Democracy and the Federalist: A Reconsideration of the Framers’ Intent*

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Abstract
Our major political problems are problems of democracy; and, as much as anything else, the Federalist papers are a teaching about democracy. This chapter presents a contrary view of the political theory of the Framers and examines some of its consequences. The idea that the Constitution was a falling back from the fuller democracy of the Declaration thus rests in part upon a false reading of the Declaration as free from the concerns regarding democracy that the framers of the Constitution felt. The organization of the Senate, its term of office and its staggered mode of replacement, its election by state legislatures rather than directly by the people, among other things, have been used to demonstrate the undemocratic character of the Senate as intended by the Framers. The main object of The Federalist was to urge the necessity of a firm and energetic Union.

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