SCHOOL OF FREE110A ARTICLE ONE, SECTIONS ONE TO THREE
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(Please see attached to this email a high-resolution photo of the first page of The Constitution. Be sure to zoom in for the detail!)
Article 1, Sections 1-3 of the Constitution describes the legislative authority and responsibilities of the US Congress that created a governing system based on the will of the people not on class, religion, inheritance, or political power. Furthermore, since the Constitution provides only 2 year terms for the "people's house", the House of Representatives, the voters can elect an entirely different set of representatives every two years, if they wish. That should prevent any need for revolution.
The US Constitution was adopted in 1787 and has been the model for most of the constitutions that have been written since then. However, not all the written constitutions have prevented revolution. For example, the current Egyptian Constitution was written in 1971 and amended in 2005. Yet Egypt's constitution has hardly been mentioned by the (mostly young) protestors and the media covering the event in recent weeks.
"We have to be steady to topple the government," said Ahmed Abdel Moneim, a 22-year-old student who had slept and protested in Cairo's Tahrir for days. "The French Revolution took a very long time so the people could eventually get their rights. ... If we have to spend our life to get rid of Mubarak, we will."[1]
Ahmed did not mention his own country's Constitution which was written in 1971, and amended as recently as 2005. He referred to a violent overthrow of King George XVI of France, who had helped the Americans with their revolution with England by providing loans, ships, weapons, ammunition and even military personnel like the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington's aide.
The French Revolution began soon after the US Constitution was written. On July 14, 1789 thousands of people in Paris stormed the Bastille,[2] a prison. That event is still celebrated by the French as the "birth of democracy" and "a symbol of historical dimensions; it was proof that power no longer resided in the King or in God, but in the people, in accordance with the theories developed by the philosophies of the 18th century."
But what really happened in the French Revolution that Ahmed and his friends want to copy? It led to the reign of terror that saw more than 17,000 French men, women and children, including many clergymen, King George XVI and his wife, beheaded in the public square and to the genocide in the Vendee area of France[3], when from 25% to 50% of its population were slaughtered as they tried to protect their churches and clergymen. Do they want a modern Napoleon or the restoration of the Egyptian Monarchy - which began taking place a mere six years after Louis XVI was beheaded?
The Constitution of the United States was not written to create a democracy. It was written to create a republic which the founders hoped could not deteriorate into either a democracy or into a monarchy or dictatorship. To maintain its integrity, they created a government composed to three equal parts: executive, legislative and judiciary - that would check and balance each other while responding to the needs and hopes of the people.
Article 1 - Sections 1-3 create a legislature which is further divided into two parts: House of Representatives and Senate. Members of the House of Representatives, often called "the People's House, " serve for two years. The House is based on the population of each state and is intended to reflect the will and the interests of the people of each state. Article 1, Sec. 2 requires an "actual renumeration" or census be made every ten years to ensure an accurate representation in each state based on its population. The two-year term allows the voters maximum assurance that they can change their representatives quickly, based on events and their elected representative's service. The presidency and the senate serve longer terms because their responsibilities are designed to provide greater stability, wisdom and experience to the governing process.
The Constitution written in 1787 required that the Senators be chosen by the Assembly of each State, to insure strong State representation in the Federal government. Some delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention also felt, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the need to "check the amazing violence and turbulence of the democratic spirit" by creating a body, similar to the English House of Lords, where the terms were for life. Others were concerned that long terms, or life time terms, would deteriorate into "an aristocratic upper house, insulated from popular opinion." And, the smaller states, like Delaware and Maryland, feared they would be permanently outvoted by majority rule based on population, as was practiced under the Articles of Confederation.
The compromise[4] provided a term of six years for senators, with one-third of the Senate being elected every two years, patterned in part after the Maryland upper house where the term was five years.
In 1913, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted giving the voters in each state, not the state assembly, the right to choose their senators.
According the James Madison in Federalist Paper #10,[5] a very deliberate and thoughtful effort was made to prevent the government from disintegrating as had most democracies in history by avoiding the creation of "factions" - and concentrating on building "unity." Unity also was one of the four principles George Washington felt would be required for the nation to survive and to prosper. Excerpts from James Madison's Federalist Paper #10:
"AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. ...
"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community....
"There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
"There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
"It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency...
"The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed...
"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good...
"A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy, which it must derive from the Union...
'The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended...
"Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, -- is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage....
'The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State. ...
'In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists."
Or, as George Washington put it, in his Farewell Address in 1796:[6]
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize."
[1] http://english.aljaz...2637371987.html -Al Jazeera -Feb.5,2011
[2] http://www.info-fran...oz/14july03.12p - French Embassy website - July 14, 2003
[3] http://en.wikipedia....the_Vend%C3%A9e - War in the Vendee - 1790-1793
[4] http://www.senate.go...on_Senate.htm#2 - US Senate
[5] http://www.constitut...ed/federa10.htm - James Madison - Federalist Paper #10
[6] http://avalon.law.ya...ury/washing.asp -George Washington's Farewell Address
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Mary Mostert has written articles on political and social issues for more than 60 years, including a weekly newspaper column for Gannett Newspapers. She has written four books, including books on the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. Her e-mail is mary@bannerofliberty.com and website is http://www.bannerofliberty.com
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