balance/Pacelle/p/book/9780415894302">to resolve disputes between lower courts and because the parties are raising important issues</a>. But having a really important issue does not ensure the court will review it. </p>
<p>Sometimes the court simply wants to let an issue <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Supreme-Court-in-a-Separation-of-Powers-System-The-Nations-Balance/Pacelle/p/book/9780415894302">develop a little more in the lower courts before addressing it</a>. The court may not want to get ahead of public opinion. For years, the court simply <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Supreme-Court-in-a-Separation-of-Powers-System-The-Nations-Balance/Pacelle/p/book/9780415894302">refused to take cases involving gay rights</a>. Sometimes, they try to avoid an issue in hopes Congress or the states might be compelled to intervene.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/constitutional.aspx">The court’s ultimate decision is binding precedent</a> on lower courts and the justices themselves. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3481421">justices have been criticized for</a> using the court to make policy decisions. This is controversial in part because the justices are not elected and enjoy lifetime tenure. They cannot be voted out of office. </p>
<p>Critics prefer that the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Supreme-Court-in-a-Separation-of-Powers-System-The-Nations-Balance/Pacelle/p/book/9780415894302">court adopt judicial restraint and defer</a> to the elected branches of government who could be removed by the voters if they oppose their policies. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/judicial-activism">Both sides charge the other with being activists</a>, which is the worst insult you could levy at a judge. </p>
<p>But the court’s willingness to push its way into the political maelstrom has quietly been welcomed by the other branches that can avoid the difficult questions and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/american-politicians-confront-court-opposition-politics-and-changing-responses-judicial-power">then curry favor with the voters by criticizing the court</a>. </p>
<h2>A court of law or of men and women?</h2>
<p>As this Supreme Court term begins, opponents and proponents of reproductive rights are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/us/politics/supreme-court-roe-wade.html">predicting the court will overrule one of its precedents, Roe v. Wade</a>. Of course, this would not be the first time that such a prediction has been made. </p>
<p>Anyone analyzing the court needs to reconcile two competing realities. First, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decision-making-by-the-modern-supreme-court/56145C06CC46E9D321A0BEE9FD46045D">justices are relatively consistent in their decision-making</a>: <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/162878/barrett-roberts-moderate-supreme-court-term">Conservatives issue conservative decisions</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/10/liberal-supreme-court-justices-vote-in-lockstep-not-the-conservative-justices-column/2028450001/">liberals issue liberal ones</a>. Second, the court itself <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-precedent-dozens-of-times-in-the-past-60-years-including-when-it-struck-down-legal-segregation-168052">seldom overrules one of its precedents</a>. In addition, despite the divisions on the court, usually about <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-supreme-court-compendium/book244744">one-third of the cases are decided unanimously</a>.</p>
<p>Two decades ago, seven of the sitting justices at the time expressed the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/curbing-the-court/97B607067A2E7392C2223EF7E642FC7A">view that Roe was wrongly decided</a>, but a majority of that court never voted to relegate it to the dustbin of history. </p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-precedent-dozens-of-times-in-the-past-60-years-including-when-it-struck-down-legal-segregation-168052">when the court does overturn precedents</a> – for instance, <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-supreme-court-rules-against-segregation#:%7E:text=The%20decision%20of%20Brown%20v,Ferguson%20in%201896.">Brown reversed Plessy v. Ferguson, ending legal segregation</a> – it is after the passage of time. <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691136332/the-politics-of-precedent-on-the-us-supreme-court">Fifty years is typical</a> and Roe is approaching that hallmark.</p>
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<p>Occasionally, the court makes a decision that is out of step with public opinion and may pay a hefty institutional price. When the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/60us393">Taney Court issued the Dred Scott v. Sanford ruling in 1857</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Dred-Scott-decision">claiming freed enslaved people could not become citizens and overruling the Missouri Compromise</a> that balanced the number of free and slave states, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/liberal-reckoning-courts/616425/">the decision weakened the judiciary for decades</a>. When the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-franklin-roosevelt-clashed-with-the-supreme-court-and-lost-78497994/">conservative-leaning court gutted portions of the New Deal</a>, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/separation-powers">President Franklin Roosevelt attacked the court</a> and the court backed down. </p>
<p>Overturning Roe would invite criticism and closer scrutiny. It might expose the court as an institution that makes the law rather than one that interprets it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard L. Pacelle Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Supreme Court is a leading player in enacting policy in the US. But it has no army to enforce its decisions; its authority rests solely on its legitimacy.Richard L. Pacelle Jr., Professor of Political Science, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676222021-09-10T12:27:48Z2021-09-10T12:27:48ZCalifornia recall: There’s a method to what looks like madness<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420306/original/file-20210909-23-1056rga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C7%2C5154%2C3389&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">California Gov. Gavin Newsom (standing) talks with volunteers who are phone-banking against the recall on Aug. 13, 2021, in San Francisco. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/california-gov-gavin-newsom-talks-with-volunteers-who-are-news-photo/1333995829?adppopup=true"> Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/2021-ca-gov-recall">The California governor recall election</a> has been yet another opportunity <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/california-recall-election-gavin-newsom.html">to portray California as a strange place</a> with very odd practices. </p>
<p>And the recall truly has bizarre quirks that could, for example, <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/2021-ca-gov-recall/newsom-recall-faqs?ltclid=4cc29b6b-6cc2-4250-98f2-055dc9ef7a1cif%20it">produce a replacement governor with much less voter support</a> than the incumbent governor – Gavin Newsom – facing recall. With <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Gavin_Newsom_recall,_Governor_of_California_(2019-2021)">46 recall challengers vying for Newsom’s job</a> and only a plurality required to win, it’s possible a winning candidate could become governor with far less than 50% of the vote. </p>
<p>But California’s direct democracy, which is <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/03/editorial-california-needs-to-change-recall-law">being savaged by writers from within California – “Elections are supposed to represent the will, not the whim, of voters” says a Mercury News editorial</a> – as well as from the usual suspects who are outside the state, reflects an important, even if flawed, vehicle to update America’s durable but staid democratic institutions. </p>
<h2>Founders not keen on direct democracy</h2>
<p>By the standards of the American republic founded in 1789, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/all-about-america/todays-democracy-isnt-exactly-what-wealthy-us-founding-fathers-envisioned">direct democracy is, much like California itself, a new kid on the block</a>. </p>
<p>The founding doctrine of American government was a stable representative republic in which elected leaders would <a href="https://nccs.net/blogs/our-ageless-constitution/separation-of-powers">check and balance each other</a> by their service in governing bodies that were formally separate, but with shared authority. In other words, the officeholders would hold their fellow officeholders accountable. This same plan forms the basis of all 50 state governments today.</p>
<p>The Founding Fathers hated any type of direct democracy and made their feelings known about it. “Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy,” <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0098-0004">wrote Alexander Hamilton</a>. “Their turbulent and uncontrouling disposition requires checks.” </p>
<p>The Progressives of the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, thought that direct democracy was the essential solution to a problem the Constitution did not address: What if elected leaders were neither willing nor able to hold one another accountable? </p>
<p>In more contemporary terms, direct democracy also addresses cases in which the popular will is frustrated by the arcane, slow and even obstructive legislative process. Checks and balances can mean no progress at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gov.-election Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governor Gray Davis standing behind Davis' desk at the state Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) meets with Gov. Gray Davis, who lost to him in a recall election, on Oct. 23, 2003, at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/governor-elect-arnold-schwarzenegger-meets-with-governor-news-photo/2634336?adppopup=true">Rich Pedroncelli-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Protecting the peoples’ needs</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States/The-Progressive-era">The Progressive movement</a> enjoyed great popularity in the western and southwestern states that were not part of the original 13 states. It built on a deep suspicion that representative government could not protect the needs of the people because it could not resist the power of special interests.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.openedition.org/siecles/1109?lang=en">In California, where the Progressives put down deep roots</a>, reformers loathed the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105158910">Southern Pacific Railroad, which managed to corrupt elected leaders</a> all over the State Capitol. No matter how many elections could be won by well-intended candidates for state assembly or state senate, the railroad would still dominate. </p>
<p>To the Progressives, the solution was to vest some legislative power directly in the hands of the voters, where presumably the Railroad could not reach through its control of elections and lobbying. As a result of a <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/History_of_Initiative_and_Referendum_in_California">voter-approved constitutional amendment passed in 1911</a>, California voters gave themselves the power to make a law – initiative – or to remove a law – referendum. Those were the original pillars of direct democracy envisioned by the Progressives. </p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Forms_of_direct_democracy_in_the_American_states">Many other states</a>, not just those in the original Progressive stomping grounds, adopted direct democracy. The initiative proved to be the workhorse of direct democracy, used far more often than either the referendum or the recall. Voter initiatives have even managed to get <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Utah_Proposition_3,_Medicaid_Expansion_Initiative_(2018)">Medicaid expansion onto the legislative agenda in a state like Utah</a>, whose elected officials refused to expand the program. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six photos of candidates in a magazine story about " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With almost four dozen candidates in the race to replace Newsom, the recall has been easy to poke fun at.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/colorful-recall-election-candidates/">Screenshot, LA Magazine</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big stick</h2>
<p>The recall, which vested devastating power in the hands of the voters, joined the Progressive agenda rather late. Its adoption was pioneered by a leading Los Angeles philanthropist, doctor, socialist and Progressive named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1937/10/31/archives/dr-john-r-haynes-surgeon-dies-at-84-civic-leader-in-los-angeles-and.html">John Randolph Haynes</a>. His advocacy led voters in <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-13-me-history13-story.html">Los Angeles to create the first recall provision in the nation</a> in its 1903 city charter. Haynes tirelessly pushed state Progressives to <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=303">include the recall in the landmark 1911 constitutional amendment</a> – and they did. </p>
<p>The California recall applies to <a href="https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/recalls/recall-procedures-guide.pdf">all statewide elected officials, members of the state legislature and judges of the appellate and supreme courts</a>. There’s a low bar to get a recall of statewide elected officials on the ballot: signatures from 12% of the number of those who voted in the previous election for the same office. The provision features simultaneous recall and replacement elections: If the voters choose to remove the incumbent, the candidate who receives a plurality of the votes becomes governor.</p>
<p>The recall is a powerful device to hold over the heads of state elected officials. Recall elections usually happen outside of the usual election cycle, when voters are not expected to be called upon to participate. It has more in common with “snap elections” in parliamentary democracies than the more predictable American election cycle. </p>
<p>Compared to the widely used initiative, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Recall_(political)">state recalls are very rare</a>. Since 1911, only 11 California state officials have faced recall campaigns that gathered enough signatures to make the ballot. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Recall_campaigns_in_California">Of those, only six were actually removed from office</a>: Sen. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Marshall_Black_recall,_California_(1913)">Marshall Black</a>, a Republican-Progressive, was removed in 1913 on charges of embezzlement. A year later, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Edwin_Grant_recall,_California_(1914)">Democrat Edwin E. Grant was removed for sponsorship of Red Light Abatement legislation</a>, which was wildly unpopular in his San Francisco district. Republican assembly members <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-17-mn-2826-story.html">Paul Horcher</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-19-mn-25636-story.html">Doris Allen</a> were recalled in an effort spearheaded by their own party in 1994 and 1995, respectively, for crossing party lines in the vote for speaker. </p>
<p>The most famous recall campaign came in 2003, when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, beleaguered by a power grid crisis, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Gray_Davis_recall,_Governor_of_California_(2003)">was driven from office and replaced by actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>, who received more votes than Davis received for staying in office. </p>
<p>While the success rate of state recalls is small, there seems to be an acceleration in effective efforts, driven by Republicans facing a deep electoral hole in regular elections. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Recall_campaigns_in_California">The last three recalls to make the ballot</a> have been aimed at Democrats: Davis in 2003, a successful recall of Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman, and the current campaign. </p>
<p>The California state recall may be on its way to becoming the low-visibility political tool of the minority party looking for vulnerable incumbents. Of all four governors in the nation who ever faced recall elections, <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall-history-california-1913-present">two were California Democrats during the heyday of their party’s ascendancy in state politics</a>.</p>
<p>While the public may love direct democracy, it has <a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/92-S.-Cal.-L.-Rev.-557-CALIFORNIA-CONSTITUTIONAL-LAW-DIRECT-DEMOCRACY.pdf">more critics than defenders</a> among students of politics. But it remains one of the few long-term structural reforms that has the potential to fix some of the problems of the American governmental system.</p>
<p>Voters may be able to improve direct democracy, keeping in mind its original purpose: to activate and mobilize a well-informed citizenry to correct the flaws of a democratic system of surprising longevity, but with a deep resistance to change.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand what’s going on in Washington.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphael J. Sonenshein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s easy to make fun of California politics. But a longtime scholar of those politics says the attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom is part of a long-running attempt to hold government accountable.Raphael J. Sonenshein, Executive Director, Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, California State University, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1627882021-07-08T18:12:07Z2021-07-08T18:12:07ZAmerica’s founders believed civic education and historical knowledge would prevent tyranny – and foster democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410238/original/file-20210707-27-11akvkr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C26%2C971%2C749&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The founders believed education was crucial to democracy. Here, a one-room schoolhouse in Breathitt County, Ky.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2017805041/">Photograph by Marion Post Wolcott/Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The majority of Americans today are anxious; they believe their democracy is <a href="http://maristpoll.marist.edu/npr-pbs-newshour-marist-poll-bidens-approval-rating/#sthash.oV7MyEGk.nAapWQx5.dpbs">under threat</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, democracies deteriorate easily. As was feared since the times of <a href="https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/why-plato-hated-democracy-3221e7dcd96e">Greek philosopher Plato</a>, they may suddenly succumb to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/james-madison-mob-rule/568351/">mob rule</a>. The people will think they have an inalienable right to manifest their opinions – which means to state out loud whatever passes through their minds. They will act accordingly, often violently. They will make <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-tyranny-could-be-the-inevitable-outcome-of-democracy-126158">questionable decisions</a>.</p>
<p>Democracies may pave the way to tyrants. Self-serving leaders will appear. They will seek to rewrite national history by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/politics/trump-1776-commission-report.html">purging it of complexity and inconvenient truths</a>. They will capitalize on the widespread frustration and profit from the chaotic situation.</p>
<p>Should these leaders seize power, they will curtail the people’s participation in politics. They will discriminate based on race, sex or religion. They will create <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/business/voting-rights-georgia-corporations.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage">barriers to democratic participation by certain constituents</a>, including moral tests or <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/democracy-exhibition/vote-voice/keeping-vote/state-rules-federal-rules/literacy-tests">literacy tests</a>.</p>
<p>So, one way democracies degenerate is because of cunning leaders. But democracies crumble also because of the people themselves. As an <a href="https://unito.academia.edu/MaurizioValsania/CurriculumVitae">intellectual historian</a>, I can assure you that the specter of an ignorant populace holding sway has kept many philosophers, writers and politicians awake.</p>
<p>The American founders were at the forefront in the battle against popular ignorance. They even concocted a plan for a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/367502">national public university</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of Thomas Jefferson in his later years, wearing a black jacket, white shirt and looking dignified, as befits a president." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410233/original/file-20210707-15-i6kpdo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Jefferson believed the young United States should ‘illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/thomas-jefferson">Portrait by Rembrandt Peale, the White House collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No democracy without education</h2>
<p><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montesquieu/">Baron Montesquieu</a>, a French philosopher who lived from 1689 to 1755, was a revolutionary figure. He had advocated the creation of governments for the people and with the people. But he had also averred that the uneducated would irremediably “act through passion.” Consequently, they “<a href="https://archive.org/details/spiritoflaws01baro/page/12/mode/2up?q=%22ought+to+be+directed+by+those+of%22">ought to be directed by those of higher rank, and restrained within bounds</a>.”</p>
<p>The men known as America’s Founding Fathers, likewise, were very sensitive to this issue. For them, not all voters were created equal. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton trusted the people – “the people” being, for them, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/the-founders-and-the-vote/">white property-owning males</a>, of course. But only if and when they had a sufficient level of literacy.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson was the most democratic-minded of the group. His vision of the new American nation entailed “a government by its citizens, in mass, acting directly and personally, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22acting%20directly%20and%20personally%22&s=1111311111&r=1&sr=">according to rules established by the majority</a>.” </p>
<p>He once gauged himself against George Washington: “The only point on which he and I ever differed in opinion,” Jefferson wrote, “was, that I had more confidence than he had in the <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22natural%20integrity%20and%20discretion%20of%20the%20people%22&s=1111311111&r=1&sr=">natural integrity and discretion of the people</a>.”</p>
<p>The paradox was that, for Jefferson himself, the “natural integrity” of the people needed to be cultivated: “<a href="https://books.google.it/books?id=6rOu3WYEiiQC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=%22Every+government+degenerates+when+trusted+to+the+rulers+of+the+people+alone.+The+people+themselves,+therefore,+are+its+only+safe+depositories.+And+to+render+even+them+safe,+the">Their minds must be improved to a certain degree</a>.” So, while the people are potentially the “safe depositories” for a democratic nation, in reality they have to go through a training process.</p>
<p>Jefferson was adamant, almost obsessive: the young country should “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22illuminate%2C%20as%20far%20as%20practicable%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large</a>.” More precisely, let’s “give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits.” </p>
<p>“<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22Educate%20and%20inform%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">Educate and inform</a> the whole mass of the people,” he kept repeating. It was an axiom in his mind “that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22our%20liberty%20can%20never%20be%20safe%20but%20in%20the%20hands%20of%20the%20people%20themselves%2C%20and%20that%2C%20too%2C%20of%20the%20people%20with%20a%20certain%20degree%20of%20instruction%22&s=1111311111&">with a certain degree of instruction</a>.”</p>
<p>Education had direct implications for democracy: “Wherever the people are well-informed,” <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/60.html#:%7E:text=a%20sense%20of%20this%20necessity,to%20set%20them%20to%20rights.">wrote Jefferson</a>, “they can be trusted with their own government.”</p>
<h2>A national university</h2>
<p>In 1787, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Rush">Benjamin Rush</a>, the Philadelphia doctor and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, published an “Address to the People of the United States.” </p>
<p>One of his main topics was the establishment of a “<a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/address-to-the-people-of-the-united-states/">federal university</a>” in which “every thing connected with government, such as history – the law of nature and nations – the civil law – the municipal laws of our country – and the principles of commerce – would be taught by competent professors.” Rush saw this plan as essential, should an experiment in democracy be attempted.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The top floor of the red brick Congress Hall in Philadelphia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410344/original/file-20210708-13-1akm6zn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1796, President George Washington gave his Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, seen here. He wanted to alert Congress to the ‘desirableness’ of ‘a national university.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/congress-hall-in-philadelphia-royalty-free-image/625947436?adppopup=true">Montes-Bradley/iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>George Washington stressed the same idea. At the end of his second term as president, in December 1796, Washington delivered his Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives. He wished to awaken Congress to the “desirableness” of “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washs08.asp">a national university</a> and also a military academy” whose wings would span over as many citizens as possible.</p>
<p>In his message, Washington embraced bold positions: “The more homogeneous our citizens can be made,” he claimed, “the greater will be our prospect of permanent union.”</p>
<h2>Democracy’s ‘safe depositories’</h2>
<p>A national university homogenizing the American people would likely be ill-received today anyway. We live in an age of race, gender and sexual awareness. Ours is an era of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/multiculturalism/">multiculturalism</a>, the sacrosanct acknowledgment and celebration of difference.</p>
<p>But Washington’s idea that the goal of public education was to make citizens somewhat more “homogeneous” is worth reconsidering. </p>
<p>Were President Washington alive today, I believe he would provide his recipe for the people to remain the “safe depositories” of democracy. He would insist on giving them better training in history, as both Rush and Jefferson also advised. And he would especially press for teaching deeper, more encompassing political values. </p>
<p>He would say that schools and universities must teach the people that in their political values they should go beyond separate identities and what makes them different. </p>
<p>He would trust that, armed with such a common understanding, they would foster a “permanent union” and thus save democracy.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand what’s going on in Washington.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democracies degenerate because of cunning leaders. Democracies also crumble because of the people themselves – and the US founders believed education would be crucial to maintaining democracy.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539362021-02-13T22:12:43Z2021-02-13T22:12:43ZTrump’s acquittal is a sign of ‘constitutional rot’ – partisanship overriding principles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384087/original/file-20210213-21-m2t8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5398%2C3571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The impeachment trial shows American democracy is in bad shape.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/concertina-razor-wire-tops-the-8-foot-non-scalable-fence-news-photo/1296392826?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/13/us/impeachment-trial#7-senate-republicans-vote-guilty-the-most-bipartisan-margin-in-favor-of-conviction-in-history">Senate’s decision to acquit former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial</a> may have been a victory for Trump, but it is a clear sign that democracy in the U.S. is in poor health. </p>
<p><a href="http://jfinn.faculty.wesleyan.edu/">As a constitutional scholar</a>, I believe the United States – the <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jul/11/paul-ryan/paul-ryan-claims-us-oldest-democracy-world-he-righ/">world’s first constitutional democracy</a> – is in a state of what I call “constitutional rot.”</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/white-papers/democratic-constitutionalism">constitutional democracy</a>, the <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/overview-rule-law">majority’s authority to govern is limited by the rule of law</a> and by a set of legal rules and principles set out in the Constitution. </p>
<p>Constitutional rot is a condition in which we appear to be formally governed by constitutional rules and the rule of law, but the reality is quite different. When rot sets in, public officials and the public routinely ignore or subvert those rules while sanctimoniously professing fidelity to them.</p>
<p>Constitutional rot is not only a failure of constitutional law — it is a failure of constitutional democracy.</p>
<h2>Appearance is not reality</h2>
<p>Among the practices and principles of a constitutional democracy are limited government and the separation of powers, majority rule through elections that are fair and free, respect for minority and individual liberties, and government based on reason and deliberation. These were famously stated in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed01.asp">Federalist #1</a>, an essay by Alexander Hamilton that laid out: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country … to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In my book, “<a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1962-7.html">Peopling the Constitution</a>,” I asked citizens to “imagine an ugly picture: A citizenry unwilling to hold its representatives or itself accountable to basic, fundamental constitutional rules and values.” This could happen either because fidelity to them is outweighed by some other goal, such as security or holding on to power, or because of a base impulse such as fear. </p>
<p>Or perhaps the people fail to hold representatives or themselves accountable because they do not know what those principles and values are or why or even if they are at risk.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot of Senate impeachment vote tally, 57-43" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384097/original/file-20210213-15-1furhx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this image from video, the final vote total of 57-43 meant an acquittal of former President Donald Trump of the impeachment charge because conviction requires a two-thirds majority vote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXTrumpImpeachment/7a6cb9fad80e47759ed2a500a7481652/photo?Query=impeachment%20AND%20vote&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2488&currentItemNo=3">Senate Television via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://millercenter.org/election-2020-and-its-aftermath">Election 2020 and its long aftermath</a>, culminating in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/evidence-trump-second-impeachment/">second impeachment trial of Trump</a>, is a clear and undeniable sign of just how rotten things are, constitutionally speaking. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/10/trump-impeachement-stop-the-steal-speakers-467554">Trump and many of his Republican supporters inflamed an insurrection</a> and encouraged violence directed at a coequal branch of government – Congress – as it <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/electoral-college/state-officials/presidential-election-brochure.pdf">discharged one of its most basic constitutional responsibilities</a> – determining the results of the presidential election. </p>
<p>What ended on <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/visual-timeline-attack-capitol-hill-unfolded/story?id=75112066">Jan. 6, 2021, as an assault on the peoples’ representatives</a> began months earlier as an attack on the electoral process. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-rioters.html">Trump and his allies justified both as the work of true constitutional patriots</a> intent on saving the republic from imaginary electoral fraud. </p>
<h2>Elections: The basics</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/election-political-science/Functions-of-elections">Elections that are free and fair</a> are central to constitutional democracy. This is why elections are a good marker of constitutional rot. </p>
<p>A constitutional democracy that cannot run elections that are free and fair, and which are acknowledged by winners and losers alike to be legitimate and conclusive, cannot call itself a democracy. </p>
<p>Just as important: <a href="https://millercenter.org/election-2020-and-its-aftermath">The perception of fairness and the anticipation of fairness are critical to electoral legitimacy</a> and public confidence in both the process and the result. Unwarranted and baseless attacks on the legitimacy of electoral results <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/04/13/trumps-lies-corrode-democracy/">do long-term, insidious damage</a> to the very fabric of constitutional democracy.</p>
<p>Election 2020, as assessed by professional and nonpartisan election officials, policy experts and academics, <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election">was one of the safest and most secure in American history</a>. Consider a simple and overwhelming fact: Trump and his allies filed over <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/">60 lawsuits trying to overturn the presidential election</a> in federal courts and lost all but one. </p>
<p>In many of those cases, the judges involved – <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-courts-election-results-e1297d874f45d2b14bc99c403abd0457">many of them Trump appointees – wrote opinions that spoke in unusually harsh language</a> about the frivolity of the lawsuits.</p>
<p>And yet Trump and many of his Republican compatriots, rather than acknowledge defeat, determined instead to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-wisconsin-misinformation-013e89a828a01668ba3da6a2f6f91ca9">baselessly delegitimize the election</a>. </p>
<p>Republican leaders, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/08/adam-kinzinger-trump-impeachment-senate-republicans/">many of whom knew that Trump’s allegations were without merit</a>, cynical and deeply corrosive of democracy, <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/11/23/with-democracy-under-threat-gop-silence-draws-scrutiny-and-censure/">said nothing or encouraged him</a>. That culminated in the certification vote in the House of Representatives on Jan. 6, when <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Certification_of_electoral_votes_(January_6-7,_2021)">121 Republican representatives voted not to accept the results from Arizona, and 138 voted</a> not to accept the results from Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>But that was not even the most significant evidence of constitutional rot on Jan. 6. Building <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965342252/timeline-what-trump-told-supporters-for-months-before-they-attacked">on a series of lies months – if not years – in the making</a>, the nation’s president encouraged his supporters to march on Capitol Hill, with tragic, deadly results. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A mob is fought back by police" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384089/original/file-20210213-13-xq1pcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police officers attempt to push back a pro-Trump mob trying to storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/police-officers-attempt-to-push-back-a-pro-trump-mob-trying-news-photo/1230456565?adppopup=true">Samuel Corum/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is constitutional rot irreversible?</h2>
<p>The constitutional customs and rules that govern elections <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/750">require public officials and citizens alike to enforce and apply them</a>. Otherwise they are sterile formalities.</p>
<p>In the end, a safe and healthy constitutional democracy depends upon elected public officials and an educated citizenry that values the principles and practices of constitutional democracy more than it values political power and partisan politics.</p>
<p>This is why the Senate’s failure to convict Trump should be seen as a sure sign of just how deep our constitutional rot goes. </p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s election newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>As the nation moves on, overcoming constitutional rot, I believe, requires public officials who have the courage to speak the truth and to defend the Constitution. That’s especially the case when the threat comes from one of its own. Trump’s acquittal in the Senate shows us just how uncommon public-minded officials are. </p>
<p>The country is fortunate that many judges, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html">some public officials, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger</a>, honored their oaths.</p>
<p>The Senate’s failure to convict Trump is a constitutional failure not just “in legal terms but in civic terms – <a href="https://thebulwark.com/impeachment-and-constitutional-rot/">a failure not primarily of political institutions but of civic attitudes</a>,” as constitutional scholar George Thomas recently wrote.</p>
<p>Overcoming rot would also rely on a foundation of constitutionally literate citizens who insist upon respect for basic constitutional values. </p>
<p>There is no guarantee that responsible citizens will always effectively guard constitutional values, but the best remedy for rot is civic education. Citizens will not hold their representatives – or themselves – to constitutional principles they don’t know or don’t understand. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-1540">Thomas Jefferson counseled</a>, “If we think the people not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John E. Finn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vote to acquit former President Trump for inciting the attack on the Capitol is a symptom of the dramatic decline of the US constitutional system, which is being eroded from within.John E. Finn, Professor Emeritus of Government, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522152021-01-12T13:22:06Z2021-01-12T13:22:06ZA brief history of the term ‘president-elect’ in the United States<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377787/original/file-20210108-13-1bju23q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=97%2C66%2C3820%2C2500&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Statue of George Washington in front of Federal Hall in New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/george-wahington-statue-royalty-free-image/172154583?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 20, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president of the United States. Until then, he is president-elect of the United States.</p>
<p>But what exactly does it mean to be president-elect of the United States? </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190">lawyer and philosopher who studies word meaning</a>, I have researched the meaning and history of the term “president-elect” using publicly available resources like the <a href="https://www.english-corpora.org/coha/">Corpus of Historical American English</a> – a searchable database of over 400 million words of historical American English text. I’ve also used <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/">Founders Online</a>, which makes freely available many documents written by the nation’s founders.</p>
<p>“President-elect” is not a term that is legally defined in U.S. law. Rather, the term’s meaning has developed over time through its use by the public. Its use can be traced all the way back to George Washington. </p>
<h2>The founders used it</h2>
<p>In 1793, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=president-elect&s=1111311111&sa=&r=10&sr=">Washington wrote a letter</a> concerning his upcoming second inauguration as president in which he referred to himself as “president-elect.” </p>
<p>Numerous letters by the Founding Fathers contain the term “president-elect” in connection with the 1796 presidential election. </p>
<p>Of particular note is a <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=president-elect&s=1111311111&sa=&r=14&sr=">letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson</a>, sent on Christmas Day 1796. Wrote Madison: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Unless the Vermont election of which little has of late been said, should contain some fatal vice, in it, Mr. Adams may be considered as the President elect. Nothing can deprive him of it but a general run of the votes in Georgia, Tenissee & Kentucky in favor of Mr. Pinkney, which is altogether contrary to the best information.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="James Madison" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377796/original/file-20210108-15-1thse2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a 1796 letter, James Madison asserted that John Adams could be considered president-elect.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-james-madison-by-unknown-artist-oil-on-canvas-news-photo/544176434?adppopup=true">VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The letter provides insight into how the term “president-elect” was understood at that time. Madison asserts that John Adams can be considered the president-elect, even though the results from at least four states – Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky – do not appear to have been known to Madison yet. </p>
<p>Madison’s comments suggest that it was appropriate at that time to consider someone president-elect once it appeared likely that they had secured enough votes to win the Electoral College. </p>
<p>Madison’s use of the term was similar to its use in a <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=president-elect&s=1111311111&sa=&r=13&sr=">letter that John Adams wrote to Abigail Adams</a> five days earlier, on Dec. 20, 1796. </p>
<p>John Adams suggests people have been toasting him “under the Title” of “The President elect.” The letter was written two-and-a-half months prior to Adams’ inauguration, which took place on March 4, 1797.</p>
<h2>19th- and 20th-century news media used it</h2>
<p>Beginning in the latter half of the 1800s, major news outlets regularly referred to the person who appeared to have won the presidency as “president-elect” soon after popular elections were complete. </p>
<p>In a post-election story published on Nov. 20, 1880, a New York Times article bore the headline “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1880/11/20/archives/gen-garfield-at-home-an-hour-with-the-president-elect-at-mentor.html">Gen. Garfield at Home: An Hour with the President-Elect at Mentor</a>.” </p>
<p>In subsequent years, the Times referred to apparent election victors as “president-elect” even sooner, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1892/11/13/archives/advice-to-office-seekers-commissioner-lyman-advises-them-not-to.html">Grover Cleveland on Nov. 13, 1892</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1896/11/19/archives/dingley-bill-doomed-republicans-oppose-tariff-legislation-this.html">William McKinley on Nov. 19, 1896</a>.</p>
<p>Other longstanding U.S. publications behaved similarly. The <a href="https://www.thenation.com/archive/">Nation</a> magazine called William Howard Taft the “president-elect” on Nov. 12, 1908, and did the same with Woodrow Wilson on Nov. 21, 1912.</p>
<p>Significantly, all these references were made <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/49th-congress/session-2/c49s2ch90.pdf">back when electors did not formally cast their votes for president until the second Monday in January</a> and presidential inaugurations did not happen until early March. This shows that there is a lengthy history of using the term “president-elect” long before electors cast their votes. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, Inauguration Day was moved into January and electors began casting their votes in December, but this does not seem to have had much effect on when and how the term “president-elect” was used by the public.</p>
<p>For example, Time magazine ran a <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,928183,00.html">story on “President-elect” Herbert Hoover on Nov. 19, 1928</a> (before Inauguration Day was changed), and a <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,756879,00.html">story on “President-elect” Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Nov. 16, 1936</a> (after Inauguration Day was changed). </p>
<h2>Congress used it</h2>
<p>While the term “president-elect” is not defined in federal law, Congress eventually incorporated it into the U.S. Constitution with the adoption of the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xx">20th Amendment</a> in 1933. That amendment states that “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President.” </p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p>
<p>When Congress does not define a term used in its legislation, it is <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-589.pdf">customary for courts to interpret that word in accordance with its ordinary meaning</a>. Thus, Congress’ decision not to define the term “president-elect” gives us reason to interpret it in accordance with its customary meaning throughout U.S. history.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden giving a speech under a sign that says 'President Elect.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378029/original/file-20210111-13-v5761p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sign above Joe Biden’s head says it all.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-elect-joe-biden-delivers-remarks-after-he-news-photo/1295354417?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everybody uses it</h2>
<p>In recent years, it has remained customary for news outlets and politicians to refer to a presidential candidate as president-elect as soon as it appears that the candidate has gained enough Electoral College votes to become president. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/moment-cnn-projects-trump-u-s-president-cnntv/index.html">CNN</a>, The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-president.html">New York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/2016-election-donald-trump-wins-white-house-upset-n679936">then-President Barack Obama</a> all referred to Donald Trump as president-elect by Nov. 9, 2016, just a day after the 2016 general election.</p>
<p>In 2020, by the Saturday after the general election, Nov. 7, 2020, many major news sources, including the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-wins-white-house-ap-fd58df73aa677acb74fce2a69adb71f9">Associated Press</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-harris-victory-speech-46th-president-united-states">Fox News</a>, had declared Joe Biden president-elect, thus adding to the long history of the term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Satta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The term can be traced back to the Founding Fathers.Mark Satta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1470832020-11-04T17:02:21Z2020-11-04T17:02:21ZWho invented the Electoral College?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362025/original/file-20201006-20-1h3yu8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=309%2C9%2C2812%2C1601&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A transcript from the Constitutional Convention records the official report creating the Electoral College.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7347105/172/public?contributionType=transcription">U.S. National Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The delegates in Philadelphia agreed, in the summer of 1787, that the new country they were creating would not have a king but rather an elected executive. But they did not agree on how to choose that president.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson called the problem of picking a president “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_904.asp">in truth, one of the most difficult of all we have to decide</a>.” Other delegates, when they later recounted the group’s effort, said “this very subject embarrassed them more than any other – that <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/electoral-college/oclc/254528316">various systems were proposed, discussed, and rejected</a>.” </p>
<p>They were at risk of concluding their meetings without finding a way to pick a leader. In fact, this was the very last thing written into the final draft. Had no agreement been reached, the delegates would not have approved the Constitution.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iY8zMlcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">civics educator</a> who has also run Purdue University’s Constitution Day celebration for 15 years, and one lesson I always return to is the degree to which the founders had to compromise in order to ensure ratification. Selecting the president was one of those compromises. </p>
<p>Three approaches were debated during the Constitutional Convention: election by Congress, selection by state legislatures and a popular election – though the right to vote was generally restricted to white, landowning men.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=991%2C437%2C1358%2C1014&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Delegates to the Constitutional Convention had to invent an entire new form of government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aoc.gov/art/other-paintings-and-murals/signing-constitution">Howard Chandler Christy/Architect of the Capitol</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Should Congress pick the president?</h2>
<p>Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention thought that letting Congress pick the president would provide a buffer from what Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0174">well-meaning, but uninformed people</a>” who, in a nation the size of the United States, “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/electoral-college/oclc/254528316">could have no knowledge of eminent characters</a> and qualifications and the actual selection decision.”</p>
<p>Others were concerned that this approach threatened the separation of powers created in the first three articles of the Constitution: Congress might choose a weak executive to prevent the president from wielding veto power, reducing the effectiveness of one of the system’s checks and balances. In addition, the president might feel indebted to Congress and yield some power back to the legislative branch.</p>
<p>Virginia delegate James Madison was concerned that giving Congress the power to select the president “<a href="https://www.consource.org/document/james-madisons-notes-of-the-constitutional-convention-1787-7-17/">would render it the executor as well as the maker of laws</a>; and then … tyrannical laws may be made that they may be executed in a tyrannical manner.” </p>
<p>That view persuaded his fellow Virginian George Mason to reverse his previous support for congressional election of the president and to then conclude that he saw “<a href="https://www.consource.org/document/james-madisons-notes-of-the-constitutional-convention-1787-6-2/">making the Executive the mere creature of the Legislature</a> as a violation of the fundamental principle of good Government.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Committee on Postponed Questions" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362035/original/file-20201006-20-xt8f36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These 11 men agreed on a compromise that created the Electoral College.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation, from Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Letting state lawmakers choose</h2>
<p>Some delegates thought getting states directly involved in picking the leader of the national government was a good approach for the new federal system.</p>
<p>But others, including Alexander Hamilton, worried that states would select a weak executive, to increase their own power. Hamilton also observed that legislators are often slower to move than top leaders might be expected to: “<a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/the-federalist-papers/federalist-papers-no-70/">In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit</a>.”</p>
<p>It’s not as pithy as the musical, perhaps, but the point is clear: Don’t trust the state legislatures.</p>
<h2>Power to the people?</h2>
<p>The final approach debated was that of popular election. Some delegates, like New York delegate Gouverneur Morris, viewed the president as the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_719.asp">guardian of the people</a>,” whom the public should elect directly.</p>
<p>The Southern states objected, arguing that they would be disadvantaged in a popular election <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1952171">in proportion to their actual populations</a> because of the large numbers of enslaved people in those states who could not vote. This was eventually resolved – in one of those many compromises – by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-fifths-compromise">counting each enslaved person as three-fifths of a free person</a> for the purposes of representation. </p>
<p>George Mason, a delegate from Virginia, shared Jefferson’s skepticism about regular Americans, saying it would be “<a href="https://www.consource.org/document/james-madisons-notes-of-the-constitutional-convention-1787-7-17/">unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character</a> for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man. The extent of the Country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the Candidates.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The manuscript records first discussing the proposed Electoral College" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1217&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362026/original/file-20201006-18-18b1l75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1217&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Journal of the Federal Convention records the formal proposal to create the Electoral College.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7347105/172/public?contributionType=transcription">U.S. National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="The manuscript records first discussing the proposed Electoral College" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1213&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1213&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362027/original/file-20201006-22-1r9kgcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1213&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Journal of the Federal Convention records the formal proposal to create the Electoral College.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7347105/173/public?contributionType=transcription">U.S. National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>11 left to make the decision</h2>
<p>The delegates appointed a committee of 11 members – one from each state at the Constitutional Convention – to solve this and other knotty problems, which they called the “Grand Committee on Postponed Questions,” and charged with resolving “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550162">unfinished business, including how to elect the President</a>.”</p>
<p>At the beginning, six of the 11 members preferred national popular elections. But they realized they could not get the Constitution ratified with that provision: The Southern states simply would not agree to it.</p>
<p>Between Aug. 31 and Sept. 4, 1787, the committee wrestled with producing an acceptable compromise. The committee’s third report to the Convention <a href="https://www.quillproject.net/session_visualize/3420">proposed the adoption of a system of electors</a>, through which both the people and the states would help choose the president. It’s not clear which delegate came up with the idea, which was a partly national and partly federal solution, and which <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed39.asp">mirrored other structures in the Constitution</a>.</p>
<h2>Popularity and protection</h2>
<p>Hamilton and the other founders were reassured that with this compromise system, neither public ignorance nor outside influence would affect the choice of a nation’s leader. They believed that the electors would <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">ensure that only a qualified person became president</a>. And they thought the Electoral College would serve as a check on a public who might be easily misled, <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">especially by foreign governments</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>But the original system – in which the winner of the Electoral College would become president and the runner-up became vice president – fell apart almost immediately. By the election of 1800, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion">political parties had arisen</a>. Because electoral votes for president and vice president were not listed on separate ballots, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1800">Democratic-Republican running mates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied</a> in the Electoral College, sending the contest to the House of Representatives. The House ultimately chose Jefferson as the third president, leaving Burr as vice president – not John Adams, who had led the opposing Federalist party ticket.</p>
<p>The problem was resolved in 1804 when the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii">12th Amendment</a> was ratified, allowing the electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president. It has been that way ever since.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip J VanFossen's Distinguished Professorship and the Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship are funded by an endowment to Purdue University established by the Ackerman Family Foundation.</span></em></p>Three approaches were debated during the Constitutional Convention – election by Congress, selection by state legislatures and a popular election, though that was restricted to white landowning men.Phillip J VanFossen, J.F. Ackerman Professor of Social Studies Education; Director, Ackerman Center; Associate Director, Purdue Center for Economic Education, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1466572020-09-29T12:32:58Z2020-09-29T12:32:58ZPartisan Supreme Court battles are as old as the United States itself<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360082/original/file-20200925-14-xv9cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C5973%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As the nation mourns Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a partisan fight over her replacement begins.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtGinsburg/4662d431bedf4cc997e5c9d4fa974753/photo">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The framers of the Constitution envisioned a Supreme Court that would be largely outside politics, protecting Americans’ liberties. Alexander Hamilton, for instance, declared that “a limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the … <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp">courts of justice</a>.”</p>
<p>Hamilton went on to explain that the courts must “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp">declare all acts contrary to … the Constitution void</a>. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.” That was why the framers created the judiciary – <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii">specifically, the Supreme Court</a> – as part of the Constitution: so <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/1122136">its authority would have the same origin</a> as the executive and legislative branches of government.</p>
<p>Yet battles over Supreme Court nominations began not long after the Constitution took effect in 1789 and <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-a-6-3-supreme-court-would-be-different-146558">continue to the present day</a>. Most of them weren’t over ideals or constitutional principles like those Hamilton set out, or even concerns about nominees’ potential involvement in corruption. Instead, they were about partisan politics.</p>
<p>The statistical analysis my undergraduate students and I conducted at LaGrange College reveals that many <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm">Supreme Court nomination battles</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/supreme-court-politics-history/2020/09/25/b9fefcee-fe7f-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html">were political</a> – and often depended on whether the president’s party also had control of the U.S. Senate.</p>
<p><iframe id="QMHR8" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QMHR8/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Back to the early days of the United States</h2>
<p>Even George Washington – the very first president of the United States – <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/nominations/a-chief-justice-rejected.htm">faced a political conflict</a> over a Supreme Court nominee. </p>
<p>In 1795, Washington nominated South Carolina judge John Rutledge to be the chief justice. Rutledge had actually been an <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm">associate justice</a> of the Supreme Court from 1789 to 1791, when he resigned to take a leading role in the courts of his home state, meaning he had already been Senate-confirmed.</p>
<p>But when it came time for the Senate to vote on Rutledge’s reappointment to the court’s most senior position, senators rejected him. After his nomination – but before their vote – <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200925133729/https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/nominations/a-chief-justice-rejected.htm">Rutledge had spoken out</a> against a treaty with Great Britain, which Washington had supported and the Senate had just ratified.</p>
<p>The Senate’s own history reports, “In turning down Rutledge, the Senate made it clear that an examination of a nominee’s qualifications would <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200925133729/https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/nominations/a-chief-justice-rejected.htm">include his political views</a>.”</p>
<p>Sometimes, conflict was high: From 1844 through 1861, for instance, twice as many nominees were denied the higher court than were confirmed.</p>
<p>In the modern era, a 1968 filibuster <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-bobelian-supreme-court-nomination-hearings-fortas-bork-kavanaugh-20190512-story.html">blocked Abe Fortas from becoming the nation’s first Jewish chief justice</a>; Ronald Reagan’s <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-bork-failed-high-court-nominee-dies-at-85/">nomination of Robert Bork</a> was rejected in 1987; and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/us/ginsburg-vacancy-garland.html">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland</a> in 2016.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/28/trumps-two-supreme-court-justices-kavanaugh-and-gorsuch-diverge.html">Donald Trump’s nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh</a> were also politically charged – as will be that of his newest nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Most nominees are approved</h2>
<p>In a look at the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm">Supreme Court nomination votes</a> through history, my student researchers and I found that 22.2% of the 153 nominations were not confirmed.</p>
<p>From 1987 to the present, 21.4% of nominees were voted down, denied a vote or a hearing, forced to withdraw under pressure, filibustered or otherwise denied a spot on the Supreme Court. That’s not much higher than the average rate of Supreme Court rejections across the nation’s history.</p>
<p>From 1968 to 2019, 26.9% were rejected or otherwise cast out, including Fortas’ 1968 failed promotion. There is nothing unusually partisan about the current era. It’s generally business as usual for both parties.</p>
<p><iframe id="nrI4Y" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nrI4Y/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>A key factor is politics</h2>
<p>Our analysis included 119 confirmations of a Supreme Court nomination: 114 justices have served, and four associate justices – Edward White, Harlan Stone, Charles Hughes and William Rehnquist – accepted nominations to be chief justice, requiring a new hearing. One justice, Edwin Stanton, was confirmed in 1869 but died before taking office.</p>
<p>Of these successful nominations, 85.7% occurred when the presidency and <a href="https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm">the Senate</a> were controlled by the same political party.</p>
<p>When different parties control the White House and the Senate, it’s much tougher to confirm a nominee, no matter how qualified or honest he or she may be. Less than half of all nominees to the highest court survive the partisan confirmation battles when the president’s party didn’t control the U.S. Senate. </p>
<p>That fits with research done by political scientists Charles R. Shipan and Megan L. Shannon, who found that “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5907.00046">the duration of the confirmation process increases</a> as the ideological distance between the president and the Senate increases.”</p>
<p>Most recently, this happened in 2016, when Democratic President Barack Obama nominated appellate judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Republicans like <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hatch-last-week-obama-wont-pick-moderate-garland">Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch even cited Garland as a good choice</a> who could get confirmed. But <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/22/915152430/partisan-reaction-to-loss-of-ginsburg-shows-how-much-else-has-been-lost">Republicans controlled the Senate</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256/what-happened-with-merrick-garland-in-2016-and-why-it-matters-now">refused to give him a hearing</a>. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed that the American people – through their approaching presidential vote – should have a say in the Supreme Court nomination. </p>
<p>But when Ginsburg’s death <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/21/ruth-bader-ginsburg-replacement-half-say-2020-winner-should-pick-justice/5858460002/">created the exact same scenario</a> in 2020, McConnell promised a swift vote for any nominee the Republican president might present. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1307121192516628480"}"></div></p>
<p>In openly politicizing the Supreme Court, McConnell defies the Founding Fathers but fits neatly into the historical trend. A qualified nominee from a president of an opposing party struggles to make headway, but anyone proposed by a president of the same party can expect a rapid vote.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: The research described in this article was conducted with the assistance of LaGrange College undergraduate students Tamino Schoeffer, Yasmin Roper, Jaydon Parrish, Brennan Oates, Nia Johnson, Olivia Hanners, Hannah Godfrey, Natalie Glass, DeQueze Fryer, Madison Demkowski and Maalik Baisden.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John A. Tures does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many Supreme Court nomination battles depended on whether the president’s party also had control of the US Senate.John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1456622020-09-17T11:29:08Z2020-09-17T11:29:08ZPessimists have been saying America is going to hell for more than 200 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358450/original/file-20200916-14-uum7x0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C48%2C6418%2C4969&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Today's genuine pessimism about America's future has very old roots.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/stormy-rocky-background-royalty-free-image/115004236?adppopup=true"> Aaron Foster/Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pessimism looms large in America today. It’s not just because of Donald Trump, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/opinion/trump-white-fear-2020.html">vicar of fear and violence</a>. It’s COVID-19, a faltering economy, the growing power of Russia and China, fires and climate change – you name it.</p>
<p>Journalists and analysts have launched warnings: American <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/opinion/trump-republican-convention-racism.html">democracy is about to end</a>; the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-empire-decline/">American century is about to end</a>; the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/is-trump-ending-the-american-era/537888/">American era is about to end</a>. If Trump loses, there’s no certainty that the U.S. will make it to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/opinion/can-america-survive-2020.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage&fbclid=IwAR1Dw_uygS4pgpVt6lMkCI031UceU6skQOY4jcSSoMRmjSsU3POb8nkZhYw">the other side</a> of potential political chaos.</p>
<p>That’s no delusion. The bleak scenarios are a possibility, although the probability is that the United States will not descend, any time soon, into a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/10/12/stop-worrying-about-second-civil-war/">second Civil War</a>. The presidential election could well be contested – although the nation will probably <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-trump-refuses-to-accept-defeat-in-november-the-republic-will-survive-intact-as-it-has-5-out-of-6-times-in-the-past-144843">survive intact</a>.</p>
<p>This is not the first time in American history that journalists, writers and intellectuals in general have cast a gloomy light about the future. American leaders as well have often yielded to despair – which is especially notable given that political leaders are expected to be the most optimistic of the herd.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kimberly Guilfoyle giving a speech at the GOP convention." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358442/original/file-20200916-22-1ywqa1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump campaign official Kimberly Guilfoyle gives an apocalyptic speech at the GOP convention Aug. 24.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kimberly-guilfoyle-speaks-during-the-first-day-of-the-news-photo/1228189847?adppopup=true">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘We are not a chosen people’</h2>
<p>During the early stages of national life, the mood was no different. Actually, it was even worse. </p>
<p>When Thomas Jefferson realized the implications of grounding a nation upon slavery, <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4243">his pessimism</a> reached metaphysical, theological heights: </p>
<p>“<a href="https://kdhist.sitehost.iu.edu/H105-documents-web/week07/Jefferson1787.html">I tremble for my country</a> when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.” </p>
<p>John Adams, the second president, was similarly prone to frequent bouts of pessimism. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-01-02-0646">Our country will do like all others</a>,” he wrote a few years before entering office, “play their affairs into the hands of a few cunning fellows.” </p>
<p>Then he went through his painful presidency, a single term only, which made him even more bitter: “There is no special Providence for us. <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5883">We are not a chosen people</a> that I know of.”</p>
<h2>Fending off ruin</h2>
<p>Back then, France and Great Britain acted like the global superpowers. The “American experiment,” on the other hand, was puny, defenseless, hazardous. Consequently, many leaders believed that only a constitution, plus a stronger central government, could forestall ruin. </p>
<p>When Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay set off <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/full-text">to write the famous 85 papers</a> to persuade Americans to adopt the new national charter, pessimism was one of their favorite vocabularies. It was more than just a rhetorical expedient. These men were convinced that society was actually teetering on the edge of the abyss.</p>
<p>Americans would soon behold “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed08.asp">plunder and devastation</a>,” Hamilton wrote. Madison echoed his colleague and conjured a “gloomy and perilous scene into which the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed14.asp">advocates for disunion</a> would conduct us.” </p>
<p>The “advocates for disunion” – the antagonist political party led by James Winthrop from Massachusetts, Melancton Smith from New York and Patrick Henry and George Mason from Virginia – would sap America of all its good energy. “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed11.asp">Poverty and disgrace</a>,” Hamilton wrote again, “would overspread a country which with wisdom might make herself the admiration and envy of the world.”</p>
<p>At the end of the 18th century, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41253-019-00084-8#Fn1">negative campaigning</a> was already widespread. Political candidates and their acolytes criticized their competitors and conjured images of destruction if their rivals prevailed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of Thomas Jefferson" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358446/original/file-20200916-20-1r2dbt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If Thomas Jefferson were elected, one newspaper wrote, ‘murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest, will openly be taught and practiced.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-thomas-jefferson-by-rembrandt-peale-circa-1805-news-photo/860684958?adppopup=true">US National Archives/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If Jefferson were to be elected, one Connecticut newspaper announced, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest, will openly be taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries and distress, the soil soaked with blood, and the nation <a href="https://millercenter.org/issues-policy/governance/first-words-thomas-jefferson-march-4-1801">black with crimes</a>.”</p>
<p>Political campaigning and statements bordering on exaggeration should not be taken at face value. But it’s also true that today, like yesterday, a genuine pessimism about America’s future <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1123906?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">exists</a>. </p>
<h2>A patriotic feat</h2>
<p>As a historian of the early republic, I dare say that pessimism is to America what salt is to french fries: without, it wouldn’t be the same.</p>
<p>However, there are two types of pessimism in America, absolute and conditional – a distinction that political scientist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2125837.pdf">Francis G. Wilson</a> laid out long ago.</p>
<p>Absolute pessimism is the belief that the nation is a big lie, a fraud, a trick that cunning white males have been playing on women, native populations, African Americans, working classes, immigrants. As such, this nation deserves to be cursed, canceled, sunk, forgotten.</p>
<p>Most leaders, journalists, analysts and historians do not endorse this kind of pessimism. They are conditional pessimists, as Wilson would label them. </p>
<p>They are like <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Jeremiad-Sacvan-Bercovitch-dp-0299073505/dp/0299073505/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=">Jeremiah</a>, the weeping prophet of the Bible. They deliver a prophecy of disaster because they want to provide a new hopeful solution. They speak to Americans’ sense of pride, exhort them, incite them, mobilize them, increase the level of commitment to a common cause and enact a ritual whose upshot should be a deeper awareness.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>To repeat: The worst can happen – is happening – today, just as it did 200-something years ago. That’s why these contemporary prophets are not delusional conspiracy theorists, or simply <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/">paranoids</a>. </p>
<p>Their pessimism is fact based. At the same time, it’s a patriotic feat. Conditional pessimists evoke images of turbulence and peril. But they call on America to be its best self.</p>
<p>Pessimism, in this case, is optimism by another name.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Think American democracy is ending? You’re not alone, writes a historian. American leaders have often yielded to despair – as far back as the founding of the republic.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1445312020-08-26T12:23:24Z2020-08-26T12:23:24ZThe right to vote is not in the Constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354702/original/file-20200825-22-16e40vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5455%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters in Nashville, Tennessee, faced long lines in March 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXElection2020TennesseePrimary/c380e9918f264d63814aec1c8220650c/photo">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re looking for the right to vote, you won’t find it in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>Two of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-is-back-in-session-with-new-controversial-cases-that-stand-to-change-many-americans-lives-heres-what-to-expect-190819">most important cases</a> at the Supreme Court this year address voting rights, and both legal controversies focus on the right to vote. But rather than denials of the right to cast a ballot, they address the more subtle forms of manipulation grounded in how votes are counted. Underlying the public discussion of these election law controversies, and many others, is a misunderstanding about the Constitution: the assumption that the right to vote is clearly protected.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/moore-v-harper-2/">Moore v. Harper</a> questions the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/justices-will-hear-case-that-tests-power-of-state-legislatures-to-set-rules-for-federal-elections/">constitutionality</a> of attempts to rein in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-independent-state-legislature-doctrine-could-reverse-200-years-of-progress-and-take-power-away-from-the-people-186282">partisan gerrymandering</a>, manipulation of the geographic boundaries of electoral districts to advantage the party controlling the map. <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/merrill-v-milligan-2">Merrill v. Milligan</a> deals with <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-allows-states-to-use-unlawfully-gerrymandered-congressional-maps-in-the-2022-midterm-elections-182407">racial gerrymandering</a>, which changes electoral boundaries to <a href="https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/three-takeaways-merrill-v-milligan-oral-arguments/">advantage one race over another</a>.</p>
<p>The Bill of Rights recognizes the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">core rights of citizens in a democracy</a>, including freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. It then recognizes several insurance policies against an abusive government that would attempt to limit these liberties: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/second_amendment">weapons</a>; the privacy of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/third_amendment">houses</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment">personal information</a>; <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment">protections</a> against <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment">false criminal prosecution</a> or <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/seventh_amendment">repressive civil trials</a>; and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/eighth_amendment">limits on excessive punishments</a> by the government.</p>
<p>But the framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget – they intentionally left it out. To put it most simply, the founders didn’t trust ordinary citizens to endorse the rights of others. </p>
<p>They were creating a radical experiment in self-government paired with the protection of individual rights that are often resented by the majority. As a result, they did not lay out an inherent right to vote because they feared rule by the masses would mean the destruction of – not better protection for – all the other rights the Constitution and Bill of Rights uphold. Instead, they highlighted other core rights over the vote, creating a tension that remains today.</p>
<h2>Relying on the elite to protect minority rights</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Madison of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Madison(cropped)(c).jpg">White House Historical Association/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the rights the founders enumerated protect small groups from the power of the majority – for instance, those who would say or publish unpopular statements, or practice unpopular religions, or hold more property than others. James Madison, a principal architect of the U.S. Constitution and the drafter of the Bill of Rights, was an intellectual and landowner who saw the two as strongly linked. </p>
<p>At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Madison expressed the prevailing view that “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_807.asp">the freeholders of the country would be the safest depositories of republican liberty</a>,” meaning only people who owned land debt-free, without mortgages, would be able to vote. The Constitution left voting rules to individual states, which had long-standing laws limiting the vote to those freeholders.</p>
<p>In the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, Madison trumpeted a benefit of the new system: the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed63.asp">total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity</a>.” Even as the nation shifted toward broader inclusion in politics, Madison maintained his view that rights were fragile and ordinary people untrustworthy. In his 70s, he opposed the expansion of the franchise to nonlanded citizens when it was considered at Virginia’s Constitutional Convention in 1829, emphasizing that “<a href="https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-02-02-02-1924">the great danger</a> is that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the Minority.” </p>
<p>The founders believed that freedoms and rights would require the protection of an educated elite group of citizens, against an intolerant majority. They understood that protected rights and mass voting could be contradictory.</p>
<p>Scholarship in political science backs up many of the founders’ assessments. One of the field’s clear findings is that elites support the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/on-the-conceptualization-and-measurement-of-political-tolerance/579D03FF1A6041C6DB3DD6CB1FBC98E1">protection of minority rights</a> far <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/193786?seq=1">more than ordinary citizens</a> do. Research has also shown that ordinary Americans are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08913819808443510">remarkably ignorant</a> of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300072754/what-americans-know-about-politics-and-why-it-matters">public policies and politicians</a>, lacking even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/15/public-ignorance-about-the-constitution/">basic political knowledge</a>. </p>
<h2>Is there a right to vote?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of Andrew Jackson" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353690/original/file-20200819-42861-y7adp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_jackson_head.jpg">Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What Americans think of as the right to vote doesn’t reside in the Constitution, but results from broad shifts in American public beliefs during the early 1800s. The new states that entered the union after the original 13 – beginning with Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee – <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/evolution-of-suffrage-institutions-in-the-new-world/F7D4A2F6B807F84514340D1F2F084194">did not limit voting to property owners</a>. Many of the new state constitutions also explicitly recognized voting rights.</p>
<p>As the nation grew, the idea of universal white male suffrage – championed by the <a href="https://www.kqed.org/pop/62290/what-we-can-learn-about-trump-from-his-favorite-president-andrew-jackson">commoner-President</a> Andrew Jackson – became an article of popular faith, if not a constitutional right.</p>
<p>After the Civil War, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv">15th Amendment</a>, ratified in 1870, guaranteed that the right to vote would not be denied on account of race: If some white people could vote, so could similarly qualified nonwhite people. But that still didn’t recognize a right to vote – only the right of equal treatment. Similarly, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxix">19th Amendment</a>, now more than 100 years old, banned voting discrimination on the basis of sex, but did not recognize an inherent right to vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4741%2C3129&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man stands at an outdoor voting booth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4741%2C3129&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353681/original/file-20200819-42861-yb58zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A voter casts a ballot at a mobile voting station in California in May 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USElection2020HouseCaliforniaSpecialElection/aa6802a99b304ff5a07d78a24f4571b8/photo">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Debates about voting rights</h2>
<p>Today, the country remains engaged in a long-running debate about what counts as <a href="https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/28/the-missing-right-a-constitutional-right-to-vote/">voter suppression</a> versus what are <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/husted-v-philip-randolph-institute/">legitimate limits or regulations</a> on voting – like requiring voters to provide identification, barring felons from voting or <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/husted-v-philip-randolph-institute/">removing infrequent voters from the rolls</a>.</p>
<p>These disputes often invoke an incorrect assumption – that voting is a constitutional right protected from the nation’s birth. The national debate over representation and rights is the product of a long-run movement toward mass voting paired with the long-standing fear of its results.</p>
<p>The nation has evolved from being led by an elitist set of beliefs toward a much more universal and inclusive set of assumptions. But the founders’ fears are still coming true: Levels of support for the rights of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/attitudes-toward-democratic-rights-and-institutions/pg_2020-02-27_global-democracy_01-8/">opposing parties</a> or <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/attitudes-toward-democratic-rights-and-institutions/pg_2020-02-27_global-democracy_01-5/">people of other religions</a> are strikingly weak in the U.S. as well as around the world. Many Americans support <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/01/30/survey-tepid-support-free-speech-among-students">their own rights</a> to free speech but want to <a href="https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter">suppress</a> the <a href="https://www.zogbyanalytics.com/news/951-the-zogby-poll-a-plurality-of-voters-support-cancel-culture-pluralities-of-republicans-and-very-conservative-voters-also-support-cancel-culture">speech of those</a> with whom <a href="https://www.zogbyanalytics.com/news/951-the-zogby-poll-a-plurality-of-voters-support-cancel-culture-pluralities-of-republicans-and-very-conservative-voters-also-support-cancel-culture">they disagree</a>. Americans may have come to believe in a universal vote, but that value does not come from the Constitution, which saw a different path to the protection of rights.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published Aug. 26, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget. They intentionally left it out.Morgan Marietta, Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1426162020-08-06T15:56:38Z2020-08-06T15:56:38Z‘Hamilton’ ignores the statesman’s strategy to fund genocidal warfare against Indigenous Peoples<p>The recent release of the musical <em>Hamilton</em> by the Disney+ channel on July 3 received favourable reviews <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/movies/hamilton-disney-plus-review">across Canada</a> <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/hamilton-review-lin-manuel-miranda-disney-plus-1234694098/">and the United States</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/movies/hamilton-review-disney-plus.html">Critics have lauded</a> the musical for its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/dec/01/hamilton-mashed-up-musical-theatre-and-hiphop-lin-manuel-miranda">innovative mash-up of</a><br>
“<a href="https://www.mirvish.com/shows/hamilton">hip hop, jazz, blues, rap, R&B, and Broadway</a>,” and for how the show jubilantly demonstrates <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/09/24/hamilton_s_hip_hop_references_all_the_rap_and_r_b_allusions_in_lin_manuel.html">hip hop’s</a> entwinement with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons">American traditional ideals</a> of self-invention and freedom.</p>
<p>The musical has also been praised <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/dec/20/colourblind-casting-hamilton-west-end-debut">for casting</a> mostly “<a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/hamilton-cast-casting-directors-diversity-1234571127">Black and brown faces” in roles of the American Founding Fathers</a>, a move that underscored how <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/03/14/remarks-president-hamilton-white-house">political ideals in the United States belong to and are creatively advanced by all Americans</a>. </p>
<p>What is especially interesting in the summer of 2020 is that <em>Hamilton</em> was presented at a time of intense political divisiveness and protest in the U.S. The streaming of <em>Hamilton</em> also gained dramatic significance in the context of the recent <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865685777/why-u-s-needs-black-lives-matter-movement-today">Black Lives Matter protests</a> in face of racist police violence.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/disney-plus-hamilton-2020/613834/">Many have</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/movies/hamilton-review-disney-plus.html">interpreted the July 3 release</a>, one day before American Independence Day, as intended to remind patriotic Americans of their ability to unite and work towards a fairer government and society.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1284199802213822464"}"></div></p>
<h2>Puzzled historians</h2>
<p>Ever since the musical was originally staged in 2015, many <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/historians-on-hamilton/9780813590295">professional historians</a> were surprised that a musical about <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Hamilton-United-States-statesman">statesman and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton</a>, mostly known for having his portrait on the 10-dollar bill, would be such a commercial and critical success.</p>
<p>Given <em>Hamilton’s</em> interest in challenging traditional narratives, demonstrated both by show’s largely Black and racialized cast and brilliant appropriation of diverse musical and theatrical traditions, <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/tph/article/38/1/89/90687/Review-Essay-Race-Conscious-Casting-and-the">some historians</a> of the American Revolution have been puzzled that the show didn’t <a href="https://theconversation.com/hamilton-the-diverse-musical-with-representation-problems-141473">explicitly address how the white historical figures were connected to the history of slavery and anti-Black racism</a>.</p>
<p>Although the show’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, portrayed Hamilton as a man dedicated to the abolition of slavery, historians like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/movies/hamilton-musical-history-facts.html">Annette Gordon-Reed</a> have argued that Hamilton was only moderately concerned about eradicating the institution of slavery in the U.S. </p>
<p>For Hamilton, ensuring the survival of the U.S. as a nation-state trumped any other concerns, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/movies/hamilton-musical-history-facts.html?searchResultPosition=3">including slavery</a>. This meant making awkward compromises with the Southern slave-holding states.</p>
<h2>Indigenous Peoples and lands</h2>
<p>Neither the musical nor most historians have addressed how Hamilton’s political ideas affected Indigenous Peoples. Hamilton was not as directly involved in diplomatic negotiations with Indigenous nations, unlike <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=YyJLDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">President George Washington</a>. </p>
<p>However, Indigenous Peoples cannot be separated from the story of the founding of the U.S. This claim is most recently put forth in a study suggesting <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469621203/why-you-cant-teach-united-states-history-without-american-indians">Indigenous history is central to all U.S. history</a>. This is particularly true for the first decade following the end of the American War of Independence.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Mohawk leader Joseph Brant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348708/original/file-20200721-37-1gvh2l4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1830s lithograph of Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, based on the last 1806 based on oil portrait by Ezra Ames.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Brant.jpeg">(Wikimedia Commons)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Britain had surrendered its claims to North America, with the exception of Canada, to the U.S. in 1783, a number of powerful Indigenous nations still occupied lands west of the Appalachians. These nations included the Cherokees and the Creeks in the Southeast as well as a confederacy of nations consisting of Shawnees, Wyandots, Lenapes (Delawares), Ojibwes, Ottawas and others in the Ohio region, known as the “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300218121/surviving-genocide">United Indian Nations</a>.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joseph-brant">Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea)</a>, the Mohawk leader who had been closely aligned with Britain since before the American Revolution, was one of the initiators of the United Indian Nations in <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300218121/surviving-genocide">September 1783</a>. There was a constant fear among U.S. politicians that these Indigenous nations would align with Britain and Spain against the United States.</p>
<h2>Federal military force</h2>
<p>As historians <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol63/iss5/1/">Gregory Lablavsky</a> and <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300218121/surviving-genocide">Jeffrey Ostler</a> have shown, <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed24.asp">Hamilton advocated</a> for a federal military force that would be able to confront “the savage tribes on our Western frontier [who] ought to be regarded as our natural enemies” during the constitutional ratification debate in 1788. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed24.asp">Hamilton</a>, the Indigenous nations in the west would support the Spanish in Florida and the British in the Great Lakes region “because they have most to fear from us and most to hope from them.” </p>
<p>In Hamilton’s opinion, a strong national army was necessary to deal with the European and Indigenous threats to the new nation. Once the U.S. constitution was ratified in 1788 with its emphasis on a strong central government, Hamilton became the first Secretary of the Treasury in 1789. </p>
<h2>Leveraged taxes for genocidal warfare</h2>
<p>In that role, Hamilton ensured that the American government had an army at its disposal that could be deployed to wage genocidal warfare against Indigenous nations. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Portrait of Alexander Hamilton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349227/original/file-20200723-37-lgcobx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Alexander Hamilton portrait, about 1805, by John Trumbull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg">(Wikimedia/Smithsonian Art Inventory Catalog, IAP 08930129)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In June 1790, Brig.-Gen. Josiah Harmar, the commander in charge of the U.S. military efforts against the United Indian Nations in the Ohio region, received instructions from Secretary of War Henry Knox to go on the offensive “to extirpate, utterly, if possible, the said Banditti.” <a href="https://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780190056698.html">This was a demeaning reference</a> to the Indigenous warriors who were defending their lands and families. </p>
<p>The verb extirpate was used in the 18th century as synonymous with “exterminate.” </p>
<p>Although the Indigenous confederacy was able to hold back the U.S. army for several years, the American military wore down the confederacy by 1794 by <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/first-way-of-war/735E9A9683A9D35ED59F863B71344DFF">repeatedly destroying Indigenous villages and cornfields</a>. The actions of the army forced Indigenous Peoples to surrender the fertile Ohio Valley to the U.S. in 1795.</p>
<p>Joseph Brant and his followers, mostly Mohawks and other members of the Haudenosaunee or Six Nations confederacy, escaped American expansion by resettling on the Grand River in Upper Canada. However, Brant and the Haudenosaunee soon became embroiled in complex negotiations with British officials over the meaning of <a href="http://www.sixnations.ca/LandsResources/HaldProc.htm">the Haldimand Proclamation</a> of October 1784 that originally created the huge tract of land for the Six Nations along <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/the-clay-we-are-made-of">the Grand River</a>. </p>
<p>The Shawnees, Wyandots and Delawares continued to defend their lands against the United States until the end of the War of 1812. After 1815, many members of the United Indian Nations migrated to Missouri and Kansas to escape American expansion. During the 1830s, the remaining Indigenous Peoples in Ohio and Indiana were <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300218121/surviving-genocide">forcibly removed</a> by the U.S. government to reserves in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma and Kansas). Their descendants still live there today. </p>
<h2>Fateful consequences</h2>
<p>Clearly, Hamilton’s ideas of a federal army and an expanding nation had fateful consequences for the Indigenous Peoples who lived in what is now Ohio and Indiana. </p>
<p>Just like the musical could have dealt more fully with slavery, the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives would have forced audiences to grapple with the implications of Hamilton’s policies. </p>
<p>For all its brilliant creativity, the musical missed out on the unique opportunity to inform the public about the impact of the new American nation upon the Indigenous nations of North America. Perhaps one day a new musical will be written about the origins of the U.S. that explicitly incorporates Indigenous perspectives and actors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Meuwese does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Alexander Hamilton’s commitment to a well-funded national army and his support for territorial expansion had grave repercussions for the Indigenous Nations west of the Appalachians.Mark Meuwese, Professor of History, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1421262020-07-06T18:09:27Z2020-07-06T18:09:27ZSupreme Court reforms, strengthens Electoral College<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345861/original/file-20200706-21-190f9pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4239%2C2917&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On Dec. 19, 2016, Colorado elector Micheal Baca, in T-shirt second from left, cast his electoral ballot for John Kasich, though Hillary Clinton had won his state's popular vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Colorado/ee5369d0be464da3a3e24e38d975067f/3/0">AP Photo/Brennan Linsley</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that states can require members of the Electoral College to <a href="https://casetext.com/case/chiafalo-v-washington">cast their presidential ballots according to the state’s popular vote</a>. That will both preserve the Electoral College as a part of American democracy and ensure it functions as most people believe it does: turning the presidential election into a state-by-state popular contest.</p>
<p>The decision marks a failed attempt by the <a href="https://twitter.com/HamiltonElector">Hamilton Electors</a> movement to allow electors to vote their consciences, as Alexander Hamilton had hoped, in favor of letting states dictate the rules, as the Constitution allows.</p>
<h2>An American invention</h2>
<p>The constitutional system of presidential selection is a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/73/1/35/782082?redirectedFrom=fulltext">set of uneasy compromises</a> worked out at the very end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. </p>
<p>The framers could not decide whether the choice of a president should be made by Congress or the states. </p>
<p>They also could not agree whether all states should have equal power in the selection, or if more populous states should have more say. </p>
<p>And they didn’t agree whether a state’s choice should be made by local elites (state legislators) or the masses (all of the voters). </p>
<p>In the end, the <a href="https://blog.consource.org/post/96968272505/the-constitutional-convention-the-electoral">Committee on Unfinished Parts</a> created a unique governmental structure that compromised on all of these debates. Unlike many contemporary Americans, the founders were comfortable with such compromises and immediately approved the new mechanism of presidential selection.</p>
<p>A small number of citizens called electors would meet in each state to decide the presidency collectively. Congress would enter the picture only if the electors did not reach a majority decision. The number of electors would equal the number of senators and representatives in Congress, which means that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/7/12315574/electoral-college-explained-presidential-elections-2016">small states had greater power than their population would suggest</a>, but still not as much as big states. </p>
<p>State legislatures could use their discretion about how to choose electors, which could result in elitist or popular forms of democracy in different states. Pennsylvania held a popular election in the very first presidential contest, allowing voters to <a href="https://elections.lib.tufts.edu/catalog/0z708w436">choose electors aligned with the emerging parties</a>. Some state legislatures <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep146/usrep146001/usrep146001.pdf#page=32">appointed electors themselves until the mid-1800s</a>.</p>
<p>As Americans embraced popular democracy in the decades following the founding, most people began to expect a majority vote in the state would determine its choice. Each state legislature gives the winning party the duty of choosing electors – who typically are party members who have pledged to vote for their party’s presidential candidate during a public meeting of the Electoral College in December.</p>
<p>When that happens, the state’s Electoral College votes go to the winner of the state’s popular vote. But some electors have tried to vote for someone else – which is why this important case went before the Supreme Court.</p>
<h2>What are ‘faithless electors’?</h2>
<p>When Donald Trump won enough states in November 2016 to be elected the 45th U.S. president, opponents turned to the Electoral College as a last attempt to alter the election’s result. This became known as the <a href="https://twitter.com/HamiltonElector">Hamilton Electors</a> movement.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Hamilton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg">John Trumbull/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://hamiltonmusical.com/new-york/">Alexander Hamilton</a> was an advocate of <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/">elitist democracy</a> who did not trust ordinary people to vote. He also thought highly of the Electoral College. In <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">Federalist 68</a>, he asserted that “if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.” </p>
<p>His reason was that the selection of the president would reflect only “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">the sense of the people</a>,” but truly be made by “a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass.” </p>
<p>In Hamilton’s view, these electors would hold the necessary “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">information and discernment</a>,” while the masses would likely vote for a president with the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">talents for low intrigue</a>, and the little arts of popularity.” </p>
<p>The Hamilton Electors’ <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/meet-the-hamilton-electors-hoping-for-an-electoral-college-revolt/508433/">explicit goal</a> in 2016 was to convince enough electors to cast “faithless” votes – against the election results of their state – to switch the outcome. Several celebrities, including Martin Sheen, who played the president of the U.S. in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9vmN62wf8">The West Wing</a>,” urged Republican electors to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z0iuWh3sek">be “an American hero”</a> by blocking Donald Trump from winning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Mulinix, an elector in Hawaii in 2016, cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders, though Hillary Clinton won his state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Hawaii/c7b2b3799a5b4c1798c73a67aa1d57c5/2/0">AP Photo/Cathy Bussewitz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump’s official tally in the Electoral College was 304 to Hillary Clinton’s 227. That doesn’t add up to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">538</a> – the total number of electoral votes – because <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/us/elections/electoral-college-results.html">seven electors were unfaithful</a> to their state’s popular decisions. Two Republican electors went their own ways, casting their ballots for John Kasich and Ron Paul. Five Clinton electors also refused to vote with their states’ majorities: Three chose former Secretary of State Colin Powell and one each chose Sen. Bernie Sanders and Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle.</p>
<p>Those seven electors were not enough to change the outcome. But what if they had been?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most of the country’s electors did as these six, from Nevada, did in 2016, and voted for the candidate who won their state’s popular vote, regardless of whom they had personally backed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Nevada/475f9b52c3cf4d7392763cb578d03a59/17/0">AP Photo/Scott Sonner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do faithless electors mean for 2020?</h2>
<p>The outcome in 2020 may be closer than in 2016. If Joe Biden wins a few states that Hillary Clinton did not – say Pennsylvania and Arizona – but Trump holds on to the rest of his 2016 states, the Electoral College outcome will be remarkably close. By my count, it could be <a href="https://www.270towin.com/maps/ZPR6k">274 to 264</a> in the Electoral College. If it is that close, even a small number of faithless electors could change the outcome. </p>
<p>Election Day is always the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, but the day the Electoral College votes is the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/state-officials#meeting">first Monday after the second Wednesday in December</a>. </p>
<p>If Americans believe on Nov. 3, 2020, that one person has been elected the next president, but find out on Dec. 14 that it is going to be a different person, it is difficult to predict what the public will think – or do. </p>
<h2>Faithless electors at the Supreme Court</h2>
<p>Even before the 2016 election, some states had tried to limit the discretion of electors. Colorado passed a law that allowed faithless electors to be replaced immediately with an alternate, and Washington imposed a US$1,000 fine for electors who voted differently from the public at large. Two faithless electors – <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/colorado-department-of-state-v-baca/">Michael Baca</a> and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/chiafalo-v-washington/">Peter Chiafalo</a> – challenged the ability of states to restrict their discretion under the Constitution.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-preview-justices-to-weigh-constitutionality-of-faithless-elector-laws/">debate at the court</a> was about whether the U.S. still has elements of an elite democracy that cannot be altered by individual states, or if state legislatures could create a popular democracy within their borders by making electors simply registrars of the popular will – even though the constitutional text (and Alexander Hamilton’s plans) may suggest that electors should make their decisions freely.</p>
<p>What the Hamilton Electors said was that the old idea of an occasional block to the popular will is still useful. In their view, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/the-electoral-college-was-meant-to-stop-men-like-trump-from-being-president/508310/">the rise of populism made the old elitism important again</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Washington electors and state officials pose after meeting on Dec. 19, 2016. Four of the state’s 12 electors cast their votes for someone other than state popular-vote winner Hillary Clinton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Washington/366d04403b9c4063bd246402932d904d/37/0">AP Photo/Elaine Thompson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The supporters of faithless electors took a position grounded in the intent of the framers, the usually conservative theory known as <a href="https://time.com/5670400/justice-neil-gorsuch-why-originalism-is-the-best-approach-to-the-constitution/">originalism</a>. </p>
<p>But that interpretation of originalism ran up against another one: The founders let <a href="https://www.pbs.org/tpt/constitution-usa-peter-sagal/federalism/#.XuLru2pKi1t">states decide how to pick electors</a>.</p>
<p>These two originalist positions divide between a higher regard for the original purpose of electors and the original means of selecting and regulating them.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the usual liberal position – <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution">living constitutionalism</a> – is clear. It supports the idea that the U.S. has evolved into a popular democracy regardless of the original intent. Binding electors to the vote of the state is simply the mechanism to achieve the representative elections that most Americans believe the country already has.</p>
<h2>The ruling and the reform</h2>
<p>In a rare show of unity, both the originalist and living-constitutionalist justices came together in this decision to uphold the ability of states to insist on popular democracy. </p>
<p>Justice Elena Kagan wrote <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf">the ruling</a>. In the oral arguments in May, she had asked a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/19-518_fcgk.pdf#page=51">piercing question</a>: “Suppose that I read the Constitution and I find that it just doesn’t say anything about this subject … What should I then do and why?”</p>
<p>In the decision she observed that “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf#page=13">the Constitution is barebones about electors</a>.” Because the text merely says that each state will appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct” (<a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-ii">Article II, §1</a>), this gives individual states great latitude. If a state has decided that popular democracy within its borders should be the law of the land – as all U.S. states have done over the last two centuries – then they can do so without hindrance. She concludes that “the Constitution’s text and the Nation’s history both support allowing a State to <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf+page=12">enforce an elector’s pledge to support his party’s nominee</a>.” Now, as from almost the beginning of the republic, “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf#page=18">No independent electors need apply</a>.” </p>
<p>While this ruling is a rejection of elitism and a victory for majoritarian elections, it is also a reform ensuring that the Electoral College will remain. Many of the advocates of faithless electors were hoping for the destruction of the Electoral College itself and its <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/electoral-college-supreme-court-lessig-faithless-electors.html">replacement by a national popular vote</a>. That is now less likely. The Electoral College will function predictably as a state-by-state set of popular elections that add up to an American presidency. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-to-decide-the-future-of-the-electoral-college-138754">article originally published</a> June 17, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Electors may not vote their consciences, which means the Electoral College will continue to operate how most Americans think it does.Morgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1387542020-06-17T12:17:38Z2020-06-17T12:17:38ZSupreme Court to decide the future of the Electoral College<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341519/original/file-20200612-153817-gxzux3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C19%2C4226%2C2898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On Dec. 19, 2016, Colorado elector Micheal Baca, in T-shirt second from left, cast his electoral ballot for John Kasich, though Hillary Clinton had won his state's popular vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Colorado/ee5369d0be464da3a3e24e38d975067f/3/0">AP Photo/Brennan Linsley</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Americans are surprised to learn that in U.S. presidential elections, the members of the Electoral College do not necessarily have to pick the candidate the voters in their state favored.</p>
<p>Or do they? </p>
<p>This month the <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16259">Supreme Court</a> will rule on the independent powers of electors, which will determine the meaning of the Electoral College in contemporary American politics.</p>
<h2>An American invention</h2>
<p>The constitutional system of presidential selection is a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/73/1/35/782082?redirectedFrom=fulltext">set of uneasy compromises</a> worked out at the very end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. </p>
<p>The framers could not decide whether the choice of a president should be made by Congress or the states. </p>
<p>They also could not agree whether all states should have equal power in the selection, or if more populous states should have more say. </p>
<p>And they didn’t agree whether a state’s choice should be made by local elites (state legislators) or the masses (all of the voters). </p>
<p>In the end, the <a href="https://blog.consource.org/post/96968272505/the-constitutional-convention-the-electoral">Committee on Unfinished Parts</a> created a unique governmental structure that compromised on all of these debates. Unlike many contemporary Americans, the founders were comfortable with such compromises and immediately approved the new mechanism of presidential selection.</p>
<p>A small number of citizens called electors would meet in each state to decide the presidency collectively. Congress would enter the picture only if the electors did not reach a majority decision. The number of electors would equal the number of senators and representatives in Congress, which means that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/7/12315574/electoral-college-explained-presidential-elections-2016">small states had greater power than their population would suggest</a>, but still not as much as big states. </p>
<p>State legislatures could use their discretion about how to choose electors, which could result in elitist or popular forms of democracy in different states. Pennsylvania held a popular election in the very first presidential contest, allowing voters to <a href="https://elections.lib.tufts.edu/catalog/0z708w436">choose electors aligned with the emerging parties</a>. Some state legislatures <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep146/usrep146001/usrep146001.pdf#page=32">appointed electors themselves until the mid-1800s</a>.</p>
<p>As Americans embraced popular democracy in the decades following the founding, most people began to expect a majority vote in the state would determine its choice. In most states, the legislature gives the winning party the duty of choosing electors – who typically are party members who have pledged to vote for their party’s presidential candidate during a public meeting of the Electoral College in December.</p>
<p>When that happens, the state’s Electoral College votes go to the winner of the state’s popular vote. But it is possible for an elector to vote for someone else – which is why there is a case before the Supreme Court.</p>
<h2>What are ‘faithless electors’?</h2>
<p>When Donald Trump won enough states in November 2016 to be elected the 45th U.S. president, opponents turned to the Electoral College as a last attempt to alter the election’s result. This became known as the <a href="https://twitter.com/HamiltonElector">Hamilton Electors</a> movement.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341521/original/file-20200612-153862-1a0ws7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Hamilton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg">John Trumbull/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://hamiltonmusical.com/new-york/">Alexander Hamilton</a> was an advocate of <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/">elitist democracy</a> who did not trust ordinary people to vote. He also thought highly of the Electoral College. In <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">Federalist 68</a>, he asserted that “if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.” </p>
<p>His reason was that the selection of the president would reflect only “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">the sense of the people</a>,” but truly be made by “a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass.” </p>
<p>In Hamilton’s view, these electors would hold the necessary “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">information and discernment</a>,” while the masses would likely vote for a president with the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp">talents for low intrigue</a>, and the little arts of popularity.” </p>
<p>The Hamilton Electors’ <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/meet-the-hamilton-electors-hoping-for-an-electoral-college-revolt/508433/">explicit goal</a> in 2016 was to convince enough electors to cast “faithless” votes – against the election results of their state – to switch the outcome. Several celebrities, including Martin Sheen, who played the president of the U.S. in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9vmN62wf8">The West Wing</a>,” urged Republican electors to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z0iuWh3sek">be “an American hero”</a> by blocking Donald Trump from winning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341525/original/file-20200612-153849-12w5d8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Mulinix, an elector in Hawaii in 2016, cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders, though Hillary Clinton won his state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Hawaii/c7b2b3799a5b4c1798c73a67aa1d57c5/2/0">AP Photo/Cathy Bussewitz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump’s official tally in the Electoral College was 304 to Hillary Clinton’s 227. That doesn’t add up to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">538</a> – the total number of electoral votes – because <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/us/elections/electoral-college-results.html">seven electors were unfaithful</a> to their state’s popular decisions. Two Republican electors went their own ways, casting their ballots for John Kasich and Ron Paul. Five Clinton electors also refused to vote with their states’ majorities: Three chose former Secretary of State Colin Powell and one each chose Sen. Bernie Sanders and Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle.</p>
<p>Those seven electors were not enough to change the outcome. But what if they had been?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341526/original/file-20200612-153839-ne2pbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most of the country’s electors did as these six, from Nevada, did in 2016, and voted for the candidate who won their state’s popular vote, regardless of whom they had personally backed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Nevada/475f9b52c3cf4d7392763cb578d03a59/17/0">AP Photo/Scott Sonner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do faithless electors mean for 2020?</h2>
<p>The outcome in 2020 may be closer than in 2016. If Joe Biden wins a few states that Hillary Clinton did not – say Pennsylvania and Arizona – but Trump holds on to the rest of his 2016 states, the Electoral College outcome will be remarkably close. By my count, it could be <a href="https://www.270towin.com/maps/ZPR6k">274 to 264</a> in the Electoral College. If it is that close, even a small number of faithless electors could change the outcome. </p>
<p>Election Day is always the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, but the day the Electoral College votes is the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/state-officials#meeting">first Monday after the second Wednesday in December</a>. </p>
<p>If Americans believe on Nov. 3, 2020, that one person has been elected the next president, but find out on Dec. 14 that it is going to be a different person, it is difficult to predict what the public will think – or do. </p>
<h2>Faithless electors at the Supreme Court</h2>
<p>Even before the 2016 election, some states had tried to limit the discretion of electors. Colorado passed a law that allowed faithless electors to be replaced immediately with an alternate, and Washington imposed a US$1,000 fine for electors who voted differently from the public at large. Two faithless electors – <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/colorado-department-of-state-v-baca/">Michael Baca</a> and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/chiafalo-v-washington/">Peter Chiafalo</a> – challenged the ability of states to restrict their discretion under the Constitution.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-preview-justices-to-weigh-constitutionality-of-faithless-elector-laws/">debate at the court</a> is about whether the U.S. still has elements of an elite democracy that cannot be altered by individual states, or if state legislatures can create a popular democracy within their borders by making electors simply registrars of the popular will – even though the constitutional text (and Alexander Hamilton’s plans) may suggest that electors should make their decisions freely.</p>
<p>What the Hamilton Electors are saying is that the old idea of an occasional block to the popular will is still useful. In their view, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/the-electoral-college-was-meant-to-stop-men-like-trump-from-being-president/508310/">the rise of populism has made the old elitism important again</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341527/original/file-20200612-153817-1n76w81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Washington electors and state officials pose after meeting on Dec. 19, 2016. Four of the state’s 12 electors cast their votes for someone other than state popular-vote winner Hillary Clinton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Electoral-College-Washington/366d04403b9c4063bd246402932d904d/37/0">AP Photo/Elaine Thompson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The supporters of faithless electors are taking a position grounded in the intent of the framers, the usually conservative theory known as <a href="https://time.com/5670400/justice-neil-gorsuch-why-originalism-is-the-best-approach-to-the-constitution/">originalism</a>. </p>
<p>But that interpretation of originalism runs up against another one: The founders let <a href="https://www.pbs.org/tpt/constitution-usa-peter-sagal/federalism/#.XuLru2pKi1t">states decide how to pick electors</a>.</p>
<p>These two originalist positions divide between a higher regard for the original purpose of electors and the original means of selecting and regulating them.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the usual liberal position – <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution">living constitutionalism</a> – is clear. It supports the idea that the U.S. has evolved into a popular democracy regardless of the original intent. Binding electors to the vote of the state is simply the mechanism to achieve the representative elections that most Americans believe the country already has.</p>
<p>If the states win, they will be allowed to set the future rules for how electors may vote. If enough states bind electors, then the election will proceed as the public expects. But if the faithless electors win, the 2020 election results may be unclear far beyond Election Day.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many Americans are surprised to learn that Electoral College members do not necessarily have to pick the candidate their state’s voters favored. Or do they?Morgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401582020-06-07T11:20:27Z2020-06-07T11:20:27ZWith Trump in charge, America is going back to more hostile times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339934/original/file-20200604-67387-mp2wk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C35%2C2914%2C1944&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this photo from March 29, 1968, striking sanitation workers march to Memphis City Hall, past Tennessee National Guard troops with bayonets.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Charlie Kelly)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the face of mass protests against anti-Black policing and racism in the United States, President Donald Trump first dialed the country back to 1967 by tweeting an old quote from the surly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/05/29/when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts-trump-walter-headley/">police chief of Miami</a>, who made it known to the activists of that era that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” </p>
<p>Now, Trump looks to a much older way to threaten the protesters — the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867467714/what-is-the-insurrection-act-that-trump-is-threatening-to-invoke">Insurrection Act of 1807</a>, which empowers the president to use U.S. military forces on U.S. soil. </p>
<p>Where did this law come from? What can America’s situation in 1807 tell us about its crisis today?</p>
<h2>The mysterious Mr. Burr</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340096/original/file-20200605-176595-xnosuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aside from their racism, Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Donald Trump have little in common. Official portrait of Jefferson (cropped).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Rembrandt Peale)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As he began his second term in office in 1805, President Thomas Jefferson had to cope with a secessionist plot led by his former vice-president, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/291628/fallen-founder-by-nancy-isenberg/">Aaron Burr</a>. After killing Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel, Burr — now the amoral villain in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/hamilton-the-musical-now-in-canada-tells-the-story-of-americas-founding-passions-130969">musical</a> — moved west down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, looking for recruits with whom he could take over New Orleans and become Emperor of Mexico.</p>
<p>Or something like that. Burr was never very forthcoming about his plans.</p>
<p>Jefferson got wind of the scheme in late 1806 and wondered how to shut it down. The Constitution gave the president clear permission to call up state militias in cases of imminent threat, but there was no reliable militia along the western frontiers. </p>
<p>So Jefferson’s majority party, the Democratic-Republicans or simply “Republicans,” passed <a href="https://thewayofimprovement.com/2020/06/02/the-history-behind-the-insurrection-act-of-1807/">the Insurrection Act in March 1807</a>. </p>
<p>That’s the short story. To understand this law, however, we must look beyond Burr’s malfeasance and think about the extreme insecurity of the United States in 1807. </p>
<h2>Uncertain Union</h2>
<p>The early United States did not have effective control of anything west of the Appalachian Mountains, even though the Treaty of Paris of 1783 had given the new country paper title all the way to the Mississippi River. Jefferson’s purchase of Louisiana in 1803 made this insecurity worse.</p>
<p>In those vast western regions, Indigenous nations such as the Cherokees, Creeks and Sioux competed for power and resources, avoiding white Americans when possible and fighting them when necessary. </p>
<p>Those white settlers had little regard for the government in Washington; many of them preferred Spanish territory west of the Mississippi, where the laws were <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/avenging-the-people-9780190088385%22%22">more forgiving</a> of debtors. A good number were wanted for crimes back east, just like Burr.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340123/original/file-20200605-176564-a0fjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boarding and taking the American ship Chesapeake by the officers and crew of the H.M. Shannon commanded by Capt. Broke, June 1813.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/109988.html">(William Dubourg Heath/National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While dealing with the former vice-president’s scheming, Jefferson also had to worry about the mighty British. Fully expecting the United States to split up or collapse, the British government kept troops and ships along the Great Lakes to the north and the Gulf Coast to the south.</p>
<p>In 1805, the British also began to stop American ships along the East Coast and then, to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176724/the-civil-war-of-1812-by-alan-taylor/">“impress” any Irish-born</a> sailors they found on board, compelling those sailors to serve in the Royal Navy for the great war with Napoleon. In the summer of 1807, a British warship even took sailors off a U.S. navy ship near the Virginia coast. </p>
<p>In short, Jefferson’s America was vulnerable to attack from all directions. Even worse were the enemies within. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-threat-to-use-the-insurrection-act-against-protesters-is-an-abuse-of-power-139856">Trump's threat to use the Insurrection Act against protesters is an abuse of power</a>
</strong>
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<p>The rival Federalists, once the party of Founding Fathers like Washington and Hamilton, were increasingly pro-British. Based in New England, they tried to block Jefferson and the Republicans at every turn, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781403973931">all but paralyzing the fragile Union</a>.</p>
<p>In his first inaugural address in 1801, Jefferson had famously said, “<a href="https://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selected-documents/first-inaugural-address-0">we are all republicans: we are all federalists</a>.” But 10 years later, as war with Britain approached, he could only conclude: “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-03-02-0378">the republicans are the nation</a>,” whereas the Federalists were something else — an alien group whose ideas of America threatened its survival.</p>
<h2>From 1807 to 2020</h2>
<p>Aside from their racism, Thomas Jefferson and Donald Trump have little in common. Jefferson’s “republicans” were the forerunners of today’s Democratic Party, not the GOP. For all his hypocrisy about slavery, Jefferson’s instincts were more democratic than authoritarian.</p>
<p>And he was a serious student of the Constitution and the wider world, whereas Trump couldn’t care less.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339933/original/file-20200604-67372-1r66lf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Health-care workers at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital show their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, June 4, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And yet, there is a troubling parallel between the state of the union in 1807 and 2020: due to the extreme partisanship of the past 50 years, America’s national concept is again fractured, its body politic broken and bleeding. </p>
<p>Once more, Americans feel dangerously insecure, besieged not by the hostile designs of other nations but rather by their incompatible views of each other.</p>
<p>This time, Americans are led not by a president who reluctantly faced the profound divisions of his day, but rather by one who relishes any chance to injure and insult the clear majority of people who don’t share his sense of greatness.</p>
<p>In Jefferson’s time, the crisis passed because the Federalists disappeared after the War of 1812. Having opposed America’s second war of independence, they quickly faded. Their ideas of the country were discredited and rejected. Today, we can only hope that a bigger, more generous view of American nationhood can emerge peacefully and decisively.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J.M. Opal receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>In dealing with mass protests of police killings of African Americans, U.S. President Donald Trump is invoking old phrases and laws — first from 1967 and then further back to 1807.Jason Opal, Associate Professor of History and Chair, History and Classical Studies, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1363612020-04-17T17:38:43Z2020-04-17T17:38:43ZTrump versus the states: What federalism means for the coronavirus response<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328726/original/file-20200417-152558-179bnev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On April 13, the president said he had the authority to order the states to reopen the economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-j-trump-speaks-with-members-of-the-news-photo/1209810997?adppopup=true">Getty/Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump recently attempted to explain the complex relationship between the federal government and the states, as outlined by the framers in 1787.</p>
<p>“[Y]ou can call it ‘federalist,’ you can call it ‘the Constitution,’ but I call it ‘the Constitution,’” <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/492503-trump-claims-he-not-governors-has-authority-on-opening-state">he said at a briefing</a> by the Coronavirus Task Force. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-trump-cant-order-states-to-reopen-constitutional-scholars-say/">Trump’s statement</a>, along with several others he has made recently, highlights one of the key issues that has affected America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/federalism">federalism</a>.</p>
<p>In its most basic terms, “federalism” is the Constitution’s way of distributing decision-making authority. The Constitution grants the national government the power to conduct certain activities and <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-x">reserves the rest of governmental decisions to the states</a>. </p>
<p>But who does what is not always clear-cut.</p>
<p>Throughout the coronavirus crisis, the president <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/13/trump-governors-decision-reopen-183405">has made contradictory statements</a> about who is responsible for key aspects of the nation’s response to the pandemic. </p>
<p>For example, while Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-updates.html">asserted he has the authority</a> to order the states to reopen the economy, he also <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/05/white-house-trump-funding-states-coronavirus-165783">insisted that it is the governors’ responsibility</a> to manage coronavirus testing. From <a href="http://faculty.missouri.edu/%7Eselinj/">my perspective as a constitutional scholar</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-19/coronavirus-pandemic-shows-challenges-of-u-s-federalism">Trump’s statements are</a> haphazard at best and unconstitutional at worst.</p>
<p>But what is the president’s role when it comes to guiding the nation through the pandemic? How much power do state governors have? Who is in charge?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1249712404260421633"}"></div></p>
<h2>Parceling out power</h2>
<p>One of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-37">most difficult tasks</a> facing the framers when they drafted the Constitution was the proper distribution of power. Americans’ experience living under British rule taught them that <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-founding-fathers-debate-over-what-constituted-impeachable-offense-180965083/">power centralized in a single executive could lead to oppression</a>. As a result, many were reluctant to grant too much power to a president. </p>
<p>This reluctance was reflected in the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=3">Articles of Confederation</a>. The articles, which were adopted after the Declaration of Independence but before the Constitution, gave a lot of power to the states and almost no power to the national government. </p>
<p>Yet early American governance under the articles illustrated that individual states can fail to work together to overcome big problems, like national security. </p>
<p>What became clear to the Founding Fathers was that a central authority is often necessary to coordinate the responses of individual states to the big economic and security issues that face the nation.</p>
<p>The framers’ solution to this problem was to grant the national government authority to regulate citizens but not to regulate the states themselves. Put in the most basic terms, Congress and the president <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf">lack the constitutional power</a> to tell states what to do.</p>
<p>The Constitution gives the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/article-1-the-legislative-branch-the-enumerated-powers-sections-8/">federal government the ability</a> to address national issues like defense, foreign policy and monetary policy. The states retain the power to <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/documents/health/legpowers.pdf">address the well-being of their citizens</a>. This includes setting health and education policy and even regulating elections.</p>
<h2>Managing relationships</h2>
<p>The constitutional balance between state and federal power is still in flux. Enormous changes in our federal system mean that the national government now takes on challenges that the framers of the Constitution could not have imagined. For example, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/our-mission-and-what-we-do">national government protects human health by regulating the environment</a> and helps our ability to communicate by <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00395/information-and-communication-technology-ict-standards-and-guidelines">providing uniform standards for internet technologies</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the president has more expansive power than anticipated. Yet, <a href="https://texaslawreview.org/administrative-states-beyond-presidential-administration/">a large part</a> of the president’s executive and administrative tasks involves managing the relationship between the national government and the states.</p>
<p>The president <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/898/">cannot constitutionally issue directives</a> to require states to address certain problems or command governors to administer specific programs. But presidential administrations can encourage states to adopt certain policies, such as uniform education standards. </p>
<p>Sometimes this occurs by providing states with opportunities for federal funding but attaching conditions to the receipt of those funds. For example, the Obama administration <a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol53/iss2/8/">routinely used federal funding</a> to encourage states to adopt his preferred health care policies. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328757/original/file-20200417-152607-13sazq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Founding Fathers at the signing of the U.S. Constitution, painting by Howard Chandler Christy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aoc.gov/art/other-paintings-and-murals/signing-constitution">Architect of the Capitol</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Coordination common</h2>
<p>Federalism is often viewed as a conflict between the national government and the states. Yet there are many areas in which coordinated action between all levels of government occurs on a regular basis. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/what-is-federalism-in-healthcare-for/">Health care is a prime example</a>. While states have the constitutional power to regulate health and welfare, there is a long history of national government involvement in health policy. </p>
<p>Historical crises such as the Great Depression and the two World Wars highlighted the fact that not every state has the means to address all of the medical needs of its citizens. Every president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has used the national government to expand or improve health care in the states. </p>
<p>The framers recognized the importance of national government in times of crisis. Both <a href="https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-45">James Madison</a> and <a href="https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-70">Alexander Hamilton</a> acknowledged the need for unified, national leadership when the country faced threatening circumstances. Madison said in the Federalist Papers, “The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.” </p>
<p>The coronavirus is such an emergency. </p>
<h2>Divided governing</h2>
<p>What does all of this constitutional history mean for the nation’s response to COVID-19? </p>
<p>First, consistent with constitutional principles, the national government’s <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6819239-FINAL-FINAL-CARES-ACT.html">US$2 trillion response bill</a> is largely directed at providing help to individuals and private entities. The provisions of the bill that do relate to state and local government simply offer opportunities for federal funding. </p>
<p>Second, the Trump administration retains the authority to administer funds. President Trump has used this authority to do things like direct <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/20/military-rescue-united-states-coronavirus-trump-esper-navy-ships-reserves-pandemic/">military aid to states</a> and <a href="https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/trump-administration-makes-sweeping-regulatory-changes-help-us-healthcare-system-address-covid-19">relax rules that regulate government approval for coronavirus testing</a>. He also has announced <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6840739/Guidelines-PDF.pdf">guidelines</a> for states to use when reopening state economies. </p>
<p>However, consistent with the Constitution, governors have discretion whether to implement these guidelines.</p>
<p>This means that it is still up to individual states to craft policies that protect the health and welfare of their citizens during this time of crisis. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-updates.html">Some states</a> are working closely with the White House, and others are <a href="https://time.com/5820263/governors-agreements-economic-reopenings-coronavirus/">coordinating their response efforts</a> with neighboring states.</p>
<p>So if America’s response to the coronavirus crisis will likely remain piecemeal and state-specific, perhaps this is what the framers intended.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Selin has received funding for her research on the executive branch from the Administrative Conference of the United States. In addition, she has received funding for her research on Congress from the Dirksen Congressional Center and the Center for Effective Lawmaking.</span></em></p>Throughout the coronavirus crisis, President Trump has made inconsistent statements about who is responsible for key aspects of the nation’s response to the pandemic. The Constitution has the answer.Jennifer Selin, Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy, University of Missouri-ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1324232020-03-02T17:35:34Z2020-03-02T17:35:34ZThe two-party system is here to stay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317859/original/file-20200228-24680-pbat8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite voter dissatisfaction with the Republican and Democratic parties, they are likely to persist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/democrats-vs-republicans-facing-off-ideological-466431032">Shutterstock/Victor Moussa</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The American two-party system has long been besieged. Many of the founders feared that organizing people along ideological lines would be dangerous to the fledgling nation. Alexander Hamilton called political parties a “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-13-02-0217">most fatal disease</a>,” James Madison renounced the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">violence of faction</a>,” and George Washington feared that an overly successful party would create “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp">frightful despotism</a>.” </p>
<p>The contemporary U.S. population isn’t terribly keen on parties, either, and tends to give them lukewarm performance reviews. A majority – 57% – of Americans believe that parties do “<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/244094/majority-say-third-party-needed.aspx">such a poor job</a>” that a third major party is needed, and only 38% think that parties do “an adequate job.”</p>
<p><iframe id="1NKAS" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/1NKAS/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Recent events may suggest that our two-party system is, unsurprisingly, cracking. The rise of Donald Trump caused ripples in the Republican Party by upending its traditional hierarchy, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/12/18661708/bernie-sanders-definition-democratic-socialism-explained">self-described Democratic Socialist</a> Bernie Sanders’ surprising front-runner status in the Democratic presidential primary has revealed <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/amid-newly-solidified-front-runner-status-bernie-sanders/story?id=69173107">deep divisions among Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>Significantly, these changes have occurred while <a href="https://www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/">trust in government</a> and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx">approval of Congress</a> sit at historic lows. So, then, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/opinion/republicans-democrats-2020-election.html">some</a> have <a href="https://spectator.org/the-death-of-the-democratic-party/">argued</a>, is America facing the death of its party system?</p>
<p>As a political scientist, I can offer a clear “no.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317860/original/file-20200228-24659-o97byr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Despite the fact that 38% of Americans think that parties do only ‘an adequate job,’ people still vote overwhelmingly for either Democrats or Republicans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-votes-from-a-booth-as-her-child-plays-with-a-news-photo/1058184620?adppopup=true">Getty/Frederic J. Brown/AFP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why parties?</h2>
<p><a href="https://adambrown.info/p/notes/aldrich_why_parties">Like all democracies</a> – and some autocracies – the U.S. will always have parties. They are necessary and inevitable for two reasons. </p>
<p>First, they facilitate the <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/%7Epoitras/collective-action.PDF">collective representation</a> of individual interests. </p>
<p>Parties address an important issue in democracies: People have the freedom to ask government to do things, yet the voice of any single individual is quiet. Parties amplify individual voices by combining them into a louder, cohesive message. </p>
<p>Such organized input is necessary for reasonably effective governance, which prevents rebellion. <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/schattschneider-e-e">As famed political scientist E.E. Schattschneider</a> wrote in his 1942 book, “Party Government,” “Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.”</p>
<p>Second, particularly among voters with little political knowledge, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3078708?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">party identification simplifies voting</a>. A voter may know nothing about candidates on Election Day but can use their party identification to make a reasonable decision. </p>
<p>Even if many Americans find parties imperfect, they do use them. Without parties, democracy could not function.</p>
<h2>Why two parties?</h2>
<p>Likewise, the two-party system will survive, regardless of political turbulence. This is a result of <a href="https://kenbenoit.net/pdfs/Benoit_FrenchPolitics_2006.pdf">how the U.S. elects leaders</a>. </p>
<p>In the vast majority of its congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative elections, America uses a system called <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/%7Ejrodden/oslo/lecture3.pptx">single member district plurality</a>, which means that each election produces only one winner. </p>
<p>Because voters generally do not wish to “waste” a vote, they focus on their <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/9946117/many_faces_of_strategic_voting">most preferred electable candidate</a>. </p>
<p>Because in a two-party system the major parties seek to <a href="http://economics.mit.edu/files/1224">appeal to broad coalitions</a> to maximize electability, this is almost always a Republican or a Democrat. It is almost never a <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/can-america-become-a-multiparty-system/">third-party candidate</a>, which the voter might actually prefer. Candidates and their wealthy supporters <a href="https://kenbenoit.net/pdfs/Benoit_FrenchPolitics_2006.pdf">recognize this</a>, and so they ally with major parties rather than creating a third.</p>
<p>A quick look at U.S. history demonstrates the inevitability of these forces. </p>
<p>The very founders of the republic who opposed factionalism created the <a href="http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/uniontodisunion/exhibits/show/federalist-party/timeline-of-federalist-party">Federalist Party</a> to support a strong national government and oppose the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anti-Federalists">Anti-Federalist Party</a>, which favored a decentralized government. </p>
<p>When the question of federal supremacy was settled, the Anti-Federalists were replaced by the <a href="https://law.jrank.org/pages/6058/Democratic-Republican-Party.html">Democratic-Republican Party</a>, which championed Southern agricultural interests. When the Federalists died out, the Democratic-Republican Party split into the <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0022.206/--rise-and-fall-of-the-american-whig-party-jacksonian-politics?rgn=main;view=fulltext">Whigs</a> and Democrats, who disagreed about the balance of power between branches of government. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1852 Whig Party presidential campaign poster. Within 10 years, the party was no more.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b50367/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-can-collapse-whig-party-tell-us-about-todays-politics-180958729/">1856, a collapsing Whig Party</a> was replaced by the anti-slavery Republican Party, whose feuds with the pro-slavery Democrats led to the Civil War. </p>
<p>From that point forward, those two dominant national parties have remained stable. Third-party challenges have been limited and generally unimportant, usually driven by specific issues rather than broad-based concerns.</p>
<h2>Stability in the future</h2>
<p>The modern Republicans and Democrats are unlikely to go the way of the Whigs, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, regardless of recent political earthquakes. </p>
<p>National politics are a different game now than they were during the early republic. Advances in communication and technology have enhanced party organization. Parties can maintain a truly national presence and ward off potential challengers. Both major parties have shown a willingness to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/bernie-sanders-and-donald-trump-ride-the-populist-wave">stretch to accommodate populists like Trump and Sanders</a> rather than splintering. </p>
<p>Recent changes in the <a href="https://www.270towin.com/content/superdelegate-rule-changes-for-the-2020-democratic-nomination">Democratic nomination process</a>, for example, demonstrate this flexibility. Barriers to third parties appearing on ballots are ingrained in our electoral <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/146884/america-stuck-two-parties">laws</a>, which have been engineered by those managing the current system so that it will endure. </p>
<p>And donors and lobbyists, who want predictable outcomes, have little incentive to rock the boat by supporting a new player in the game.</p>
<p>Certainly, the parties have evolved and will continue to do so. For example, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/upshot/demise-of-the-southern-democrat-is-now-nearly-compete.html">once reliably Democratic “solid South” shifted to Republican</a> control beginning with the Civil Rights movement. Yet evolution should not be confused with destruction, and the persistence of the present system is relatively secure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the fact that only 38% of Americans say they think the Democratic and Republican parties are doing ‘an adequate job,’ they’re unlikely to disappear.Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1323052020-02-28T13:11:06Z2020-02-28T13:11:06ZWhy federal judges with life tenure don’t need to fear political attacks from Trump or anyone else<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317624/original/file-20200227-24676-wp0pn8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump, left, and federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, right.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Impeachment/623288fafae54215aa57946336472f14/30/0 and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ketanji_Brown_Jackson_(robe_photo).jpg">Trump, AP/Steve Helber and Jackson, Wikipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: President Donald Trump has mounted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/us/politics/trump-barr-justice-department.html">attacks on the Justice Department</a> and its various branches, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/us/politics/trump-william-barr.html">on prosecutions he’s interested in</a> and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/482694-trump-swipes-at-resigned-prosecutors-judge-in-roger-stone-case">the judges</a> presiding over those cases. He’s complained that his political adversaries – Hillary Clinton and James Comey – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/politics/president-trump-justice-department.html">should have been prosecuted</a> and that his friends and associates, like <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/trump-roger-stone-justice-department-114684">Roger Stone</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/trump-defends-ex-aide-manafort-as-jury-weighs-verdict-idUSKBN1L20Z6">Paul Manafort</a>, shouldn’t have been.</em></p>
<p><em>The president’s complaints extended to a recent harangue against a juror in the Stone case, prompting a courtroom rebuke by federal Judge <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/judge-rebukes-trump-roger-stone-jury-117442">Amy Berman Jackson</a> who said, “Any attempt to invade the privacy of the jurors or to harass or intimidate them is completely antithetical to our entire system of justice.”</em></p>
<p><em>If the attacks are meant to intimidate, there’s one class of employees in the U.S. justice system who are immune to them: federal judges, who have lifetime tenure. We asked political science professor <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Qr1q2hUAAAAJ&hl=en">Amy Steigerwalt</a> to explain the history and logic behind the lifetime appointment of federal judges.</em></p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sV2j129LAPE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">“I thought the whole prosecution was ridiculous,” said Trump of Stone’s prosecution. “I thought it was an insult to our country.”</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. What is life tenure for federal judges?</h2>
<p>The vast majority of United States federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, as I describe in my book, “<a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4205">Battle Over the Bench: Senators, Interest Groups and Lower Court Confirmations</a>.”</p>
<p>These judges, known as “Article III” judges for the part of the Constitution that establishes their role, “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii">hold their offices during good behaviour,</a>” which in modern parlance means they serve for life. (The exceptions are federal <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/about-federal-judges">bankruptcy and magistrate</a> judges who serve for set terms and handle a limited set of issues).</p>
<p>The result is most federal judges serve until they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00665.x">voluntarily retire</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228137572_Judicial_Tenure_on_the_US_Supreme_Court_1790-1868_Frustration_Resignation_and_Expiration_on_the_Bench">die</a> or, in extremely rare cases, are involuntarily removed through impeachment.</p>
<h2>2. Why do federal judges have life tenure?</h2>
<p>In England, the king appointed judges and could remove them at will, so judges had strong incentives to issue rulings that pleased the king to keep their jobs. </p>
<p>The Framers of the Constitution instead wanted an independent judiciary able to act as a buffer against an oppressive legislature or executive. As Alexander Hamilton argued in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp">Federalist 78</a>, the Framers granted federal judges life tenure to protect them from undue political influence: “In a monarchy it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a republic it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body.”</p>
<p>Life tenure is intended to allow judges to issue rulings that go against the majority or ruling elite without fear of retribution. And these protections are necessary: Federal judges routinely rule on the most important and controversial issues of the day and consider whether state and federal laws are constitutional, raising claims of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300032994/least-dangerous-branch">“countermajoritarian”</a> behavior by scholars and politicians alike. </p>
<p>Public criticism of judicial decisions is also nothing new: Newly inaugurated President Thomas Jefferson vehemently derided the 1803 case <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137">Marbury v. Madison</a>, perhaps the most consequential Supreme Court decision, which ultimately established the power of judicial review, or the ability of courts to strike down laws as unconstitutional. Jefferson even tried to block the court from ruling on the case by canceling the court’s June <a href="https://www.fjc.gov/history/legislation/landmark-legislation-judiciary-act-1802">1802 term</a>. </p>
<p>President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/politics/29scotus.html">famously criticized the justices of the Supreme Court</a> for their ruling in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">Citizens United v. FEC</a> while they sat silently at the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-state-union-address">2010 State of the Union</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">At his Jan 27, 2010 State of the Union address, Obama criticized a Supreme Court decision that had been issued recently.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Present Trump has more recently criticized various federal judges for their rulings in cases addressing the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/05/the-judge-trump-disparaged-as-mexican-will-preside-over-an-important-border-wall-case/">travel bans</a>, during the trials of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/trump-takes-on-judge-amy-berman-jackson-ahead-of-roger-stones-sentencing/2020/02/12/753e2a6e-4db6-11ea-bf44-f5043eb3918a_story.html">people associated</a> with his administration and 2016 presidential campaign, and just recently suggested Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg should recuse themselves from any cases dealing with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/us/politics/trump-sotomayor-ginsburg-supreme-court.html">Trump administration</a>. </p>
<p>Concerns have been raised about Trump’s comments criticizing federal judges, including by <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/21/supreme-court-chief-justice-john-roberts-calls-out-trump-for-his-attack-on-a-judge-1011203">Chief Justice</a> John Roberts, who said there are no “Obama judges or Trump judges.”</p>
<p>Life tenure, however, means that the targets of these attacks need not fear losing their seats on the bench.</p>
<h2>3. What are the pros and cons of this system?</h2>
<p>Life tenure allows judges to make hard and potentially unpopular decisions without fear of retribution. In all of the examples mentioned above, the judges faced nothing more than public criticism. </p>
<p>Judges without life tenure, alternatively, face the possibility of losing their jobs. Many states have chosen to implement some type of electoral system to increase accountability for judges sitting on state courts. Elected state judges must therefore make their constituents happy to ensure reelection. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055413000622">Studies have found,</a> for example, that elected state judges are more likely to rule harshly in criminal cases as elections approach to stave off criticisms of being “soft on crime.” Other studies find elected state judges change their sentencing behavior to match <a href="http://mjnelson.org/papers/2014JLC.pdf">constituent preferences</a>, and that elections may lead to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24710965">increased disagreement</a> on the courts. </p>
<p>Life tenure shields federal judges, however, from being accountable for their actions. Impeachment is the only remedy, even for blatantly discriminatory or even illegal behavior. But, systems that increase judicial accountability raise concerns about what forces may be influencing a judge’s decisions, whether that is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X17692325">public</a> pressures, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532440017697174">campaign donors</a> or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26158391">political</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x15599839">elites</a>. </p>
<p>Another potential issue with life tenure is age. <a href="https://qz.com/1632163/human-life-expectancy-keeps-increasing-but-how-far-can-it-go/">Life expectancy has increased exponentially</a> and there is no mechanism other than impeachment to remove someone involuntarily who is showing signs of impaired judgment or decline in mental cognition. </p>
<h2>4. Is this system likely to change?</h2>
<p>Probably not. While <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/vanlr70&div=50&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals">states have experimented</a> with a large variety of judicial selection and retention systems, efforts to reform the federal life tenure system remain largely in the arena of academic law school debates. </p>
<p>The proposed reforms generally modify life tenure around the edges, rather than doing away with it altogether. One of the most widely supported proposals concerns a <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/07/should-there-be-age-limits-for-federal-judges.html">mandatory retirement age</a>. Others propose <a href="https://cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781594602139/Reforming-the-Court">term lengths</a>. </p>
<p>The foremost barrier is that changing the system requires an amendment to the Constitution, which requires a constitutional amendment be proposed by a two-thirds vote of each chamber of Congress and then ratified by three-quarters of the states. In this highly polarized time, that’s unlikely to happen.</p>
<p>What is more possible are legislative attempts to make retirement more attractive to sitting judges, such as the current <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/668507">“Rule of 80”</a>, established in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/371">1984</a>, which encourages retirement or partial retirement while still allowing judges to draw their full pay. </p>
<p>But, overall, independence is a defining virtue of the American federal judiciary, one that has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912916656277">mirrored by countries</a> around the world. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Steigerwalt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If President Trump’s attacks on the justice system are meant to intimidate, there’s one class of employees who are immune to that: federal judges who have lifetime tenure.Amy Steigerwalt, Professor of Political Science, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309692020-02-05T19:50:18Z2020-02-05T19:50:18Z‘Hamilton,’ the musical now in Canada, tells the story of America’s founding passions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313383/original/file-20200203-41532-1awqtu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C225%2C1688%2C1013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joseph Morales and company in 'Hamilton,' the musical that opens to sold out shows in Toronto this month. The show highlights early ambition in America. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hamilton national tour/Joan Marcus)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Hamilton</em>, the musical, is coming to Canada.</p>
<p>Four years after taking Broadway by storm, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s portrayal of the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most colourful founding fathers, opens this month to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/blog/hamilton-15-fascinating-facts-about-the-biggest-musical-of-all-time-1.5341556">sold out shows</a> in Toronto. </p>
<p><em>Hamilton</em>’s main draws are its fabulous music and astonishing plot. Born a nobody on the British-ruled island of Nevis, Hamilton became a romantic polymath who fought wars and duels, wrote treatises and doctrines and helped turn 13 rebellious colonies into a rising empire. Inspired by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/books/creating-capitalism.html">Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography</a>, Miranda’s masterpiece features a hip-hop soundtrack, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/theater/hamilton-and-history-are-they-in-sync.html">multiracial cast</a> and powerful arguments, in theatrical form, for a more inclusive America. </p>
<p>More subtly, the play also explores ambition, a traditionally maligned passion in British North America that became a distinctive national ethic in the early United States.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from ‘Hamilton,’ the musical.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ascent from poverty</h2>
<p>From the first scene to the last, <em>Hamilton</em> relates an incredible case of social mobility: “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman … grow up to be a hero and a scholar [and a] Founding Father?” The curtain parts as a teenaged Hamilton leaves his Caribbean birthplace and lands in New York City in 1772, determined to rise up in this “new land,” where “you can be a new man.” His destiny and that of the 13 colonies merge. </p>
<p>“Hey yo, I’m just like my country,” he boasts, “I’m young, scrappy and hungry!” Both the man and the nation must throw off British rule to realize their mighty potential.</p>
<p>In the play — and in history — the young Hamilton’s skills with the sword and pen catch the eye of George Washington, the statuesque leader of the Continental Army. As Washington’s right-hand man, Hamilton helps keep the American Revolution alive after the British chase the outgunned rebels out of New York in late 1776.</p>
<p><em>Hamilton</em> brilliantly captures the boundless energy of its main character. We watch Hamilton woo the daughter of a wealthy landlord, lobby the Continental Congress for more money, and outshine the other officers around Washington. “<a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/32212220/Hamilton%3A+An+American+Musical+%5BOriginal+Broadway+Cast+Recording%5D/Non-Stop">The Man is NON-STOP!</a>”</p>
<p>With independence won, Washington entrusts his favourite officer with the new Treasury Department — and sides with Hamilton against Thomas Jefferson and most Americans, who don’t understand that with the revolution over and done with, the new country must act a bit more like the self-interested, hyper-capitalist empire it just defeated. In the play’s version of the chaotic 1790s, only Hamilton is smart enough to create a national bank and financial system while keeping the U.S. out of the French Revolution. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shoba Narayan, Ta'Rea-Campbell and Nyla Sostre in the national tour of ‘Hamilton,’ the musical.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hamlton/Joan Marcus)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Miranda’s opus inevitably adopts many of the arguments of its title character. At times it turns Hamilton, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/opinion/what-hamilton-forgets-about-alexander-hamilton.html">deeply elitist man</a> who wanted to insulate economic and foreign policy from ordinary people, into a progressive visionary. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the play is accurate in its read of Hamilton’s motivations. On stage as in real life, the man from Nevis doesn’t seek money or office. He doesn’t need creature comforts or cheap thrills. What he wants, more than anything is for the world to know his name. He’s defined and perhaps consumed by ambition, the desperate desire to be noticed by strangers and posterity. </p>
<h2>Dangerous passion</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull, circa 1805.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&menu=search&aspect=Keyword&term=IAP+08930129&index=.NW">(Smithsonian Art Museum)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The American patriots believed that republics required <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807847237/the-creation-of-the-american-republic-1776-1787/">selfless and civic-minded citizens</a> who were always on guard against those who lusted for power. The people had to “know ambition under every disguise it may assume,” <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807845882/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia/">Jefferson warned</a> in 1781. Otherwise, their republic would fall into corruption and tyranny. </p>
<p>In a society built on family labour, ambition often seemed useless as well as dangerous. Farm parents needed dutiful children, not ambitious dreamers.</p>
<p>Indeed, colonial Americans denounced ambition as a “fire” that threatened to destroy social ties and moral duties. They knew it as a <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300182804/ambition-history">radically selfish passion</a>, a dark blend of pride, envy and rage. </p>
<p>By abolishing monarchy and aristocracy, however, revolutionary leaders also invited go-getters to reach for the sky. They celebrated their revolution as a grand theatre on which previously obscure people could do remarkable things. </p>
<p>In other words, they deliberately stoked ambition even as they worried about its destructive energies.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Americans like Hamilton solved this cultural riddle by <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14459.html">turning ambition into a national virtue</a> — something that was good and moral so long as it was in service to the United States, the only country (in theory) where merit found its reward. For young men, at least, the burning desire to rise up became not only a right but also a duty, something that would carry the nation as well as themselves to greatness.</p>
<h2>American dreams</h2>
<p>In this sense, <em>Hamilton</em> reflects the cultural moment in which the play is set. It is a celebration of a new and lasting marriage between individual and national ambition in American culture. It is a paean to patriotic ambition, set against the amoral careerism of the anti-hero, Aaron Burr, whom Hamilton ultimately confronts on the duelling ground. </p>
<p>“Alexander Hamilton!” the chorus exults in the opening number. “When America sings for you, will they know what you overcame?” Hamilton replies on his deathbed: “America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.”</p>
<p>And yet Miranda’s play is also honest about ambition’s costs. Hamilton’s relentless pursuit of fame draws him away from his dutiful wife, Eliza, who can only wonder why she and the children aren’t enough. His inability to respect other people’s views — he assumes they can’t keep up with him — alienates him from his peers. He’s too busy to love anyone but himself, his country and their shared destiny.</p>
<p>In all these ways, <em>Hamilton</em> captures the national tendency to see history as a grand drama, in which the exceptionally driven and talented make things happen, for better and worse. </p>
<p>By its very nature, of course, this way of looking at ambition and history marginalizes the everyday concerns of most people, whose duties inevitably outweigh their dreams. That’s yet another irony for a country that has long seen itself as the only real democracy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The cast of ‘Hamilton’ performs a selection of songs at the Obama White House.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J.M. Opal receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster portrayal of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most colourful founding fathers, opens this month in Toronto.Jason Opal, Associate Professor of History and Chair, History and Classical Studies, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.