The peculiar advantage of the expanding republic crewed by the natural aristocracy was, according to James Madison, “the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and sentiments rendered them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice,” who pursue the true interests of the country free from the turbulence and clamors of “men of factious tempers, of local prejudices or sinister designs.”1 To them, the new government was “dangerously adapted to the purposes of an immediate aristocratic tyranny, that “raised the fortunes and respectability of the well-born few and oppress the plebeians.”3 The 17th Amendment made real the fears of the Anti-Federalists; it destroyed the careful balance of society’s natural factions, the wealthy and the less-well-off.
Author: Article V Blog
Published at: 2025-05-04 21:19:34
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