Identity: United States Constitution Essay

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David Canales Political Science 10/12/13

Research Paper #1 The original constitution may not have intended to, but did in fact, create a hyperplurist government. The national government was designed to represent a wide variety of interests, yet failed to give the necessary incentives for bargaining and compromising. While this hyperplurist system allowed for freedom, it provided either equality or stability. The new constitution would lead to conflict.

The problems of the eleven years before the constitution would lead men who very much believed in democracy, to question democracy based on elections and to embrace a new form of democracy, one that represented no one group in the population. The 55 delegates who drafted the Constitution included most of the outstanding leaders, or Founding Fathers, of the new nation. They represented a wide range of interests, backgrounds, and stations in life. All agreed, however, on the central objectives expressed in the preamble to the Constitution.

The indirect selection of three national institutions was purposefully done to ensure that the national government would represent such a wide variety of different interests that it would be rendered ineffectual and unable to interfere with the interests of the wealthy creditor class. The indirect election of the chief executive of the United States was chosen above a popular referendum, because of a compromise worked out between the various states. The problem was simple. There were three large and one medium sized cities in the thirteen colonies; Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and then Charles Town (Charleston) South Carolina. Any candidate carrying three or more of these cities would win a popular vote election. The problem was that candidates and voices from more rural areas, less populated areas of the country would never be heard in such circumstances. The Presidential campaigns would be run in the big cities and leave the countryside to its own devices. The founders attacked that problem by making the selection of the President indirect instead of direct.

The single member plurality elections ensure that the house will only represent the dominant interest in each district, likely to be a conservative, pro-status interest. Single Member Plurality (SMP) electoral systems, some times known as fist past the post, are simple systems to administer. The candidate who gets more votes than any other candidate is declared the winner. Depending upon the number of candidates and their relative popularity, the winning candidate may or may not need a majority of votes to win.

The single member plurality elections for the house would end up creating an institution that represents such a variety of interests that conflict would be inevitable thereby rendering the institution incapable of interfering with the interests of the wealthy. The voter has a fixed number of votes (one or more) to cast. Unless cumulation is permitted, no distinction is made between one vote and another among those cast by a voter. Even when cumulation is permitted, it really only means that more than one vote is counted for such a candidate, but the effect is to produce a weighted voting system. In that case, the separation of powers and checks and balances assure that no one group will be able to dominate the national government.

The Separation of Powers devised by the framers of the Constitution was designed to do one primary thing: to prevent the majority from ruling with an iron fist. Based on their experience, the framers shied away from giving any branch of the new government too much power. The separation of powers provides a system of shared power known as checks and balances. Throughout much of our history, the political branches have contended between
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