ABSTRACT

As initially stated, the direct election of senators, an event of the early twentieth century, had its theoretic basis in political assumptions originating a hundred and fifty years previously. They were not, however, the assumptions which shaped the Constitution of 1787. While proponents of this "mixed" constitution concerned themselves with the critical question of balance, however, the eighteenth century democrat was busy forging theories for the complete overthrow of inequality, natural or otherwise. The evolutionary processes which the founders upheld against the revolutionary theories of their age may be said with comparative safety to have started with Aristotle, although Aristotle himself claimed merely to have articulated "the experience of the ages". All the same, it would take a decade of experience for the nation's political leaders to appreciate the ageless lessons of unchecked majority rule. Paine had correctly gauged that the American governments would never feature "mixed constitutions" in the traditional sense.