Why did the Federalists always say the Antifederalists were for majority rule when it was the Federalists who were for majority rule, not the Antifederalists?
when people said democrats back then, they meant Jefersonian democrat… which is far different than Jacksonian democracts, which gave rise to modern democracts
Okay thanks Isaac:) could you elaborate a little bit more? You don’t have to if you don’t want to though.
I was thinking the three types of democracies were wilsonian, Jacksonian, and jeffersonian. Jefferson and Jackson would no longer advocate democracy today, I would imagine, while I’m sure the Federalists and the Wilsonians would.
I just don’t think the Federalists had any room to call the Antifederalists proponents of democracy because the Constitution (which had unlimited enumerated powers, no term limits, one originally democratically elected body, and required only a simple majority to pass legislation other than treaties) is much more of a democracy than the Confederation which had term limits, no democratically elected body, far fewer enumerated powers, required unanmity to amend and 9/13 to make laws.
I don’t know about the “Jacksonian/Jefferson” versions of democracy. All I know about is how people commonly think of democracy, as pure, unbridled, rule of the majority. Which can easily be taken in by any charismatic con-artist willing to make a law sound good on paper and then weasle it into pure tyranny.
There’s the democracy the confederates fought for. “Dixiecrats”. Of pure, state democracies. Which a lot of libertarians I’ve had the unpleasure of talking too are for. Basically treating our states as private countries up until it’s convenient with constitutional law.
And then there’s representative democracy. Which is what our forefathers created. Which is we elect officials, who then write, elect, and otherwise control the law. The only reason we mixed in state law was as a counter measure incase THAT fucked up, and there was enough variation to where things could recooperate, people could remember liberty again, or the less corrupt states could suceede and try to take back the country by force or just escape it’s clutches and move on.
Frankly, I’m not too fond of any of them. I personally believe in a more vanguard approach to democratic proccess. That all people exist within a body. Don’t care if you call it a corporation, a party, a militia, but all those within the board of that body vote on their laws, and they become federal law that all other groups have to follow as well. We vote as one, we represent each other, and take the responsibilities of one another and take care each other. But there is the chance for other groups to exist too, to create diversity and so no group is fully corrupted because there will always be other groups to keep them inline. Sort of a representative democracy on an entirely different level.
I’m surprised you were confused. The Federalists called the Anti-federalists democrats because (at least to the Founding Fathers) democracy meant majority+ rule. So the Const. was less democratic then the Conf. because it required a 2/3 vote on measures as opposed to a unanimity in the legislature. Also, the Const. had potentially unlimited powers while to them, a democracy had limited powers so the const. was less democratic than the confederation. The same can be said about almost every aspect of the government.
So in short Democracy =majority or unanimous voting,limited power (antifederalists wanted 3 presidents to divide up the executive power), and term limits (which tend to limit power). Anti-democracy is just the opposite so self-evidently, the constitution was anti-democratic.
I think the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians would be repulsed at the size of our modern government because no matter the differences in the ideal size of government between the two parties, none of them would’ve countenanced federal support for state police at the very least.