Thinking The ‘Unthinkable’: Repealing The 17th Amendment

While it may come as something of a shock to those of us accustomed to hearing, ad nauseum, that we live in a democracy (and that the States necessarily play a subordinate role to the Federal government), we do not–at least that was most certainly not the Founders’ intent.

As the rigorous and widespread debate prior to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 amply illustrates, the Founders intended not a democracy, but a republic; they strove to create a limited Federal government characterized by checks and balances (separation of powers) not just between Congress, the President and the Judiciary, but within Congress itself, as well–and most of all, between the States and the Federal government. For what good are checks and balances between Federal branches, if the Federal government as a whole runs roughshod over the States, and hence, over the people?

(Emphasis added in all quoted material below.)

The Federalist #39 (James Madison):


The Federalist #45 (James Madison):


The Federalist #51 (James Madison):


As Charles C. W. Cooke notes (and I commend the article to your attention):

As Madison makes clear in the Federalist Papers, in order to defend the vertical checks and balances that allow America’s federal system to function, senators would be “elected absolutely and exclusively by state legislatures.” The Senate was not intended to be the people’s representative body, but that of the states. Lest the federal government “swallow up the state legislatures,” George Mason insisted to his fellow convention delegates in Philadelphia, “let the state legislatures appoint the Senate.” The delegates backed him unanimously.

In short, the Seventeenth Amendment, “which established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote,” unraveled a precarious and deliberate system of checks and balances (separation of powers) between the States and the Federal government, giving more power to the latter at the expense of the former, and bringing us closer to a national (as opposed to Federal) government that the Founders deliberately took great pains to avoid.

Or, as Todd Zywicki put it more eloquently:



Of course, we can well expect democracy fetishists to squeal like stuck pigs at the mere mention of repealing the Seventeenth Amendment. Let them squeal. Their “Progressive” machinations have severely damaged the Founders’ vision of liberty and a limited Federal Government, giving America what is rapidly devolving into an imperial and imperious national government. It’s about time we at least try to undo some of the damage.


2 Responses to Thinking The ‘Unthinkable’: Repealing The 17th Amendment

  1. crosspatch says:

    Here’s the thing. If they repeal the 17th amendment, there is nothing that says the state must change how they elect their Senators. If they want to elect them by popular vote, that’s fine. Some did even before the 17th. But here’s the primary issue: Since the population has become more urbanized, in most states the largest city controls the Senate delegation. Whoever controls Chicago, for example, controls the Senate delegation of Illinois. In this way the political control shifted in the Senate from being the house of Congress that represents the states to the house that represents the largest cities.

  2. songwroter says:

    Although “liberal” urban areas front-load the game, any recent map of state legislatures is a sea of red. Not why I support the repeal though–just an argument for original intent, chips fall where they may.

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