COLUMNIST
Editor’s Page [Ed. Note: This piece was written prior to the Election. As we go to print, there is still resolution to the election. We expect the results to be certified on December 14.]
“Democracy Delayed” By Fred Mittag
W
e like to describe America as a democratic country, a beacon of hope for the rest of the world, a “city on the hill.” The description falls well short of the fantasy, however. The Constitution was our official beginning, but it was no more than a “promissory note,” as Martin Luther King put it. Since the Convention of 1787 and ratification in 1789, we have made a lot of progress on that “promissory note,” but we are still well short of being a democracy, in the sense of self-rule by the people. The Founders blessed us with a Constitution that allows us to amend this covenant with the American people, but we need amendments yet unachieved. Amendments that have advanced the “promissory note” are the 13th, which abolished slavery, and the 14th, which granted Black people citizenship. The 14th Amendment corrected the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, in which the Court ruled that a slave is not a citizen. Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the majority opinion of the Court that “black people, free or slave, could never become U.S. citizens and they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” That seems hard to believe today, but that’s how it was. Another significant step forward was the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. The House and Senate passed it in 1919, the year of my mother’s birth. It just barely passed in the Senate. In 1920 it was ratified by the 36th state, Tennessee, making it a part of the Constitution. The Tennessee senate had passed the bill to ratify the amendment, but it was tied in the House and could move no further. But then the mother of a Tennessee representative called him and explained the importance of ratification. He changed his vote. A mother’s appeal provided the single vote needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. These constitutional amendments advanced American civilization. They make one wonder about Justice Anto-
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El Ojo del Lago / December 2020
nin Scalia and his protégé Amy ConeyBarrett. They call themselves “originalists,” meaning they base their opinions on the Founders’ original intent. God help us. Some of the Founders were slave-holders. They counted Black people as three-fifths of a human being for the official census to determine representation. One hopes slavery and women’s inability to own property or to vote is not their idea of “original intent.” That would indeed make them reactionaries of the worst sort. The Constitution remains flawed in the basic democratic concept that government should be, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “of the people, by the people, for the people.” The logical conclusion of this concept that the people grant government power is that if the government fails to serve the people, the citizens must overthrow such a failed government. Government leaders are supposed to be servants of the people, not vice versa. Revolution is not only the people’s right, it is their duty to posterity. You will recognize this as the rationale for the American Revolution against King George III. The electoral college is a glaring flaw in our Constitution. The Founders made concessions to the slave-holding states. They were less populous and more agricultural than the Northern states, where slave-holding was unprofitable. Slave states were allowed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for representation in the Congress. The Founders devised a mechanism for the president’s election that did not allow the popular vote to decide. The legislatures of each of the states would choose electors who would elect the president. That’s why millions and millions of people vote in our elections, but only 270 votes elect the president. Most of the states choose electors based on the popular vote of their jurisdiction, but not necessarily. Almost every election cycle sees a few electors violate their pledge and vote for some other candidate than the one to whom
