Let’s Make the Founders Less Unique

“If our halls of power are rife with mini Aaron Burrs, what does that say about us?”

Constitutional democracy is a tricky thing, in large part because the “constitutional” and the “democratic” aspects of this form of government can prove to be at odds.

Democracy is grounded in a great moral truth: the equal dignity of humankind. There was a whole lot of intellectual legwork that preceded Thomas Jefferson’s penning of that truth in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Nowadays, we do not have to spend much time reflecting on democracy’s foundational premise of equal dignity and the merits of democracy itself. It is a given. “The people,” we say, are sovereign. A truly radical sentiment in the past, a cliché today.

Constitutionalism tells us that our democratic platitudes are largely correct in the end, but the principle of popular sovereignty requires some tempering. Even as we affirm majority rule in principle, we ought to acknowledge that majoritarianism alone is not the sole supreme value of our system of government. Imposing non-negotiable limits on the powers and processes of government, even democratic government, is the essence of constitutionalism. While democracy speaks to the inherent worth of each and every being, constitutionalism acknowledges that humans are not all sunshine and rainbows. That is, given our nature, humans are not to be trusted with unrestrained power, even if they are acting as part of a majority. Constitutionalism tells us that we must be wary of ourselves.