the spirit of political equality and sought to establish a
government by the people themselves. Widely as this view is entertained,
it is, however, at variance with the facts.

"Scarcely any of these men [the framers of the Constitution]
entertained," says Fiske, "what we should now call extreme democratic
views. Scarcely any, perhaps, had that intense faith in the ultimate
good sense of the people which was the most powerful characteristic of
Jefferson."[17]

Democracy--government by the people, or directly responsible to
them--was not the object which the framers of the American Constitution
had in view, but the very thing which they wished to avoid. In the
convention which drafted that instrument it was recognized that
democratic ideas had made sufficient progress among the masses to put an
insurmountable obstacle in the way of any plan of government which did
not confer at least the form of political power upon the people.
Accordingly the efforts of the Constitutional Convention were directed
to the task of devising a system of government which was just popular
enough not to excite general opposition and which at the same time gave
to the people as little as possible of the substance of political power.

It is somewhat strange that the American people know so little of the
fundamental nature of their system of government. Their acquaintance
with it extends only to its outward form and rarely includes a knowledge
of the political philosophy upon which it rests. The sources of
information upon which the average man relies do not furnish the data
for a correct understanding of the Constitution. The ordinary text-books
and popular works upon this subject leave the reader with an entirely
erroneous impression. Even the writings of our constitutional lawyers
deal with the outward form rather than the spirit of our government. The
vital question--the extent to which, under our constitutional
arrangements, the people were expected to, and as a matter of fact do,
control legislation and public policy, is either not referred to, or
else discussed in a superficial and unsatisfactory manner. That this
feature of our Constitution should receive more attention than it does
is evident when we reflect that a government works well in practice in
proportion as its underlying philosophy and constitutional forms are
comprehended by those who wield political power.

"It has been common," says a late Justice of the United States Supr