The American Revolution and constitutional redefinition of democracy PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00

Key Points

1) Provide a brief descriptive overview of the American revolution.

2) Describe the key features of

Key Points

1) Provide a brief descriptive overview of the American revolution.

2) Describe the key features of representative democracy.

3) Analyse and critically evaluate the American constitutional redefinition of democracy, identifying both strengths and weaknesses.

Introduction

  • representative democracy an American innovation

  • USA has provided the world’s dominant definition of democracy.

1) The American Revolution, 1776-1789; 1861-65

  • outbreak of the War of Independence at Lexington in 1775

  • Second Continental Congress (convened 10 May, 1775) evolved into de facto national government.

  • Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense in January 1776 – sells 120,000 copies in three months.

  • July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence

- all men created equal

- possess inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness

- governments formed in order to secure these rights and depend on consent of the governed

- “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government...”

  • unifying and centralising effects of the war (which lasted 8 years) on the Thirteen Colonies

  • protracted development of the constitutional framework for both the regional state governments and a centralised national government

  • 1781 Articles of Confederation

  • 1787 Philadelphia Convention

  • composed exclusively of white propertied (generally wealthy) men;

- excluded: indians, women, slaves, labourers, small business owners, & small farmers, westerners.

- proceedings conducted in secret

  • 1789 ratification of the Constitution

  • all states ratified by 1791

  • franchise determined by the States.

  • two major axes of conflict:

- national sovereignty of the United States versus continued imperialist domination by Britain

- influence of the rich white propertied elite versus influence of ‘poor and middling folk’ within the new system of democracy.

  • an incomplete constitutional settlement because of need to compromise with the southern states who wanted to retain slavery.

  • American Civil War 1861-65

- scale of the conflict

- completed the revolution, generalised capitalism and representative democracy throughout the nation.

- established the national hegemony of the northern industrial bourgeoisie (business elite) over the Western and Southern regions of the US.

2) The key features of representative democracy

  • purely political definition of democracy.

  • regular elections, secret ballot, competition between factions, potential leaders or parties, and majority rule are the institutional bases for establishing accountability of those who govern.

  • majoritarian but rights of individuals and minorities protected by constitutional safeguards.

  • separation of powers between executive, legislature & judiciary.

  • centrality of constitutionalism to guarantee equality before the law and civil rights.

  • civil liberties guaranteeing freedom of speech, expression, and association (etc.)

  • freedom of individuals to speak in society but not in parliamentary assembly, exclusive preserve of representatives

  • the people are distanced from direct participation in government.

  • indirect participation through interest groups parties, elections, and the free press.

  • development from restrictive to extensive citizen body

  • passive citizenship

  • clear separation of the state from civil society

3) The constitutional redefinition of democracy

  • framers of constitution faced task of preserving the division between mass and elite (entailed by American capitalism) in the context of an increasingly democratic franchise and active citizenry.

  • designed set of political institutions that would both embody and curtail popular power.

  • created inclusive but passive body with limited powers.

  • how was this achieved?

  • primarily through principles of representation.

  • Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper no. 35:

- “The idea of actual representation of all classes of the people, by people of each class, is altogether visionary...” (Wood, p.215)

- man of property best qualified to speak for all...

  • Madison in Federalist Paper no. 10:

- representation is required to “refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens.”

- representation as a filtering mechanism.

  • the novelty of the American idea:

- In its Federalist form ... it meant that something hitherto perceived as the antithesis of democratic self-government was now not only compatible with but constitutive of democracy:

- not the exercise of political power by the citizens themselves but its relinquishment, its transfer to others, its alienation from the populace.

  • representation not only acts as a filtering mechanism, it acts to distance the people from direct involvement in politics and government.

  • As Wood observes:

“The American republic firmly established a definition of democracy in which the transfer of power to ‘representatives of the people’ constituted not just a necessary concession to size and complexity but rather the very essence of democracy itself.

  • In short, ‘blacksmiths and shoemakers’ no longer participate in the sovereign assembly, a small and very select number of representatives speak instead.”

  • American definition of citizenship and democracy is completely devoid of the social meaning that citizenship and democracy had in the Greek context.

- participation of poor and labouring citizens in the process of government is no longer a defining feature of democracy.

  • The democratic citizenship associated with capitalism:

- leaves untouched the whole new sphere of domination and coercion created by capitalism, its relocation of substantial powers from the state to civil society, to private property and the compulsions of the market.

- leaves untouched vast areas of our daily lives — in the workplace, in the distribution of labour and resources — that are not subject to democratic accountability, but are governed by the powers of property, the laws of the market, and the imperatives of profit maximization.

  • the separation and enclosure of the economic sphere and its invulnerability to democratic power is what makes it possible to define democracy as we do in modern liberal capitalist societies.

  • democracy is narrowly confined to the political sphere.

Quiz

  • “Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”

  • “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

Question 1: Who made these statements?

a) key figure in the French Revolution

b) key figure in the American Revolution

c) key figure in the Russian Revolution

Answer:

(a) President of the United States

Question 2: which one?

Answer:

Abraham Lincoln (first statement 1848, second 1861).