How would you debate that the founding fathers were not democratic reformers?

Answer

The following is excerpted from: The Never Realized Republic: Political Economy and Republican Virtue, Peter Joseph O'Lalor, (Charleston, Booksurge Publishing, 2005), rev. 2nd ed. Copyright © 2003 by Peter Joseph O’Lalor

The Founding Fathers attempted in 1788 to change their government for a 3rd time. They were reforming the government's form or nature but not its principle. “There is this difference between the nature and principle of government, that the former is that by which it is constituted, the latter that by which it is made to act. One is its particular structure, and the other the human passions which set it into motion.” Charles De Secondat, Baron De Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, ed., Robert Maynard Hutchins, trans. Thomas Nugent, (Chicago: William Benton, 1748, 1952), Book III, sec. 1, 9. Hereinafter cited as Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Hutchins, ed.

The Constitution was to reinvigorate the Confederation with barely one new power but not new powers. The only reformation needed was the power to regulate commerce. The Declaration of Independence was still a motive force behind this new polity. The spirit of 1776, and the goals of the Revolution were still the motivation. Roger Sherman of Connecticut, hearkening back to the Declaration of Independence, stated in the convention that “Govt. is instituted for those who live under it. It ought therefore to be so constituted as not to be dangerous to their liberties.” Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Reported by James Madison, with an Introduction by Adrienne Koch, (N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co.), 195.

Madison went on to quote the Declaration of Independence and remind everyone that the “States were first united against the danger with which they were threatened by their ancient government.” Madison, Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention, 658. Therefore the reformation was more about how their society organized itself into a governing body, not why. There was no doubt that to Madison and many others, Federalist achievement was to serve the public good. It was to retain the principles of the Revolution and to reduce the Articles of the Confederation as the exigencies of the Union warranted, (For a More Perfect Union, see the Federal Constitution's Preamble). The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, as stated in the Declaration of Independence compelled them toward self-preservation. Democracy was not a part of their deliberation.

As regards Democracy, the founding fathers abhorred it and were frightened by it. Words and meaing change over time but the founding fathers in their classical education understood Democracy as a homegeneous population passing on all laws, mob rule in other words. The founding fathers before Alexander Hamilton's intercession had intended the federal government to be a representative republic - not a democracy. Madison is the creator and sole advocate of the idea of republican government.” Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), 55 ”A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place.” The Federalist Papers, Clinton Rossiter, ed., (New York: Nal Penguin Inc., 1961), No. 10, 81.

Eventually, Madison found himself disillusioned after the adoption of the federal Constitution. “He was apparently not aware of the results which the Constitution would produce. He soon became one of the chief architects of the party which opposed the Federalists’ interpretation of the Constitution.” Robert E. Brown, Charles Beard and the Constitution, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 81. Madison had soon realized that “not all of his Federalist colleagues shared his particular conception of a republican America; some of them he was appalled to learn, even thought in terms of deliberately promoting what he thought necessary to forestall.” McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 120.

Recalling the Revolution to the reader’s mind Madison asks, “Was, then, the American Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the precious blood of thousands split, and the hard earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety...? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.” The Federalist Papers, Clinton Rossiter, ed., (New York: Nal Penguin Inc., 1961), No. 45, 283.

Therefore what Americans call Democracy only relates to electing officials and the occassional passing of a statutory law. The House of Representatives and the Congressional Senate are still the law makers and that is a Representative Republic - NOT A DEMOCRACY.

See my article on "Writing History" or American History: Fact or Fiction?

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