What A Difference A Couple Of Centuries Make…
By Margaret Snyder (01/10/04)
What was the relationship between the citizen and the state 200 years ago? The federal government at that time did little that directly affected the daily lives of citizens. Its functions were still limited by the Constitution. As for voting, in 1800 most states allowed only property-owning males to vote. The presumption was that property owners had a stake in the nation’s well being and were likely to have the necessary wisdom to make decisions in the national interest.
By the 1830s, all free males were allowed to vote and this was considered “universal suffrage”.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the young Frenchman who traveled to the U.S. in the 1830s and wrote his impressions and analyses of American society and politics, was for the most part an admiring observer of the American scene. But when he visited the House of Representatives, he was not impressed. He wrote: “…one is struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly…”
He found the Senate much more dignified and peopled by “…the famous men of America…eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and noted statesmen. Every word uttered in this assembly would add luster to the greatest parliamentary debates in Europe.”
He explained that the difference owed to the different ways the two bodies were elected. Only the House was elected directly. The Senators were chosen indirectly, or as Tocqueville says, in two stages: all voters elected the state legislatures and the state legislatures chose the senators. Tocqueville sums up his observations on the subject by declaring, “It is easy to see a time coming when the American republics will be bound to make more frequent use of the election in two stages, unless they are to be miserably lost among the shoals of democracy.”
What shoals would those be? Tocqueville said that democracy works only until the people discover that they can vote themselves benefits. He did not find the common man competent to have a direct voice in the affairs of the nation, an opinion he apparently shared with the nation’s founders.
HOWEVER, and herein lie the seeds of rich irony, Tocqueville and our nation’s founders considered the common man quite competent to look after HIMSELF and to manage his own affairs.
Let us now fast-forward a hundred seventy years and have a look around. Suffrage has expanded to include blacks and women, who have unquestionably benefited thereby, and persons over 18. Contrary to Tocqueville’s prediction, the trend has been toward more direct election rather than less. A more direct process of electing the President and Vice-President has evolved and since 1913 we elect Senators directly. Many states have the option of propositions wherein voters legislate directly. We all know now that some states provide for the recall of a sitting governor.
Tocqueville’s warning that citizens competing for privileges and goods dispensed by the government would be the death of democracy proved prescient. We are well along the way.
Demagogues compete at promising the most stuff to the most people. Where once people relied on common sense and self-reliance and to see themselves and their families through the everyday trials of life, in post-FDR America, they look to the government to provide all perceived needs.
People once expected to provide food for themselves and their families; now they expect the government to provide at least one subsidized meal a day for public school children, sometimes two, not to mention food stamp programs. People expected to provide their own shelter and to care for their own children; now they expect subsidized housing and daycare. People expected to depend on themselves and their families for their needs in old age; since FDR, three generations have come to expect the state to provide for their retirement and since LBJ, two have come to depend on the state for their medical needs.
As the citizenry’s dependence upon the government increases, so, in a vicious circle, do the politicians’ appeals to voters’ insecurities: Self-sufficient citizens are of no use to politicians in such a climate.
Recently in the California recall vote and earlier in the 2000 election in Florida, we witnessed the spectacle of politicians concerned that barely literate voters might not be able to properly use the ballots. This was just one more example of how today’s demagogues insist, in contrast to prevailing opinion two hundred years ago, that the most illiterate citizen is eminently qualified to make decisions regarding the future and well-being of our nation … and yet, in a spectacular reversal, they consider him incapable of managing his own life.
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