The recent impeachment debate reminds me of why those who wrote the Constitution kept the people as far away as possible from the seat of power. This, despite two of our nation’s founding and guiding documents that are laced with references to “we the people,”but are designed to keep angry farmers with pitchforks away from the county courthouse–as in Shay’s Rebellion. It was also designed to keep greedy despots and tyrants at bay with an impeachment clause.

The Declaration of Independence has slightly more than 1,400 words.  The document is laced with words like fellow citizens, our coasts or we and us. And of course the curse phrase “all men are created equal.” This little phrase so succinct wrapped tight in the logic of  Enlightenment gives us the indefensible “all” not “some” and no indication at all of the royal “we” but” all.” That little phrase has had this country back peddling on a lot issues starting with counting slaves as three-fifths of a person to women’s rights and immigrants rights. Somehow along the way we have managed to rope in non-people and corporate rights, into “We the People.”  Go figure.

The Constitution starts out with “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…” telling us that government derives its just powers from the people. This is a unique concept that has evolved throughout the centuries but has yet come to full fruition. One of the greatest republics in history was the Roman Republic. It lasted almost 500 years from 509 BC to 27 BC.  But the Romans, like the men who put our Constitution to paper, realized that it was vital to keep the masses as far away as possible from Forum. But yet, the Romans knew how to use the masses to manipulate “public policy”  for personal gain. At times the Roman Republic was rocked with public mayhem, mob murder and several civil wars, which would have been impossible without “we the people.”

The  big difference between the Roman Republic and ours is “We the people” is a fine example of well-reasoned rhetoric.  After all, the men who crafted the new government and the Constitution were educated in the Age of Enlightenment or Reason, which came about 1,700 hundred years–give are take a decade or two–after the fall of the Roman Republic.   The Roman Empire, however, lived on for another 500 years before falling like a straw castle to barbarian hordes whose public policy was pillage and personal gain.

Those who wrote our Constitution looked back to the Roman Republic and Athenian democracy to form a our new government, as witnessed in the Classic Roman-Greco architecture style of a lot of our public buildings. They took many of the ideas from Enlightened thinkers like John Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau, as well. But between all of that, Western Europe experienced a heavy dose of feudalism. I am not sure if feudalism is more of social system than it is a form of government. To quote Merriam-Websters  a government is “a small group of persons holding simultaneously the principal political executive offices of a nation or other political unit and being responsible for the direction and supervision of public affairs.” 

Here is where  things get a bit murky: public affairs. Was there any consideration for public affairs in Medieval Europe?  This social structure of the time started basically with one man at the top:  the king or the crown. What makes public affairs questionable is that the crown handed out land to the nobility. The nobility in turn handed land down to the vassals who in turn worked the land with serf or peasant labor.  Serfs were tied to the land in fealty to the lord and master. This quid pro quo was based on loyalty and obligation to the next guy up on the social rung with not a whole lot coming down. This required nobles to pony up knights, archers and pikemen in the crown’s defense in a semi-military society. This included peasants and any yeoman farmers, and the fruits of their labor, too.

Here is another hitch in this quasi military social structure.  If we assume that a Medieval king was a government (unto himself) then the question is what is public affairs or in the public interest. Granted, we cannot impose 21st Century beliefs on 14th Century man.  It is unfair.  It would be easier said, that any sort of public interest  or public policy was really the crown’s interest or what the king said it was.  There were no polls in the field to gauge public perception on, say, going on a Crusade to the Holy Land; or the public’s views on the Hundred Year’s War where the English House of  Plantagenet fought with the French House de Valois over who would  rule France.  And we think 20 years in Afghanistan is a stretch.

I wonder what  a serf would care about who controlled France? Think about it, this is a person who lived and died five miles from where he was born. That is, unless he got dragooned into the front lines fighting Saracens. Then he probably had the opportunity to die hundreds if not thousands of miles from where he was born, in the interest of one man’s personal gain.  Public policy was really how far a king could go in pursuing his own ambitions.

Eventually, the nobles got fed up with this sort fealty to the king. In 1215 a group of English noblemen sat King John down at Runnymede and had him sign the Magna Carta Libertatum, which translates from Latin the Great Charter of the Liberties.  This is looked as a great moment in history when a group of men tried to check the unbridled power of a king. Interesting the Great Charter does not make too much reference to we the people: the serfs or the peasants.  But it was a start and was just a speed bump in royal self-interest.

If we move ahead about five centuries and shift continents to North America we witness a group of colonials trying to sit a truculent king down with the Olive Branch Petition to discuss their rights as British subjects. The king, being king, saw no advantage in discussing public policies with a group of rebellious, second-class colonial  citizens. One thing that must have chafed the Crown was how the colonials used mobs to intimidate his  tax collectors and other governmental officials, particularly in Boston. In 1715 the British Parliament passed what was officially known as “An Act for Preventing Tumults and Riotous Assemblies.”  We simply know this today as “The Riot Act.” The Act allowed for the quick and speedy dispersal of any group of more than 12 people gathered on the street corner. I am not sure how effective this act was at curbing Boston’s Waterside gangs.

The Sons of Liberty in Boston, could sum up mobs almost at will. They could whip up a rowdy crowd comprised from either the Northend or Southend gangs. These gangs of out-of-work- sailors, rope walkers and local toughs could tar and feather some poor unfortunate British official, ride his feathered  backside out of town and be in the Pub knocking back rum before sun down. This was sending out an intimidating message. It could be the precursor of “Don’t mess with the US.” The Sons of Liberty were very successful in manipulating public opinion with the use of “we the people.” But they were also well aware of the dangers of controlling the wild horses that were pulling their wagons.

There are two interesting points we can gather from the use of mobs to influence public policy. One, is that when it came time to write a Constitution, it was obvious that the people needed to be included, mobs and all. The question is how and what role do the people play in the process without giving them too much power that translates into mob mentality.

One of the ways to dilute the power of the people was the Electoral College. This way of electing the president was sort of letting the “we the people” in through the front door while showing us the back door quickly. The people, however, could elect local officials, members to the House of Representatives but not judges, senators or the president.

The second point is how do the people deal with an unresponsive government official without taking to the streets. The struggle with King George III taught them that they could not count on a loss of  a horseshoe to unhorse a king. Hence, the new Constitution included Biennial elections. It also included an impeachment clause in Article I Section 2 Clause 5.

The one thing that those Enlightened thinkers did not incorporate from the Roman Republic was a Dictator. According to Encyclopedia Britannica a Roman dictator was “a temporary magistrate with extraordinary powers, nominated by a consul on the recommendation of the Senate and confirmed by the Comitia Curiata (a popular assembly).” It is interesting to note that a dictator was nominated and approved “only in times of military and later internal crises.” (It is interesting to note that this is how Hitler became Chancellor of Germany during a time of financial upheaval.)

In theory, a Roman dictator’s  term was only six months or until the crisis passed. The Romans. like English colonials, had toppled Roman kings to form a republic. And like there past Republicans, American colonials feared the unbridled power of a  king.  The Romans, however, saw a need for one man taking charge in a crisis much like when Secretary of State, Al Haig, stepped in for the wounded President Ronald Reagan telling the American people “I am in control here.”

The problem is one man’s crisis could also be his opportunity. An opportunity that could be fudged as in the case of two of the more famous Roman Dictators Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Julius Caesar. Sulla was granted broad powers which included rewriting the constitution. But it was more in the unique way in which he went after his political rivals with proscription.  This was a “judicial process.” All Sulla needed to do was simply post names of people he considered “deplorable.” These undesirables who got tagged with with the term “enemies of the state” risked losing everything including life and limb.  According to the website UNRV.com Sulla’s rule became a bloody affair:  “A reign of terror ensued with rewards offered for the death or capture of any name on the list.”  The end result was “as many as 40 senators and 1,600 members of the equestrian class (the property owning social class just below senators) were murdered.”

For those who found themselves on the top of his hit list:  “There was simply no place to hide or run. People taking refuge in the temples were murdered; others were lynched by the Roman mob. An intricate network of spies kept Sulla informed and at his whim, tracked down anyone who might be considered an enemy of the state.”

Caesar’s popularity as a dictator took a slightly different turn and ended up with him flat on the Senate floor, bleeding away the last remnants of a Republic, that eventually gave rise to the Roman Empire.

 

It should not come as a surprise that those Enlightened thinkers who wrote the Constitution put the beginning of the impeachment process in the  people’s chamber of the Congress: The House of Representatives and not the Senate. It is  interesting to note just about the time these Enlightened thinkers were writing our Constitution  the reign of terror was being nurtured in the beginnings of the French Revolution. It was mob rule on steroids and  guillotine. Four years after the ratification of our Constitution the French lopped the head off head of their king and displayed it for all to see.

The impeachment threshold is a major cliff to climb. And yes, it does nullify an Electoral College election, which sounds a hell of lot more civil than putting a ruler’s head on a pike. The Electoral College vote is one of the few elections in the world where having a majority of a popular vote can have you coming in second. Impeachment is the people’s way of rectifying an election through their representatives. It is “We the People” trying to rein in the reign of a president who may be acting more in his personal interest than the public’s.  It is a way of keeping a waterside mob forming onto Boston wharf, storming onto  the Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor and chucking 342 tea chests into the harbor.

As Winston Churchill said: Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…

 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-adopts-olive-branch-petition

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-is-named-chancellor-of-germany

https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/feudalism.html

http://sageamericanhistory.net/colonies_empire/topics/enlighten.htm

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/20/the-rule-of-history

https://www.unrv.com/empire/lucius-cornelius-sulla.php

https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php