against
innovation."[31] Hamilton said "all communities divide themselves into
the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other
the mass of the people ... [the latter] are turbulent and changing; they
seldom judge or determine right." Therefore he advocated a permanent
senate which would be able to "check the imprudence of democracy."[32]
Gouverneur Morris observed that "the first branch [of the proposed
Federal Congress], originating from the people, will ever be subject to
_precipitancy_, _changeability_, and _excess_.... This can only be
checked by _ability_ and _virtue_ in the second branch ... [which] ought
to be composed of men of great and established property--_aristocracy_;
men who, from pride, will support consistency and permanency; and to
make them completely independent, they must be chosen _for life_, or
they will be a useless body. Such an aristocratic body will keep down
the turbulence of democracy."[33]

This dread of the consequences of popular government was shared to a
greater or less extent by nearly all the members of that Convention.
Their aim was to find a cure for what they conceived to be the evils of
an excess of democracy.

"Complaints," says Madison in _The Federalist_, "are everywhere heard
from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of
public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our
governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the
conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not
according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but
by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."[34]

This criticism of the American government of the Revolutionary period
gives us the point of view of the framers of the Constitution. We should
remember, however, that the so-called majority rule to which Madison
attributed the evils of that time had nothing in common with majority
rule as that term is now understood. Under the laws then in force the
suffrage was greatly restricted, while the high property qualifications
required for office-holding had the effect in many cases of placing the
control of legislation in the hands of the wealthier part of the
community. But undemocratic as the system was, it was not sufficiently
undemocratic to suit the framers of the Constitution. It was no part of
their plan to establish a government which the people could co