Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
Hamilton in Federalist #22:
"To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser.
This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security.
But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.
In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward.
If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.
And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated.
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If the majority is given the power to determine what is right or good, then the majority will always be right and good.
The majority, under the power given to it was right to say Socrates or Galileo were wrong. In hindsight, we would say those majorities were wrong.
Expediency in government necessitates some constant instrumental process to arrive at conclusions and decisions. In democratically structured societies, majority vote is the most expedient process for making decisions. That doesn't mean the decisions are "right." It simply means that the majority has been given the power to decide.
In tyrannical governments, the instrument is the tyrant and the process is the administration of his decisions.
In democratic systems, majorities must be persuaded. When, by argument or demagoguery, majorities are persuaded that they need some particular or other, whether they actually do or not, then the statesmen or demagogues will be proved "right" when the instrument of majority vote or opinion is expressed.
In red states, Republicans are "right." In blue states, Democrats are "right." Even though the parties have opposing views, majorities have proclaimed them both to be right or wrong.
Majorities have proclaimed slavery to be right. Majorities have said it is wrong. Etc., etc., etc. . . .
Hamilton was writing about expediency in government, not about right or wrong.
The Founders did not want a tyrannical system. Nor did they want a system in which majorities created a form of tyranny by imposing the will of the majority over every aspect of the individual rights of all the citizens. That's why they created a Constitution that severely limited the central government. Even Hamilton, the most hungry for central government power, believed in unalienable individual rights which the government could not abridge.
Those Founders would not approve of what current majorities have been persuaded to believe in or vote for. But they would have bowed to the presumed rightness of majority rule and the erroneous decisions arrived at by those majorities.
Or else they would have called for a new revolution.