The Nineteenth Century Foundations For The Stupid Senate: An Invitation For A Conversation

My honey Jeffersonian:

My immediate occasion for writing is the regain that numerous members of the Thirty-Ninth Congress championed abolishing your bete noir, province equality inward the Senate.  One fellow member declared, “In the Senate of the United States, the really outset principles of representative equality are together with volition proceed to hold upward violated.  The piddling State of Nevada, alongside i voter to nearly every xl inward the State of New York, has the same representative ability together with influence inward the Senate of the US of America equally the non bad State of New York.” Another opined, “Rhode Island alongside 2 Representatives, [should] non bring the same ability inward the Senate that New York has, alongside thirty-one Representatives.”  A tertiary complained, “So far equally representation inward the Senate is concerned, i human being inward Rhode Island has a vocalization together with ability inward the legislation of the province equal to 8 men inward Indiana.”  Yet around other speaker called for “an amendment of the Constitution readjusting senatorial representation upon a to a greater extent than only basis.”  Your joy at these words may however hold upward mitigated past times knowing  that they were spoken, respectively, past times Representative Michael Kerr of Indiana, Representative Aaron Harding of Kentucky, Senator Thomas Hendricks of Indiana, together with Senator Charles Buckalew of Pennsylvania, Democratic proponents of white supremacy who made these remarks inward speeches opposing the Fourteenth Amendment.  In 1866, such small-scale population states equally Rhode Island, Maine together with Nevada were company Republican states.  Abandoning province equality inward the Senate would probable augment Democratic power, so weakening back upward for such Reconstruction measures equally the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 together with military machine dominion inward the South.  The inexpensive inquiry is whether y'all would bring urged your swain Republicans to human activeness on regulation together with modify province equality inward the Senate, fifty-fifty at the terms of weakening political back upward for civil liberties.

My existent inquiry is the extent to which y'all intend Republicans inward 1866 are an appropriate model for political conduct today.  Consider several questions raised past times their conduct alongside regard to province equality inward the Senate.  Republicans when passing Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment repeatedly insisted that around variation of i person/one vote was a foundational constitutional principle.  Democrats consistently brought upward the Senate to highlights the limits of that commitment to political equality.  Does this give us around sympathy for Republican supporters of province equality inward the Senate, who inward expert faith powerfulness encounter this unfortunate characteristic of the American constitution equally a bulwark against abortion rights (a practise they regard equally analogous to murder)?  For that matter, if nosotros empathise why Republicans placed antislavery commitments to a higher house political reform, tin give the sack nosotros empathise why many Republicans today are willing to concord their olfactory organ together with back upward Donald Trump equally long equally they intend his policies are ameliorate than the Democratic alternative.  What does Republican refusal to tinker alongside province equality inward the Senate enjoin nearly Democratic politics.  Are contemporary Democrats likewise principled or non principled enough?  What compromises would nosotros advise our political allies should brand for the broader drive (and what is that broader cause)?  

Consider inward this vein the Republican violation of the antebellum convention that territories should non hold upward admitted unless their population was equally non bad equally the to the lowest degree populated state.  Republicans shattered that convention when admitting Nevada during the Civil War.  Not coincidentally, the Republican leadership lay upward for ground at the same fourth dimension the Fourteenth Amendment was beingness considered bills granting statehood to grossly underpopulated Colorado together with Nebraska.  No i seriously idea the example for statehood was anything other than 4 to a greater extent than Republican votes for Reconstruction (an supposition that, past times the way, proved incorrect inward the long run).   What produce nosotros brand of this conduct inward low-cal of Steven Levitsky together with Daniel Ziblatt’s claim inward How Democracies Die that constitutional democracies depend on the maintenance of surely longstanding conventions, that their violation threatens democratic together with constitutional collapse.  Is the entirely deviation betwixt Thaddeus Stevens together with Donald Trump that the one-time violated conventions for far ameliorate causes than the latter?  Is Republican conduct inward 1866 the kind out of politics that increasingly disgusts the American people or, equally I think, a demonstration that all constitutionalism is a course of teaching of politics, that the worst political fantasy is the notion that nosotros tin give the sack escape from politics. 

Given your work organisation alongside constitutional reform, I wonder what y'all brand of these related incidents, both the Democratic telephone phone for a constitutional amendment to modify province equality inward the Senate together with the Republican admission of underpopulated states.  More generally, given our shared commitments to an declaration opened upward to all, I am curious equally to what our friends on together with exterior brand of this conduct together with whether thinking nearly Republicans together with province equality inward the Senate helps alongside thinking nearly our contemporary constitutional predicaments. I confess to hoping that people produce write inward this infinite together with others together with that, when they produce write, they intend of the advert they wishing to write under.  Our outset gear upward of constitutional framers used pseudonyms to communicate their commitments.  I am curious equally to what names nosotros powerfulness intend appropriate inward our time, fifty-fifty equally I bring non yet figured out my pseudonym.