Why the 17th Amendment is Bad News

The founding fathers were wise men when they decided that Senators would be appointed by the various State legislatures. This was no accident. It was, in fact, designed to protect the Republic from sliding towards becoming a mob rule democracy.

Article 1 Section 3 of the Constitution is as follows:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote."

That is how Senators used to be chosen.

The idea of having divisions of power in what constitutes the Federal Government was to divide the power of the majority. You had the House of Representatives which was elected directly by the people. Then you had the Senate, of which each member was essentially an ambassador of the "sovereign" State government. Finally, there is the Chief Executive (President) chosen by a temporary College of Electors (not by popular vote as some assume).

So there you have three separate and distinct divisions of power within the Federal Government. The idea was to provide each department with a will of its own and as little influence as possible in the election of the others.

Many have the idea in their heads that the United States is a majority rule democracy. The fact is that we are not. We are a representative Republic. While this a a form of democracy, we were deliberately formed as a representative Republic to protect the minority against the possible tyranny of a majority faction. When you hear a citizen of our country say that we are a democracy founded on the principle of "majority rule", you are listening to the babbling of a fool who has no understanding of the form of government he lives under. When you hear someone spout that Presidents of this country are elected by popular vote, you are listening to the ramblings of the uneducated.

The brilliance of our Constitution is the division of power. It gives each branch of government its own set of constituencies. What this is supposed to do is make it more difficult for a majority, whether that majority be numbers of persons or numbers of dollars, to impose its will on the minority.

So what the 17th Amendment does, essentially, is take the power of the sovereign states away from the debate in Washington. It destroys the role of the Senate as a representative body of State governments, and creates what is actually now a second House of Representatives. This means that the same people or interests that elect a congressman, elect a senator. It concentrates the power of the majority. Why is this bad?

Many times the populous is influenced by personality, political fad, emotional argument, or just plain self interest. Politicians spewing forth feel good popular slogans and making promises to redistribute the wealth of others into the pockets of potential voters, or promising to mandate that states do certain things for various groups through Federal law, get elected. Many times State governments oppose these programs the Federal Government mandates that they accomplish with no Federal funding. State governments, who know the folly of Washington, are held hostage to the interest groups of popularly elected Senators, who were elected by the same groups that elected Representatives to the House. The checks and balances upon the power of the Federal Government are removed from the States.

Not only are these Senators now not subject to their State Legislatures, they are now beholden to money influences from outside their own States. They are also strongly influenced to vote for Federal programs that confiscate the wealth of individuals to redistribute into the hands of those people and groups that popularly elected them. Rather than representing the best interests of their home State and influencing Federal policy to protect the interests of their State, they are representing their own interests to get reelected by their popular constituency.

As you can see, the 17th Amendment concentrated Federal power over the individual Sovereign States. Essentially, it forces States to become agencies of the Federal Government. This was not originally intended. The 17th Amendment was a victory for the Progressive Movement in the early 20th century. It is something that must be repealed. Failure to win its repeal dooms us to incrementally more Federal power over us as individuals and over the States. This brings Federal Tyranny upon us all.