Archive for the ‘U. S. Constitution’ Category

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The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (Amendment II, Constitution of the United States of America)

Would someone please explain to me the connection between what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary and a “well regulated Militia” or “the security of a free State?” Was the shooter a member of a “well regulated Militia” and acting on its behalf? How did his actions relate to “the security of a free State?” Was the shooter in that west coast shopping mall a member of a “well ordered Militia? Or the shooter in that Colorado theater? Or … maybe you get the idea.

Why did James Madison include those 13 words — “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” in the 2nd Amendment? Was he simply increasing the word count? Simply padding what would seem to be a rather abrupt and terse 14 word sentence? Nearly half of the 2nd Amendment consists of “”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”

Some background would be helpful to understand what Madison was driving at. In 1786 farmers were experiencing severe financial difficulties. Because paper currency was essentially worthless (remember the expression, “not worth a Continental?”) creditors demanded gold or silver in payment of debts; states were demanding gold or silver in payment for taxes, which were heavy because the state was trying to pay down the Revolutionary War debt. Gold and silver was hard to come by if you were a subsistence farmer. In Massachusetts a group of farmers, led by one Daniel Shays, were armed and shut down county courts to stop debt and tax collection hearings. They also attempted to seize the federal armory. A militia was organized to oppose Shays’ Rebellion (as it is known to history). In this context the Constitutional Convention was called. While the convention was in session the revolt was put down. The experience of Shays’ Rebellion was fresh on American minds as the Constitution was ratified. These are not unrelated events.

In 1789, responding to requests from some state ratifying conventions, James Madison, as a member of the 1st Congress under the new Constitution, drafted 12 proposed amendments to the Constitution. Ten of those were adopted by the requisite number of states by 1791. (One was ratified to become the 27th Amendment in 1992; the other is technically still pending but will never be adopted in its present form because it would increase the size of the House of Representatives to over 6,000 members.)

But the story does not end here. While the states were considering the proposed amendments which were to become the Bill of Rights, another rebellion occurred. Congress had decided to levy an excise tax on whiskey (see Article I, Section 8, Constitution of the United States of America). In Western Pennsylvania farmers organized a rebellion attacking tax collectors. This rebellion is known to history as the Whiskey Rebellion. President Washington called governors to send militia to put down the rebellion. Washington personally led 13,000 state militiamen from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The western Pennsylvania farmers wisely disbanded without confronting Washington’s troops.

The history of the 2nd amendment clearly indicates that Madison actually did see a connect between “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” and “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” That connect had nothing whatever with some inalienable right to keep and bear arms, but had everything to do with “a well ordered Militia” being necessary for both states and the federal government to secure the nation and states against unlawful armed rebellion.

The Constitution provides a means for the people to oust tyrants – it is called “elections.” But if random, armed citizen groups are at liberty to attack our federal, state and local governments, neither freedom nor security are safe guarded. Even the most just, fair, honest government must have the capacity to defend itself and the people from armed attempts to overthrow lawful authority. The children at Sandy Hook Elementary were neither secured nor free. Their lives and liberty were not protected. It was not the intention of James Madison to empower mass murderers.

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Republican Government – Part 1

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican Form of Government…. (Article IV, Section 4, The Constitution of the United States of America)

A “republican form of government” is a representative government in which government officials represent “the people.” In the U.S. Constitution this representation is achieved through the election of members of Congress, the President and Vice-President. The House of Representatives consists of members who represent the districts which elect them. The Senate consists of member who represent the states which elect them. And the President and Vice President represent the American people who elect them.

Thus the citizen’s right to vote is essential to that republican government which the Constitution guarantees. James Madison wrote, “The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.“ (The Federalist Papers, # 52) He went on to write that it would be improper to leave this definition of the right of suffrage “the occasional regulation of the Congress ” or “the legislative discretion of the States.”

To be sure, for the men who drafted the Constitution, the republican form of government represented free, adult, white, propertied males. However, in the wisdom of the American people in subsequent years, the right to suffrage has been extended to former slaves, non-whites, women, and eighteen-year-olds. The property requirement of the 18th century has been effectively abolished. All citizens of the United States are constitutionally entitled to be represented by government officers they have elected through their fundamental right to vote. This republican form of government is guaranteed by the Constitution not only at the federal level, but at the state level as well. States may not institute some other form of government.

The Constitution of the United States states, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” (Amendment XIV) Yet we see a concerted conspiracy in state legislatures across the nation to do precisely that – to erect barriers to hundreds of thousands of citizens who wish to exercise their right to vote for their representatives in Congress and state legislatures, which is the most  fundamental article of republican government. In so doing these conspirators violate Article IV, Section 4, and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. They are, in a word, overthrowing the republican government they are sworn to support. (Article VI)

It is essential that those patriotic American citizens who have not yet been disenfranchised by corrupt legislators go to the polls this fall and remove those subversives from office, replacing them with legislators who will guarantee republican government consisting of representatives elected by all citizens freely exercising their most fundamental right – the right of suffrage.

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On the Enumerated Powers of the Federal Government

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

The “enumerated powers” argument always strikes me as somewhat dubious. It seems that the argument treats the first and last paragraph of Article I, Section 8, as fluff and what intervenes as the meat and potatoes of Congressional powers. I seriously doubt that the authors saw it that way. I also doubt that the anti-federalists in 1787-8 saw it that way.

The very first power in that opening paragraph specifies the power of Congress to levy and collect taxes. That power is nowhere mentioned in the subsequent enumeration. Note also that this paragraph also places a limitation on the taxing power that was subsequently modified by the 16th Amendment.  (There is another in Section 9.) If the “general Welfare of the United States” is a “fluff” preface to the more specific and limited powers that follow, then surely the power to tax, to pay debts and to provide for the common defense is also “fluff.”

But the clauses that follow, which is what is usually meant by “enumerated powers” seen as limiting Congress to those specific items, have a history. Shortly before the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 convened, James Madison drew up a list entitled Vices of the Political System of the United States. This list enumerates specific deficiencies which had appeared under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 when the Articles were ratified and in force and 1787 when the convention that drafted the Constitution met. The convention was convened specifically to deal with “problems” that had arisen under the Articles. Madison’s list is a fairly detailed listing of those problems. The clauses that appear between “but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States” and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers” track those “vices” Madison listed fairly closely. In other words, in these clauses (and some elsewhere) the convention was addressing specific issues, albeit in a fairly general way, known to exist in 1787.

It seems rather odd to suggest that the framers of the constitution intended that only issues known to them in 1787 were subject to Congress’s power to address. I believe the sounder argument is that the framers intended for Congress, through the representative processes subject to election by the people, to be able to address taxation, the common defense and the general welfare of the United States as new issues in the republic arose. They were smart enough to know that issues would arise which they had not foreseen in writing Article I, Section 8, that must be addressed by the Congress.

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Eliminate the Income Tax?

Sunday, March 18th, 2012

In the course of a discussion with a supporter of Ron Paul, it was stated that we should eliminate the federal income tax. I pointed out that this was a campaign to destroy the United States of America because there is no way for the national government to pay its bills without the income tax. To this I received the response that would be a good thing because then the national government would be constrained to the powers enumerated in the Constitution. That is not a reasonable response. Here is why.

In 2010 the total revenues of the United States Treasury were $2.2 trillion dollars. Of that 42% or $924 billion was from individual income taxes, 40% or $880 billion was from payroll taxes, $198 billion was from corporate income taxes, 3% or $66 billion was from excises and  6% or $132 billion was from other sources. If you eliminate individual and corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, which are a dedicated tax on income, the government revenues fall to $198 billion.

If you take the very narrow definition of constitutional enumerated powers to exclude the general welfare and a restrictive interpretation of the commerce clause advocated by many on the right, you have some government expenses remaining, specifically:

  • Defense at $847.2 billion,
  • Interest at $196.2 billion,
  • Protection at $54.4 billion, and
  • General government at $24.7 billion

Or a constitutional expense of $1,122.5 billion – and a deficit of -$1,077.5 billion. That is almost the kind of deficits we are currently running. If we require a balanced budget, as do many on the right, we would have enough to pay the interest on the national debt with $1.8 billion left over for defense, protection (e.g., Homeland Security and border control), and general government (i.e., the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government).

Notice that this involves a default on the national debt in the form the termination of all current and future Social Security and Medicare benefits. That’s even without the balanced budget amendment!

It also would result in the termination of all federal grants to state and local governments for a wide range of things including health and human services, education, and transportation.

It would also eliminate all federal disaster relief for hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, drought, and earthquakes.

Eliminated would be any subsidy to farmers and businesses. Cuts in subsidies to oil companies would drive up the cost of gasoline.

Maintenance of national parks would end. The Constitution says nothing about national parks. It would end payments in lieu of taxes on federal properties to states and local communities. For that matter, it makes no mention of the purchase of land from foreign nations. Were the Louisiana, Gadsden and Alaska purchases constitutional?

The income tax was agreed to by three quarters of the states in 1913 and by every state admitted to the Union since. It was agreed to because we, the people, recognized that duties, imposts and excises were insufficient to pay the costs of government a century ago. An income tax was first proposed in 1812 to pay for the costs of that war. The United States actually found the income tax necessary in 1861 to pay the expense of the national government. It was subsequently ruled by the Supreme Court to violate Article I, Section 9, which eventually lead to the 16th Amendment.

The United States has changed dramatically since the Constitution was first written in 1787. It has grown from a nation of around 3 million to nearly 400 million, from an area of less than 900 thousand square miles to over  3.5 million square miles. It has changed from a rural, agricultural society to an urban industrial and technological society. People are much more mobile now than then. The 50 states are far more interdependent and interrelated than the original 13, partly due to the success of the Constitution and national government promoting interstate commerce.

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How Small Should Government Be?

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

The candidates all promise “small, limited government.” That sounds very nice. After all  Henry David Thoreau wrote in 1849, “That government is best which governs least.” But what exactly does this mean? How small is best? How limited is best? If Thoreau’s dictum is correct, then that government that governs not at all, governs best. Anarchy would be the best “government.”

A govern-less civilization might be possible if all its inhabitants were angels. But given the reality of Lucifer, not even an angelic civilization could exist long without government. Besides, men are not angels and are as likely to follow Lucifer as not. Because we are apt to steal, rape, and kill, government is necessary for any civilized society.

The need for government goes beyond that. Governments regulate so that a civil society can function. Government tells us on which side of the road we are to drive, how fast we may drive, how we are to behave at intersections, and so forth. Without such government regulations travel by car would be virtually impossible. Government regulates what we can do with our garbage and what our industries may do with their waste. Government regulates the safety of food, drugs and other products. Without such regulation the health of citizens would be in mortal danger. Government enforce contracts and prosecute fraud; without such enforcement, commerce would be impossible.

The 55 men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draft what would become the Constitution of the United States of America were not promising a smaller, more limited national government–quite the opposite. The government created under the Constitution was both larger and less limited than the government that preceded it. The Constitution gave the national government more power over the states and citizens. The Constitution took away power from the states.

As for size, the United States government in 1790 governed a nation of  3,929,214 people living in a land area of 864,746 square miles—a population density of 4.5 people per square mile. New York city was the largest city with a population of 33,131. Two tied for tenth largest city–Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the District of Southwark (a suburb of Philadelphia) both had a population of 5,661.

In 2010 the United States was inhabited by 308,745,538 people living in a land area of 3,537,438 square miles—a population density of 87.3 people per square mile. New York City alone had over twice the population in 2010 of the entire United States in 1790. Los Angeles had almost as many inhabitants in 2010 as the entire United States in 1790. The sheer increase in the population and area governed requires a large government. We aren’t going back to 1790, much less to 1787!

Furthermore, society today is far more complex and interdependent today than it was in 1787. What happens in Alaska has consequences in Florida and visa versus. What happens in California has consequences in Maine. People are far more mobile today than they were 225 years ago. It is far more likely that a child educated in Ohio or Texas will end up living and working in California than it was for someone who learned their trade in Virginia would end up in New Hampshire.

That government that governs best is a government that governs best. It isn’t a function of size. That government that governs best is one that has sufficient power to govern.

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Resolution Concerning Corporate “Personhood”

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

A Draft 

Whereas the United States of America ratified the Fourteenth Amendment of its Constitution guaranteeing every person life, liberty and property; due process of law; and the equal protection of the laws;

Whereas it was clearly the intent of the Congress and Legislatures of the several states to protect actual persons rather than legal fictions;

Whereas the Supreme Court of the United State has misrepresented this amendment in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), by holding that the legal fiction of corporations are persons under the Fourteenth Amendment;

Whereas corporations are legal fictions created by law and granted privileges and immunities not available to citizens and persons in the United States;

Whereas a long line of Supreme Court rulings for over a century have been based upon this misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment;

Whereas in the recent Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010) decision, the Court granted to corporations unprecedented First Amendment rights;

Whereas the consequence of Citizens United as resulted in hundreds of millions of corporate dollars into the political process, greatly impairing the voice of citizens and persons in the political process; and

Whereas Citizens United has denied citizens and persons the equal protection of the laws;

Be It Resolved that the Texas Democratic Party adopt a platform that includes a call for an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America defining “person” as an actual, individual, living human being;

Be It Resolved that the Texas Democratic Party urge the National Democratic Party to adopt an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America defining “person” as an actual, individual, living human being;

Be It Resolved that the Texas Democratic Party urge all candidates for the United States Congress and the Texas Legislature to support and to work actively for such an Amendment; and

Be It Resolved that the Texas Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party campaign and actively work to outlaw corporate funding of election campaigns and to enact legislation ending the existence of so-called “Super PACs.

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Book Review: Tempest at Dawn: A Novel

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

 Tempest at Dawn: A Novel by James D. Best. Wheatmark: Tuscon, Arizona. 2010.

For those who are interested in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 which drafted the Constitution of the United States of America, the primary historical sources may be a bit daunting. The best such source is clearly James Madison’s Notes of Debates: In The Federal Convention of 1787 That work is the most extensive record of the debates which occurred in  the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House, known today as Independence Hall. The Congress of the Confederation had met there during much of the Revolutionary War; it was in this room that the Declaration of Independence was adopted and signed. Madison’s notes run over six hundred pages in my edition and make for interesting, but sometimes difficult reading. Madison included some of the verbatim texts of speeches–his own and some given to him by his fellow delegates. Others are transcriptions he took down as they were delivered. He includes the texts of formal resolutions and records of votes. There are some curious lacunae, particularly regarding Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, which have employed historians for decades.

But he recorded only that which occurred in the Assembly Room–the “plenary” session of the Convention and the Committee of the Whole. We know that there were several committees, but we do not know what occurred in those meetings. All of these meetings were conducted in the strictest secrecy. It is remarkable that there were virtually no “leaks” of the proceedings. The newspapers did speculate (and sometimes report as fact) what was occurring in the Assembly Room and committee room, but they were mostly wrong. The official minutes of the proceedings are sketchy, and few of the delegates revealed much about the workings of the convention. Madison’s notes were not published until all the the participants had died.

It does seem unlikely that the 55 men suddenly appeared in the Assembly Room when the sessions began and just as suddenly vanished on adjournment. Certainly the members ate meals together in small groups, patronized Philadelphia taverns and even caucused. It is also unlikely that they only discussed the weather when outside the Assembly Room.

Tempest at Dawn is a novel. Fiction. Historical fiction. It does adhere closely to Madison’s notes when describing what occurred in the Assembly Room. But James Best uses the imagination of the novelist to construct what might have occurred in the taverns, salons, dining rooms and inns. He also draws on historical data to present us with the personalities of the major participants in the convention. The result is a readable, engaging story of the creation of our Constitution.
 Tempest at Dawn: A Novel by James D. Best. Wheatmark: Tuscon, Arizona. 2010.

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My American History Project

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

I would like to “get inside” the minds of the “Founding Fathers” as they launched the constitutional form of government which has shaped American life for over 225 years. My interest was sparked by reading James Madison’s Notes of Debates: In The Federal Convention of 1787 which drafted the Constitution. Many things struck me as I read. Madison, for example, seems to have had a notion of pure representative democracy. He seems to have had an idea of a national government both expressive of and constrained by nothing other than the will of the people. He fought for a legislature that would be “dependent on the people alone.” (The Federalist Papers, “No. 52: The House of Representatives”, p. 323) I was also struck by the attitude of those at the Philadelphia Convention concerning states and state government. Perhaps that attracts my notice because of the ongoing debates about “State’s Rights.” To be sure, the views of the 55 men who participated in the convention ran a gambit from those favoring a confederation of sovereign states to Hamilton’s advocacy of reducing the states to departments of the national government. Frequently those men saw state governments as corrupt and too subject to populist demagogues. There was a serious discussion of a Congressional “negative” of state actions—all state legislation would have to be submitted to Congress and subject to its veto. The reason this idea was rejected seems not to be due to any attachment to state sovereignty. Indeed, many had a dim view of state sovereignty. But rather, the idea was rejected for three quite pragmatic reasons.

First, there was the relative isolation of states. This only partly had to do with the notion that a state government was more immediately aware of state needs than a national Congress. But there was a realization of the difficulty of communication and transportation. It could take over a week for information to flow from the states to a central government. They were aware, for example, that it had taken over a week from the scheduled start of the Philadelphia Convention for a quorum to arrive due to weather conditions making travel even more difficult that usual.

Second, they realized that the sheer volume of legislation coming from the states could overwhelm Congress and prevent Congress from dealing with pressing national business.

And third, they realized that the requirement of a congressional negative would make it more difficult to get the Constitution ratified.

This particular issue brings home the fact that the “world” in which our Founding Fathers lived was very different from the world today. Just with the matter of transportation we normally can travel anywhere in the world in a matter of hours, where they measured travel in days, weeks and even months. Communications have undergone an even more radical transformation—words, voices and images can be transmitted around the world at the speed of light.

This project focuses on the United States of America during the period from 1781 (the British surrender at Yorktown) through 1791 (the proposal by Congress of what would become the Bill of Rights). To try to see through the eyes of Americans in that decade geography, demographics, economics, culture, technology and politics are to be considered and contrasted with the United States at the beginning of the 21st century. For example, in 1890, the year of the first census, the United States consisted of 3,929,214 people, a land area of 864,746 square miles—a population density of 4.5 people per square mile. By 2000 the United States had a population of 281,421,906 and an area of 3,537,438 square miles—a population density of 79.6 people per square mile. (United States History, “U.S. Population, Land Area and Density, 1790-2000. 2 February, 2012) How did these data affect how Americans saw themselves in that formative period of our history?

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Of Gigantic Coaches and Very Tiny Constables

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

The Constitution of the United States of America is a remarkable document. Written in 1787 and since amended only 27 times since then, it forms the basis of American government and law. In addition to certain rights guaranteed in the original document 10 amendments were added in 1791 guaranteeing certain rights. Among those amendments — the Bill of Rights — is the fourth amendment dealing with search and seizure. Our courts, and notably the Supreme Court, is frequently called upon to rule on current matters using the parameters set forth in that document. One of the principles that guides the decisions is the “original intent” of the authors.

Recently the court heard a case (United States v. Jones ) involving the use of a Global Positioning Device (GPS) attached by the police to a suspect’s car to gather evidence of the suspect’s criminal activity. What interests me particularly about this case is the whole question of what might possibly have been James Madison’s “intent” with regard to police GPS surveillance when he wrote the Fourth Amendment in 1789. In a concurring opinion Justice Alito (with Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan joined) comments on the difficulty in putting the issue before the court in terms Madison might have understood. In a footnote he writes:

The Court suggests that something like this [a case in which a constable secreted himself somewhere in a coach  and remained there for a period of time in order to monitor the movements of the coach’s owner] might have occurred in 1791, but this would have required either a gigantic coach, a very tiny constable, or both—not to mention a constable with incredible fortitude and patience.

Perhaps this is just a bizarre instance in which the use of 21st century technology, inconceivable to our founding fathers, poses an impenetrable mystery as to what 18th century men might have intended. This surely requires something on the order of the proverbial wisdom of Solomon.

But the case is by no means unique. What the “demi-gods” assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 might have imagined to be “Commerce … among the several States” was certainly vastly different from what is interstate commerce today. Transportation and communication was far more restricted. The likelihood of a dairy farmer operating in Massachusetts having any possible relationship with a resident of Atlanta, Georgia was extremely remote. That is no longer true.

It is also somewhat difficult to understand what those men in Philadelphia might of understood “the general welfare of the United States” might mean 225 years later. I doubt that they had any vision of a nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific (plus Alaska and Hawaii) of well over three hundred million people, much less what might promote the general welfare of such a nation.

It is also the case that what they would have understood by the word “corporation” was very different from the corporations that dominate not only the national economy, but the international economy as well. They would probably regard the strangle hold these corporations have on our political institutions — both on the federal and the state level — as a tyranny as bad as any monarch. They surely would have found the court’s notion of a corporation as a person with First Amendment rights of speech and press beyond reason. (Not to mention that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment surely had no such intention when they used the word “persons.”)

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Republic, Not a Democracy?

Monday, January 16th, 2012

So goes the rhetoric. But it makes no sense. Yes, the Constitution of the United States sets for a republican (not to be confused with Republican) form of government and requires the several states to have republican (not to be confused with Republican) governments. In political science a republican (not to be confused with Republican) form of government is representative – that is a government in which those who govern are representatives of some constituency. Thus in the Roman Republic magistrates (albeit not the Senate) were elected by an assembly of Roman citizens.

So the founders intended to create a republic – a government of representatives of some constituency. But what constituency? But what constituency. James Madison is held to be the “Father of the Constitution.” He is quite clear what that constituency was to be.  Madison’s view placed the national legislature at the center of the government as he conceived it. While the idea of a bicameral legislature was his, he seems to have thought both houses should be apportioned according to population. The Convention did alter that proposal so that the House of Representatives was to be apportioned on the basis of population, while the Senate would have two members from each state.

In the Constitution as adopted, this understanding of what was to be represented by each house of the Congress is buttressed by the manner of the members’ appointment. The Senate – explicitly representing States – was to be elected by the state legislatures The House of Representatives – explicitly representing the people rather than states – was to be elected directly by the people.

How Madison understood the House of Representatives is explicit in the Federalist Paper # 52, which is believed to been by Madison. In that paper Madison states, “[T]he right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government…. To have submitted it to the legislative discretion of the States would have been improper for [that] reason; and for the additional reason that it would have rendered too dependent on the State governments that branch of the federal government which ought to be dependent on the people alone.” (Emphasis added)

This idea of dependence on the people alone is so important that he repeats it a few paragraphs later.

As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the [House of Representatives] should have an immediate dependence on, and an immediate sympathy with, the people.

Nothing could be more democratic! The notion of the people as the source of government Is also made clear in the preamble – “We, the People of the United States, … do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States.” This point is further emphasized by the means whereby the Constitution was to be ratified – not by state legislatures, but by conventions.  And, indeed political scientists classify the American form of government as a constitutional democratic republic.

It seems to me that what Madison had to say back then is relevant to two trends in America in the 21st century. First, the method of campaign finance has rendered the federal government dependent, not on the people alone, but on accumulated wealth which manipulates government policy for a small minority’s profit. Second, the increasing tendency of state legislatures to restrict in various ways the ability of people to exercise the franchise undermines what Madison regarded as “a fundamental article of republican government” and “essential to liberty.”

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