the necessity of the change; and that too great fixedness of the law is better than too great fluctuation. This is all true enough; but, on the other hand, it is equally true that development is as much a law of state life as existence. Prohibit the former, and the latter is the existence of the body after the spirit has departed. When, in a democratic political society, the well-matured, long and deliberately formed will of the undoubted majority can be persistently and successfully thwarted, in the amendment of its organic law, by the will of the minority, there is just as much danger to the state from revolution and violence as there is from the caprice of the majority, where the sovereignty of the bare majority is acknowledged. The safeguards against too radical change must not be exaggerated to the point of dethroning the real sovereign."[38]
What Professor Burgess seems to overlook is the fact that the framers of the Constitution deliberately intended to dethrone the numerical majority. The restrictions which they placed upon the exercise of the amending power were not only not inconsistent with the form of government which they established, but as a matter of fact absolutely necessary to ensure its preservation, since without such a limitation of the power to amend, the majority could easily overcome all other checks upon its authority.
This feature of the Constitution, which nominally provides for amendment, but really makes it an impossibility, is perhaps the best proof we could have that the Constitution as framed and adopted represented the views of a minority who intended by this means to perpetuate their influence. But, we are told, this can not be the case since the states were free to accept or reject it. Let us not forget, however, that at no stage of the proceedings was the matter referred directly to the people. Bryce says: "Had the decision been left to what is now called 'the voice of the people,' that is, to the mass of the citizens all over the country, voting at the polls, the voice of the people would probably have pronounced against the Constitution."[39] Moreover, "the Convention met," as he observes, "at the most fortunate moment in American History [for securing the adoption of such a constitution]. … Had it been attempted four years earlier or four years later at both of which times the waves of democracy were running high, it must have failed."[40] But even under these favoring conditions it was no easy task to get the states to adopt it. The advocates of the Constitution employed every argument and influence that could contribute to the desired result. They appealed with telling effect to the dread of European aggression. This induced many who had little sympathy with the proposed plan of government, to acquiesce in its adoption, believing that some sort of a strong government was necessary for purposes of defence. It was also boldly charged that money was employed to overcome opposition where other means of persuasion failed.[41]
Our natural inclination is to disbelieve anything that reflects on the political methods employed by the founders of our government. Nevertheless, the widespread belief that the politicians and public men of that time were less corrupt than those of to-day is, as Professor McMaster says, a pure delusion. "A very little study of long-forgotten politics will suffice to show that in filibustering and gerrymandering, in stealing governorships and legislatures, in using force at the polls, in colonizing and in distributing patronage to whom patronage is due, in all the frauds and tricks that go to make up the worst form of practical politics, the men who founded our state and national governments were always our equals, and often our masters."[42] Of one thing we may be reasonably certain—the Constitution as adopted did not represent the political views of a majority of the American people—probably not even a majority of those entitled to vote. Universal suffrage, we must remember, did not then exist, and both property and religious qualifications limited the right to hold public office. This of itself is evidence that those who then controlled politics did not believe in the right of the majority to rule. And when we take account of the further fact that this was a time of political reaction, when the government of the country was largely in the hands of those who despised or feared democracy, we can easily see that the natural effects of a restricted suffrage may have been intensified by those methods of "practical politics" which not infrequently defeat the will of the majority even to-day under universal suffrage. That it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to bring about, if possible, the adoption of a form of government of which the majority of the people did not approve, is clearly established by the record of their proceedings. Hamilton, referring to the plan of government which he had proposed, said: "I confess that this plan, and that from Virginia [the one submitted by Randolph and of which the Constitution as finally adopted was a modification], are very remote from the idea of the people. Perhaps the Jersey plan is nearest their expectation. But the people are gradually ripening in their opinions of government—they begin to be tired of an excess of democracy. … "[43]
"The Federal government was not by intention a democratic government. In plan and structure it had been meant to check the sweep and power of popular majorities. The Senate, it was believed, would be a stronghold of conservatism, if not of aristocracy and wealth. The President, it was expected, would be the choice of representative men acting in the electoral college, and not of the people. The Federal judiciary was looked to, with its virtually permanent membership, to hold the entire structure of national politics in nice balance against all disturbing influences, whether of popular impulse or of official overbearance. Only in the House of Representatives were the people to be accorded an immediate audience and a direct means of making their will effective in affairs. The government had, in fact, been originated and organized upon the initiative and primarily in the interest of the mercantile and wealthy classes. Originally conceived as an effort to accommodate commercial disputes between the States, it had been urged to adoption by a minority, under the concerted and aggressive leadership of able men representing a ruling class. The Federalists not only had on their side the power of convincing argument, but also the pressure of a strong and intelligent class, possessed of unity and informed by a conscious solidarity of material interests."[44]
The Constitution would certainly have been rejected, notwithstanding the influences that were arrayed in favor of its adoption, but for the belief that it would shortly be amended so as to remove some of its more objectionable features. In the large and influential states of Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia it was ratified by very small majorities,[45] though each of these states accompanied its acceptance of the Constitution with various recommendations for amendment. As a result of these suggestions from the states ratifying it, the first Congress in 1789 framed and submitted the first ten amendments. The eleventh amendment was the outgrowth of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Chisholm v. The State of Georgia. In this case the court held, contrary to the interpretation given to the Constitution by Hamilton when defending it in The Federalist,[46] that a private plaintiff could sue a state in the Federal Court. This decision aroused a storm of indignation, and Congress in 1794 proposed the Eleventh Amendment, which counteracted the effect of this decision. The Twelfth Amendment, proposed by Congress in 1803, merely changed the method of electing the President to meet the requirements of the party system which had then come into existence.
These first twelve amendments were all adopted during the infancy of the Constitution, and while it was still regarded as an experiment. But though they had the effect of quieting public opinion and allaying the fears of the people concerning the new form of government, they made no important changes in the Constitution, leaving all its main features as originally adopted. The same may be said of the last three amendments, which were the result of the Civil War. They were proposed and ratified, as Bryce says, "under conditions altogether abnormal, some of the lately conquered states ratifying while actually controlled by the Northern armies, others as the price which they were obliged to pay for the readmission to Congress of their senators and representatives."[47] These amendments were really carried through, not by the free choice of three-fourths of the states, as the Constitution requires, "but under the pressure of a majority which had triumphed in a great war,"[48] and used military and political coercion to accomplish what otherwise could not have been brought about. Nothing could have been farther from the intention of the victorious Northern states at that time than any important change in the form or character of the government which they had waged a gigantic civil war to defend and enforce. Slavery, it is true, was abolished to remove forever the bone of contention between the North and the South. But the Constitution survived the Civil War, unchanged in all its essential features, and more firmly established than ever.
That the plan of government originally established has undergone no important