The Enchantress: Majority Rule

To Beard and Smith and the rest of their loyal legion, it was a question of “What Lola wants, Lola gets.” Lola, the enchantress, was Majority Rule—or, to use Rousseau’s mystical term, the volunté générale, or General Will. The Founding Fathers, distrusting Lola, had decided there were some things which the voracious girl should never have. Or, if she was to be permitted her way in certain areas, it must be within the confines of the small locality, ranging from the township and the county up to the single, separate state. To circumscribe Lola, the Founders made a rather strict enumeration of the Shalts and Shalt Nots of the case. Certain federal powers were to be left open to Lola’s manipulation. Other rights and powers, including anything and everything not enumerated, were reserved to the constituent states of the Republic, or to the citizens acting as freely choosing individuals or in concert as freely associating groups.

As champions of Lola, the historiographical firm of Beard, Smith, Commager and Whomever has found the guide line of our national drama in the efforts of Populists, Bryanite Democrats and Modern Republicans to get rid of our original constitutional contraption. The story is a familiar one, with the “strong” Presidents—Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, the two Roosevelts—playing the role of Hero in subduing villainous States’ Righters or equally maleficent individualists. The Founding Fathers had set up the Republic in such a way that it was difficult for proponents of the General Will to override local customs or to put the central State into the business of providing lavish handouts to “gimme” groups or indigent individuals. But the Fourteenth Amendment, with its Section One which stipulated that “no State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property… nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” put all civil and economic rights under national rather than state protection. And the Sixteenth Amendment, which permitted the levying of a steeply graduated personal income tax, eventually provided Washington with funds to subvert local initiative. Between them, the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Amendments have enabled the federal government to force the General Will on the habit patterns of widely dissimilar regions and to prescribe the same sort of expensive Service State for everybody.

JC

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John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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To Beard and Smith and the rest of their loyal legion, it was a question of “What Lola wants, Lola gets.” Lola, the enchantress, was Majority Rule—or, to use Rousseau’s mystical term, the volunté générale, or General Will. The Founding Fathers, distrusting Lola, had decided there were some things which the voracious girl should never have. Or, if she was to be permitted her way in certain areas, it must be within the confines of the small locality, ranging from the township and the county up to the single, separate state. To circumscribe Lola, the Founders made a rather strict enumeration of the Shalts and Shalt Nots of the case. Certain federal powers were to be left open to Lola’s manipulation. Other rights and powers, including anything and everything not enumerated, were reserved to the constituent states of the Republic, or to the citizens acting as freely choosing individuals or in concert as freely associating groups.

As champions of Lola, the historiographical firm of Beard, Smith, Commager and Whomever has found the guide line of our national drama in the efforts of Populists, Bryanite Democrats and Modern Republicans to get rid of our original constitutional contraption. The story is a familiar one, with the “strong” Presidents—Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, the two Roosevelts—playing the role of Hero in subduing villainous States’ Righters or equally maleficent individualists. The Founding Fathers had set up the Republic in such a way that it was difficult for proponents of the General Will to override local customs or to put the central State into the business of providing lavish handouts to “gimme” groups or indigent individuals. But the Fourteenth Amendment, with its Section One which stipulated that “no State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property… nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” put all civil and economic rights under national rather than state protection. And the Sixteenth Amendment, which permitted the levying of a steeply graduated personal income tax, eventually provided Washington with funds to subvert local initiative. Between them, the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Amendments have enabled the federal government to force the General Will on the habit patterns of widely dissimilar regions and to prescribe the same sort of expensive Service State for everybody.