Vanishing Landmarks. Shaw Leslie Mortier
Because of the known prejudices of the people of Iowa, Senator Grimes of that state was expected to vote “guilty.” He voted “not guilty,” and his colleague asked him, “Do you think you are expressing the sentiment of the people of Iowa?” The grand old Roman replied: “I have not inquired concerning the sentiment of the people of Iowa. I vote my convictions.” That would be political suicide today.
A few years ago proceedings to expel a certain senator were pending and several of his associates, after hearing the evidence submitted to them in their judicial capacity, expressed the conviction that the accused was innocent, but, because of the prejudices of their states, they would have to vote for expulsion. Senator Depew told me of a member who actually cried as he contemplated voting to expel a man whom he believed to be innocent.
I would like to ask how long you think the United States of America can maintain her proud position among the nations of the world, if oath-bound representatives of the people accept popular sentiment as the guide of their official conduct.
At the unveiling of the monument to Elijah Lovejoy, a letter was read from Wendel Phillips containing this sentence: “How cautiously most slip into oblivion and are forgotten, while here and there a man forgets himself into immortality.” In these most trying times our greatest need is men in public life whose ears are always open to counsel but ever closed to clamor – who will approach pending problems that threaten our very existence, with no other care but their country’s weal. The corner stone of freedom, as laid by the Fathers, is the absolute independence of the representative, coupled with the unimpeded right of the people to choose again at brief but appropriate intervals.
HOW WOULD YOU BUILD A SUBMARINE?
Suppose the government should delegate to some congressional district the responsibility of building a submarine. Would anyone think of undertaking the task except on the principle of a republic? You would select some man of mechanical aptitude, plus mechanical experience, and you would hold him responsible for the result. Would you require your representative when selected to listen to popular sentiment, as expressed on the street corners or in the press? Would you have him submit his plans and blue prints to the “people,” by referendum or otherwise?
We all admit that some men know more about farming than others, some more about commerce than others, some more about science than others, but the sentiment is alarmingly general that in the realm of statecraft – the most complex subject ever approached – one man is just as wise as another. At Detroit, Michigan, during the campaign of 1916, Woodrow Wilson used this language: “So I say the suspicion is beginning to dawn in many quarters, that the average man knows the business necessities of the country just as well as the extraordinary man.”
I do not wish to question Mr. Wilson’s sincerity, though I am not unmindful of the fact that he spent the greater part of his active life in college work trying to produce “extraordinary men,” and in that field he was quite successful. Taking issue with his position, but not with his sincerity, I am going to insult popular sentiment and say that I believe there are many men competent to select a competent constructor of a submarine, who are not competent to construct a submarine, or competent to instruct a constructor of a submarine.
But, suppose the people should build such a craft on the principle of a democracy, each one doing what seemed to him wise, without dishonesty or graft. I have no question but that a submarine would be produced that would “sub,” and I am equally certain that it would stay “subbed.”
I want to ask whether, in your opinion, the ship of state – the government of the United States – is any less complicated, any less complex or any less likely to “sub” and stay “subbed,” exactly as each and every republic for twenty-five hundred years did “sub” – if placed in the hands of an inexperienced mass of experimenters in statecraft.
Think this out for yourself. This is your government quite as much as mine, and it will be your government long after the conservative “Old Guard” have left the field of human activities.
CHAPTER VI
TREND OF THE TIMES
A consideration of the constitutional guarantee that each state shall have a republican form of government, and the warning of Washington against making changes in the constitution.
Both the trend of thought and the current of events are away from representative government and toward direct government.
Legislating by initiative or by referendum, the recall of judges, and especially the recall of judicial decisions, come dangerously near constituting a democratic form of government, against which the Constitution of the United States guarantees. Its language you remember: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government.”
Chief Justice Taney, interpreting this section, said: “It rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a state, for, as the United States guarantees to each state a republican form of government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the state before it can determine whether it is republican or not.”1
Chief Justice Waite used the following language, the vital sentence of which I have italicized: “All the states had governments when the Constitution was adopted. In all, the people participated, to some extent, through their representatives selected in the manner specially provided. These governments the Constitution did not change. They were accepted precisely as they were and it is therefore to be presumed that they were such as it is the duty of the states to provide. Thus, we have unmistakable evidence of what was republican in form within the meaning of that term as employed in the Constitution.”2
It is well to note that this participation in their government, which the learned Chief Justice mentions, was “through their representatives,” and in no other way.
More than one state has been required to change its constitution before admission into the Union. Congress refused to admit Arizona under a constitution providing for the recall of judges and judicial decisions. It smacked too strongly of direct government. After her admission, however, she amended her constitution and inserted the socialistic – the “democratic” – provisions, the elimination of which Congress had made a condition precedent to admission.
In his work, “The State,” Woodrow Wilson calls attention to the fact that constitution-making is fast becoming “a cumbrous mode of legislation.” The record in many states justifies this comment.
At the election of 1918, in the state of California there were submitted through referendum nineteen proposed amendments to its constitution, no one of which legitimately belongs in a constitution. They were simply legislative acts sought to be inserted in the organic law, or state charter, for the sole purpose of rendering them more difficult of repeal when proved bad. The “people” had so little confidence in themselves that they deemed it imprudent to trust to their wisdom whether a law should be continued when found beneficial or repealed when its effects were evil, and hence sought to tie their own hands by placing the act in the constitution instead of in the revised statutes.
George Washington, with prophetic vision, foresaw and in his immortal Farewell Address warned against this tendency towards evolutionary revolution and employed this language, the last sentence of which I feel certain he would today italicize:
“Towards the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you speedily discountenance irregular opposition to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretext. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.”
This trend towards a democratic form of government, or direct government, finds fitting illustration in the fact that if you were to locate a homestead in any one of several states, prove up and secure your patent, and someone should contest your title, and the court should find the land belonged to you, and should render decision accordingly,
Luther vs. Borden, 7 Howard 1.
Minar vs. Happersatt, 21 Wall 112.