ed the power of a majority to alter even the
form of government. Moreover, they gave to the President the power to
nullify laws passed by a majority of the House and Senate by his simple
veto, and yet, fearful of an unqualified power of the President in this
respect, they provided that the veto itself should be vetoed, if
two-thirds of the Senate and House concurred in such action. Moreover,
the great limitations of the Constitution, which forbid the majority, or
even the whole body of the House and Senate, to pass laws either for
want of authority or because they impair fundamental rights of
individuals, are as emphatic a negation of an absolute democracy as can
be found in any form of government.

Measured by present-day conventions of democracy, the Constitution is an
undemocratic document. The framers believed in representative
government, to which they gave the name "Republicanism" as the
antithesis to "democracy." The members of the Senate were to be selected
by State legislatures, and the President himself was, as originally
planned, to be selected by an electoral college similar to the College
of Cardinals.

The debates are full of utterances which explain this attitude of mind.
Mr. Gerry said: "The evils we experience flow from the excesses of
democracy. The people are the dupes of pretended patriots." Mr.
Randolph, the author of the Virginia plan, observed that the general
object of the Constitution was to provide a cure for the evils under
which the United States laboured; that in tracing these evils to their
origin every man had found it in the tribulation and follies of
democracy; that some check, therefore, was to be sought for against this
tendency of our Government.

Alexander Hamilton remarked, on June 18, that--

"the members most tenacious of republicanism were as loud as any in
declaiming against the evils of democracy."

He added:

"Give all the power to the many and they will oppress the few. Give
all the power to the few and they will oppress the many. Both ought,
therefore, to have the power that each may defend itself against the
other."

Perhaps the attitude of the members is thus best expressed by James
Madison, in the 10th of the Federalist papers:

"A pure democracy, by which I mean a State consisting of a small
number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in
person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. Such
d