The Struggle for Democracy
Contrary to what we are usually taught, the U.S. Constitution was not designed to promote democracy. The opposite is true. The Framers feared rule by the working majority, so they wrote a constitution to ensure the rule of the minority that owned wealth. When they wrote about protecting minority rights, they only meant the rights of the minority that had wealth. As Madison wrote in Federalist #10, protecting property rights was “the first object of government.”
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The “Founding Fathers” explicitly stated their fear of majority rule. In Federalist #10, Madison wrote, “…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property…” In his notes on voting rights, Madison wrote, “…what is to secure the rights of property agst. the danger from an equality & universality of suffrage…” If everyone could vote, “the rights of property,” the wealthy, would be in danger. In his argument against voting rights for workers, John Adams wrote, “Property is universally & eternally irreconcileable with Universal Suffrage.” The Constitution ensured that wealthy people would rule by denying people the right to vote, among many other measures to obstruct majority rule. In the Bill of Rights, the essential right for a representative democracy– the right to vote– was not given. That is why a key element of our history is the struggle for voting rights.
Simply having voting rights does not create a representative democracy. The ruling minority created systems of voting that inhibit majority rule. By creating a system that leads to only two major parties, the wealthy made it easier to control both parties–the Republican and Democratic. Currently, the Republican and Democratic parties, that control all of our legislative bodies, each have fewer than 30% of registered voters. Over 40% of voters reject both parties. Neither of the parties that control this country represent the majority. We still have minority rule.
