The founders' wisdom


By Alan Keyes
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Nothing about the current extraordinary aftermath of the
presidential election has been quite as alarming as the
spectacle of almost uniform ignorance among our political
elites, media and citizens, of the very purpose and
principled justification of the constitutionally prescribed
procedure by which the United States selects its
presidents.

Senator-elect Hillary appears to believe that the Electoral
College is merely an archaic reflection of our elitist
ancestors and their distrust of democracy. Why shouldn't
the people elect the president directly, she wants to
know, as she prepares to take her seat in that equally
"archaic" institution, the Senate, in which, as a senator
from New York, she will have precisely as much
constitutional authority as senators from Wyoming and
Alaska. Possibly she will soon be moved to question the
"injustice" of such disproportionate representation.

The Constitution of the United States was crafted with
prayerful care and deep wisdom to enable the vision of
virtuous self-government proclaimed in our Declaration of
Independence to take on the flesh and bone of real
political life. Animated by the principles of the
Declaration, the Constitution is the fundamental
procedural instrument by which we pursue our national
goal of governing ourselves. Our founders recognized
that all men are prone to sin and selfishness. They had
learned from history that democratic governments that
put no procedural restraint on the will of the majority
usually resulted in tyranny and persecution of minorities;
in abrupt, passionate, and dangerous politics, and the
failure of self-government. That is why, in designing the
American system, they were so careful to put into the
democratic process those safeguards that allow it to have
stability and longevity.

There has been criticism of the system in the last several
days because it is alleged that a simple and direct election
of the president by means of the national popular vote
would have avoided the controversy regarding the
Florida totals. But the current troubles are actually a clear
vindication of the wisdom of the Electoral College. It has
confined the controversy to one state, because it holds
the balance of the Electoral College, rather than
spreading it throughout the entire country. Without the
Electoral College, the entire country would be consumed
by the question of the popular vote, in which Vice
President Gore and Gov. Bush are separated by about
4,000 votes per state. That means that from Alaska to
Florida, Maine to California, partisans of both men would
be subjecting the election totals of their communities to
recounts, challenges, litigation -- the inevitable temptation
to fraud -- and other attempts to find the few votes that
might make the difference to the national total.

I have often compared the Constitution to a nuclear
reactor, with the power of self-government understood
as nuclear power. If you don't have the control rods in
place, if everything isn't set up properly, you don't have a
controlled and useful reaction -- you have a meltdown, or
the makings of a bomb. That's what democracy is like. If
it is not properly structured, it is highly destructive. If it is
properly structured, it is probably the best form of
government we can attain to. And I think the design
bequeathed us by our founders comes pretty close.

The question the founders faced was how to establish
institutions of government that would be accountable to
the public will, but in ways that systematically encouraged
that will to be reflective, deliberate, and truly
public-minded. Such encouragement makes no sense, of
course, if one believes that the public will, or desire of the
majority, is truly the ultimate principle of political justice.
But the country was founded with a Declaration that
acknowledged the duty of the people to seek justice in
conformity to the laws of nature and of nature's God. Our
Constitution is crafted not simply to empower public will,
but to empower those expressions of public will that are
most likely to be consistent with the nation's pursuit of
true justice.

The founders understood that a government designed to
respond directly, immediately and completely to the will
of the majority would be extremely unstable. Among
other threats to political stability in such a system they
concentrated particularly on the danger of what they
called "factionalism." A system that awarded political
power to any group achieving simple majority status
would be vulnerable to the possibility of a majority
faction that would not represent the good of the whole.
Regional factions, for example, might form on the basis of
an interest common to residents of the region, but
detrimental to the Union -- such as in the period leading
up to the Civil War.

The purpose of government is justice, the harmonious
ordering of private and partial interests with the
overarching common good of a community. Because
government must have daunting coercive power if it is
effectively to accomplish this purpose, government is
inherently almost as dangerous as it is necessary. A
government that, like a lens concentrating sunlight to start
a fire, simply focused the passions of a majority into a
single beam of power would be much more dangerous
than necessary. The founders sought to prevent this
deadly laser of popular will and power, which they called
the tyranny of the majority. They crafted a government
truly of, by and for the people, but which systematically
prevented the suppression of the rights of the minority.
They thought, thereby, to come as close as humanly
possible to a government that expressed the will and
sought the good of the whole, rather than of a majority.

The three pillars of this attempt were the universal
American sentiment of reverence for the rule of law and
the goal of justice; the division of sovereignty between the
state and federal governments; and the division of the
federal government's offices into three branches, the
legislative, executive and judicial. The good character and
intentions of the American people, artfully reflected
through this system of divided yet composed government
power, has for two centuries produced governmental
action that has been, on the whole and roughly speaking,
more illuminating than incendiary. This simple fact is the
greatest triumph of statesmanship in the history of human
government.

In our day, shallow, superficial and selfish "leaders"
neither understand this history, appreciate the benefits it
has brought, nor fear the evil its abandonment will bring.
Led by Bill Clinton, they have assaulted the character of
American decency and good will that alone makes
self-government possible. And now they are preparing an
assault on the balance and separation of powers, seeking
to undermine the entire cathedral of American liberty by
their selfish and childish insistence on immediate exercise
of their individual will.

The Electoral College is one safeguard that was
introduced in order to help stabilize the American system
against factionalism by increasing the odds that a
president has to attend to the whole country, not just to a
particularly intense concentration of his political support
within it. The Electoral College system tends to reward a
candidate with modest majorities in many states, rather
than a candidate with overwhelming support in a few. As
we are being reminded vividly by the current election,
there is no benefit to a candidate for president in having
much more than a bare majority in any given state -- he
gains nothing from those votes beyond the one that gives
him victory in that state. It is a wise and good system
promoting truly national leadership that encourages
presidential candidates to seek a plurality in many states,
rather than basing his support in a few states
overwhelmingly committed to his cause. This is not a
guarantee that candidates will be nationally-minded, of
course. But it is a generally effective protection against
the worst kind of regional factionalism in presidential
politics. This protection is subtly accomplished by the
Electoral College system in every presidential election,
and we would be short-sighted indeed if we abandon it in
a selfish and stupidly willful reach for direct influence of
our individual votes.

Acceptance of the procedural twists and turns that stand
between the popular will of the moment and its
expression in the form of effective political power is not
so different from the simple act of counting to ten before
speaking when angry. This simple pause can seem
arbitrary, and it delays the expression of our will. But it
also, and more fundamentally, acknowledges that even in
our freedom we are bound to respect the verdict of
reason in what we do, and that we must consult reason
before acting.

In fact, resentment of the Electoral College usually
reveals a deeper resentment to the principles of the
American Republic. Zealots of the popular will cannot
stomach the notion that every one of us has an obligation
to something other than our own will -- and that as
American citizens we have an obligation to seek not our
own private benefit, but justice for the whole. The
Electoral College system is merely one of the ways that
our constitutional system requires us to accept the fruitful
paradox of American statesmanship -- that higher
principles than the popular will must be respected in the
constitutional outcome, but that these higher principles
cannot ultimately govern American politics unless they are
freely accepted by the people.

Political ambition in America cannot be absolute, but
must always be limited by the demands of prudence and
the ultimate goal of justice. The oft-repeated but seldom
understood statement that America is not a democracy
but a republic reduces ultimately to this fact.

Indeed, the spirit of moderation and of the search for
justice that is implied in the structural constraints on the
public will found in the Constitution can also guide our
thinking about what should now happen in Florida.
Whatever result emerges from the political drama in that
state, we know that a successful result for the country
requires that even in this particular controversy we must
respect the principles that guided the founders in crafting
the Constitution and in founding the Union.

This means, first of all, that the rest of the nation must
expect from Florida a resolution of the dispute that
respects the requirements of the integrity of the franchise,
and which seeks to accomplish justice both in perception
and in substance. The key to accomplishing this will be to
remember several principles of American political life,
deeply respected by our founders, that might be lost sight
of in the midst of all the partisan passion. No enduring
good result will occur if we fail to respect the things the
founders cared about. They cared that we should have
self-government, and that it should be just, stable and
long-lasting. They cared that it should produce results
that were consistent with the dignity of all our people.
They hoped and trusted that Americans would always
strive to place these goals above any immediate political
aims.

We must, therefore, care about not just whether our
candidate wins, but also about pursuing the results in a
way that contributes to the stability of the electoral
system and to the national respect for its integrity without
which no prudent expression of the national will is
possible. And we must take great pains to care about
these things more, not less, as it becomes ever more clear
that our opponents do not.

It is ironic that at the end of the most lawless
administration in the history of our country, the man who
stood silent in the shadow of that lawlessness and
became its accomplice should demand from the
American people "respect for the rule of law." But for
those of us who have been defending the principle of the
rule of law throughout these difficult years, it is neither
ironic nor difficult for us to demand that same respect for
justice here that we wanted in the case of Bill Clinton.

At the end, let us hope and pray, of the Clinton era, this
amazing election has made it suddenly necessary that all
Americans consider questions usually reserved for the
statesman or the founder. We must remember the deep
meaning of the institutions and procedures by which the
Constitution helps us to replace mere popular willfulness
with the considered judgments of the better angels of our
national nature. And we must remember as well that such
statesmanship is the duty of the citizen even in the
particular and passing contests of political life, when our
passions tempt us to seek triumph without due regard for
justice.

It would be sweet indeed if the citizens of America --
Democrat, Republican and independent -- rise to the
occasion and resolve the current travail in a way that
renews our veneration for law and for the justice that is
its purpose. Let us bless the founders for our
Constitution, and for proclaiming the eternal Declaration
principles of justice it enshrines. God give us wisdom.



Former Reagan administration official Alan Keyes,
was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Social
and Economic Council and 2000 Republican
presidential candidate.

SOURCE:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_keyes/20001113_xcake_the_founde.shtml 

Alan Keyes