What did the Framers intend for the Senate?
Here is the view according to Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), speaking yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press":
"The people who wrote this Constitution, many of them came from Virginia, people like Madison and Monroe and, of course, Hamilton from New York and others. And they set up a system, a bicameral system in the legislative branch. The Senate was to be a place where the rights of the minority were protected, using the vehicle of extended debate. The House is a place where the majority rules. That's why they set this system up."
Sen. Dodd was born in 1944, one year before the end of World War II, and 157 years after the Constitutional Convention. He has been in the Senate for over twenty years now, however, and should know better the history of that body and its structure in the Constitution. There is no "vehicle of extended debate" provided for in the Constitution. The Constitution allows each house of Congress to make its own rules, and it is from those rules that the filibuster has emerged. But his description of the Senate as "a place where the rights of the minority were protected," compared to the majority rule of the House of Representatives, is not what the Framers were shooting for.
As most people might remember from their high school civics classes, the debate in the Constitutional Convention over the establishment of the national government revolved around two competing plans: the Virginia plan, where both houses of the federal legislature were apportioned according to population, and the New Jersey plan, which envisioned only one house in the national legislature in which each state had equal representation. The compromise in the Constitution gave each state equal representation in the Senate, and proportional representation in the House. The Senate was not necessarily intended to be a place where minority rights were protected, but rather where the sovereignty of the states was respected. James Madison wrote in Federalist 62:
"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right, that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have a PROPORTIONAL share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an EQUAL share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation. . . . A government founded on principles more consonant to the wishes of the larger States, is not likely to be obtained from the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former, lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and, instead of indulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous consequences which may qualify the sacrifice.
"In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic." [Emphasis added.]
The Senate, therefore, was intended to preserve the sovereignty of the states by allowing each state an equal voice in one house of the national legislature. Indeed, under the Constitution, state legislatures selected the Senators; only with the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913 did Senators become chosen by popular vote. As noble as the protection of minority rights is, it is not, as the Senator stated, "why they set this system up."
"The people who wrote this Constitution, many of them came from Virginia, people like Madison and Monroe and, of course, Hamilton from New York and others. And they set up a system, a bicameral system in the legislative branch. The Senate was to be a place where the rights of the minority were protected, using the vehicle of extended debate. The House is a place where the majority rules. That's why they set this system up."
Sen. Dodd was born in 1944, one year before the end of World War II, and 157 years after the Constitutional Convention. He has been in the Senate for over twenty years now, however, and should know better the history of that body and its structure in the Constitution. There is no "vehicle of extended debate" provided for in the Constitution. The Constitution allows each house of Congress to make its own rules, and it is from those rules that the filibuster has emerged. But his description of the Senate as "a place where the rights of the minority were protected," compared to the majority rule of the House of Representatives, is not what the Framers were shooting for.
As most people might remember from their high school civics classes, the debate in the Constitutional Convention over the establishment of the national government revolved around two competing plans: the Virginia plan, where both houses of the federal legislature were apportioned according to population, and the New Jersey plan, which envisioned only one house in the national legislature in which each state had equal representation. The compromise in the Constitution gave each state equal representation in the Senate, and proportional representation in the House. The Senate was not necessarily intended to be a place where minority rights were protected, but rather where the sovereignty of the states was respected. James Madison wrote in Federalist 62:
"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right, that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have a PROPORTIONAL share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an EQUAL share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation. . . . A government founded on principles more consonant to the wishes of the larger States, is not likely to be obtained from the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former, lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and, instead of indulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous consequences which may qualify the sacrifice.
"In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic." [Emphasis added.]
The Senate, therefore, was intended to preserve the sovereignty of the states by allowing each state an equal voice in one house of the national legislature. Indeed, under the Constitution, state legislatures selected the Senators; only with the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913 did Senators become chosen by popular vote. As noble as the protection of minority rights is, it is not, as the Senator stated, "why they set this system up."
posted by Hal | 12:18 PM
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