Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-04-24

The question whether Senators and even the
President should not be elected by direct pop
ular vote Is attracting public attention and is
discussed In Congress. The founders OF the
government in its present form thought, or
nearly all Of them did, that when they estab-
hshed the Senate on the basis OF election by the
State legislatures they represented the States
of the Union in the most practicable if not the
only practicable way. They also thought that
when they constituted the Office Of Presi-
dent of the United States to be filed by
the electoral college they provided for the free
choice Of that high officer by a disinterested
body better qualified to make the choice than
the people themselves. In both arrangements
the fathers of the Constitution showed distrust
of the people. In both-be it SAID with all rev.
erence-they exhibited lack of that wisdom
which they showed most abundantly in other
parts of the field of their memorable labors.
The noblest plan of government ever framed
was necessarily imperfect in some respects.
The wonder is that it is not deemed imperfect
in more than three or four particulars. A
growth, and not simple creation, it preserves
few Of the imperfections of the immemorial
however, that one Of the imperfections of the
tutions out of which our plan of government
proceeded was distrust of the great
body of the people. These English
people Of an elder time chose their own rulers
in tribal or national assembly, signifying their
desires by shout a clashing of the spear on
the shield. 1t was only when centuries
had passed and the Asiatic doctrine of the di-
vine right of kings had been introduced into
~. a. L., liz
trusted the people. At the foundation of the
republic this leaven of distrust had not ceased
to work But it is time now to declare what
our fathers could not see by reason of their
propinquity to the Stewart days, the doc
trine OF the right Of the people to choose at
first hand all their representatives. 1t is not
now it was in the hberty-revival of the thir-
teenth century-no Langton heads the baronial
defenders of the peoples rights against a mon
areh's tyranny, no MOntfort confers a boon
upon the people by popular representation in a
national legislature. The people are the mon
arch, the peoples legislature contains no hered-
itary legislators to the exclusion Of all except
interested classes. Therefore there is no stand
ing place in the public mind or the logic Of
liberty for Senate representing States with
out representing Immediately the people Of
the States. The fathers feared the people.
Their descendants and successors do not. In
their time the States were embodied in the
State legislatures. They were content if the
shadow stood for the substance. We are not.
The States Of this Union are the people there
of-not the large collective mass, but the sew
eral masses forming the several States. Let
them speak through no instrument but by
their own potent voices, aud let them choose
the whole of their national legislature and
their national executive bya direct vote in
States and as States. This will be the great
and final popularization, the last analysis Of
democratic republcanism.