There's a lot of squawking this week about how things frustrate the popular vote, as if the Constution read in its entirety: "Do whatever the majority thinks is OK."
From the New York
Sun:
The job of the Senators is to represent the states.
That’s the Senate’s very purpose. The Left likes to suggest that the only reason for this was to protect slavery. Yet even the original Constitution anticipated an end to slavery. It still made the equal representation of the states in the Senate the only feature of the parchment that could never be amended absent the consent of the state being denied equal representation.
It is the foundation of our federalist system.
Now I admit I had completely forgotten this. The
Heritage Guide to the Constitution explains it here:
Article V specifies the means by which the Constitution of the United States can be amended. It ends by forbidding amendments that would repeal the language in Article I, Section 9, which prohibits a ban on the importation of slaves prior to 1808, or the language in Article I, Section 3, which provides for equal representation of the states in the Senate. These are the only textually entrenched provisions of the Constitution. The first prohibition was absolute but of limited duration—it was to be in force for only twenty years; the second was less absolute—"no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"—but permanent.
4 comments:
It’s interesting that they ponder a case of consent. “Oh yeah, I consent to be stripped of my ability to defend my own interests.”
@ Grim - agreed. It would be an unusual circumstance under which a state agreed to that.
The framers did not see all ends, but they did see what was likely to be an issue, and tried to make provision for that.
For example, they did not forbid individuals to own cannons, even though those weapons existed and were used privately, especially in shipping.
I wonder if this wasn't a back-door guarantee that no group of large states could gang up on one or more small states and force them to combine (thereby diminishing their power in the Senate and Electoral College) while still leaving open the possibility of subdividing states and territories, and not involving the Federal Government in state border disputes.
"It’s interesting that they ponder a case of consent. “Oh yeah, I consent to be stripped of my ability to defend my own interests.”
Brilliant.
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