Re: Republics, Representation and the People

[Marci Hamilton]

I would agree with everything Tim says except the last sentence of the following paragraph. Madison was inculcated with the Presbyterian belief in the innate sinfulness of all men by the Rev. John Witherspoon at Princeton (it did not take much given that this was the dominant theological viewpoint in the colonies).  Madison did believe that individuals, all individuals, cannot be trusted when left to their own devices.  So the people, all people, were base in a very real sense.  In addition, as Tim says, they were ill-informed. 

But there is another side of this, which I am writing about now, which is the Presbyterian/Protestant notion of the body of Christ where every person has a particular calling and is assigned that role in the body of Christ on earth. The most influential element on politics at the time of the framing was theology, though it is by far the least studied by law professors. Under the Presbyterian vision, the butcher is called to be a butcher, the representative to be a representative.  So it is not really an insult to say the people who are not representatives are ill-informed on the issue facing the representatives; they have their own calling on which they are supposed to be well-informed.  Having representatives frees those with other callings to pursue those callings.

Marci


In a message dated 5/30/2003 11:03:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Madison's idea, shared with Federalists and Antifederalists alike, and
embodied in the Constitution of the U.S. was to create representative
institutions that would consult the interests of the people and serve the
common good of the people better than "turbulent" democratic plebiscites had
in the ancient republics. The people aren't "base", just ill-informed.