People today are quite familiar with the long and tiring process of obtaining a driver’s license. There are permits to be obtained, forms to be signed, classes to be taken, and, finally, the ever-important road test to be passed. While few relish this system of seemingly excessive regulation, nearly every person realizes that it is necessary and would not want to see it destroyed. If the Department of Motor Vehicles (the DMV) relaxed its standards, unsafe drivers would flood the roads. This intricate bureaucracy protects safe drivers from reckless ones, who could potentially injure, if not kill, many.
Though the DMV was created more than 150 years after the founding of the nation, it is remarkably analogous to the system of government that the founders were attempting to create with the Constitution. Close readings of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers reveal that the Founding Fathers sought to prevent metaphorical reckless drivers from having any major impact on their government. These readings also reveal a more troubling fact: the Founding Fathers saw men of the lower socioeconomic levels as being metaphorical reckless drivers, even though these men (largely peasants) were the heart and soul of “the people.”
The government of the United States is, in essence, a large DMV, and if anyone wants to become involved, he must obtain his political license of involvement. But because of their view that the common man was reckless, the founders created a system which ensured that members of the lower socioeconomic classes would find it nearly impossible to obtain their so-called “political licenses.” The Founding Fathers simultaneously ensured that those who could afford driving lessons (a college education) or state-of-the-art cars (a good family name and reputation) would be able to obtain a license with little difficulty because they saw only the upper classes as being fit to rule. What resulted was a system where the elites’ desires for power and control were protected, to some degree, from the influence of the lower classes.
Limitations on the common people’s ability to obtain these licenses of involvement abound in all parts of the Constitution. The Natural-Born Citizen Clause (Article 2, Section1), for example, which stated that only Natural Born Citizens (i.e., people who were born on American soil) could run for the office of the president, seems innocuous at first. Perhaps it was merely a way for the Founding Fathers to prevent foreign drivers, who probably knew little about the American Political Roadways, from making dangerous decisions because of their lack of information. But what about a man who was born in France, immigrated to the United States before he could even talk, and has lived in this country for over fifty years? Should he be prevented from becoming president simply because he spent a few short months of his life in another country? The Founding Fathers answered that question with a strong no, and they provided the above reasoning to support their answer. But critically examining this clause from another perspective – specifically, a Marxist perspective – reveals another possible motive. Around the time of the framing of the Constitution, and indeed even today, the vast majority of immigrants who came to America were very poor and belonged to the lower classes in American society (regardless of their socioeconomic class in their home countries). The Founding Fathers could, therefore, use the Natural-Born Citizen Clause to prevent members of the lower classes from taking control of the government (or, at least, one branch of it).
Perhaps the Founding Fathers did not know of the immigration statistics at the time, but there is strong evidence against this fact. Just over a decade after the ratification of the Constitution, John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers, became President and the fifth Congress was elected. Adams belonged to a party known as the Federalists, which generally supported the interests of the wealthy, and which also controlled Congress during this period. This one party’s control of both the Executive and Legislative Branches of government, known as a “unified government,” allowed it to pass legislation that benefitted itself and hurt others without much trouble. In 1798, the Federalist Congress passed a set of bills known as the Alien & Sedition Acts, and President Adams signed them into law. These acts had a variety of effects, but the most important part for this analysis was the Naturalization Act, which extended the duration of residence required for “aliens” to become citizens of the United States (the first step towards getting their political licenses). This act was created in response to the fact that many immigrants came to America, became poor peasants, and voted in ways that adversely affected the Federalist Party and the elites of America. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that the Founding Fathers did not know that most immigrants who came to America became members of the lower classes. The Alien & Sedition Acts, along with the Natural-Born Citizen Clause are, thus, only manifestations of the Founding Fathers’ sentiments that the people of the lower classes were “reckless drivers.”
Age requirements were yet another way for the founders to limit the number of licenses they granted to me of the lower classes. According to the Constitution, a man had to attain a minimum age of 25 or 30 to become a member of the House of Representatives (Article 1, Section 2) or Senate (Article 1, Section 3), respectively. In today’s day and age, where the average life span is approximately 78 years in the United States, this requirement seems trivial. But in 1786, the average man was not expected to live past the age of 24, just shy of the age requirement laid out in the Constitution for the House of Representatives (which was technically supposed to be “the house of the people”). If a man wanted to live for 25 years or more (i.e., have an above-average life span), he would also need to have above-average hygiene, live in above-average living conditions, and have access to above-average foods and medications. For those of the upper classes, access to the above-average was commonplace, but a common man would not be able to live according to this higher standard (for practical reasons, most stemming from the lack of wealth necessary to fund this above-average life).
Of course, 24 years was only the average life expectancy. Living for one additional year was not uncommon, but the Founding Fathers knew this fact and planned the government accordingly. If a man reached the age of 25, he was eligible to become a member of the House of Representatives, which is why the Founding Fathers designed it to be the house of the people and gave Representatives shorter terms. But for a common man to be eligible to become a Senator, he would have to extend his life by 6 years. To put it in perspective, that would mean extending his life by 25%, not an easy feat to accomplish under the strenuous conditions of farm life in America at the time.
The Founding Fathers also devised a metaphorical public transportation system to keep the lower class drivers off the roads. They created a republic (not a democracy) so that the common people would not be directly involved with the American Political Roadways. They created representatives, or metaphorical bus drivers. With one representative for every 30,000 people (Article 1, Section 2), an individual non-driver had little say in where or when his bus stopped. The people of the lower classes had to board and leave the busses from specific stops that the wealthy bus drivers chose. The people could yell their opinions at the bus drivers and try to tell him where to stop, but the bus driver would ultimately have complete control over where and when the bus stopped. He would simply follow the route that he saw as best, and hope that enough of the people liked his route so that they would re-elect him.
The creation of this system highlights not only the fact that the Founding Fathers saw the common people as being unfit to be involved in the government, but also that the Founding Fathers believed they could placate the lower classes by giving them an indirect way to be involved, making it seem as though the lower classes can easily be led to believe what the upper class says. In this case, the upper classes (i.e., the Founding Fathers, since they were all wealthy aristocrats) made the lower classes believe that they had the power to become significantly involved in the government, when, in reality, this idea was far from the truth.
But the saddest part of the drafting of the Constitution was not actually the specific terms written within it, but one of the strongest arguments against its ratification. This argument, which was created and supported by the common man, involved the fact that the government created by the Constitution would remain in place for generations to come. For the first few years of the new republic, many of the Founding Fathers would hold the office of the presidency (among other positions), and could ensure that the Constitution was interpreted in the way they intended. The Founding Fathers would, however, eventually have to die out. This would leave people who had not been involved in the original drafting of the Constitution to make their own interpretations and guide the country by these interpretations, potentially changing the flavor of American “democracy.”
The Founding Fathers themselves were not particularly concerned by this idea because they were sure that a person who managed to obtain a political license would be wealthy, and therefore either highly educated or from a family that had great political experience (or both). This idea did, however, concern the people greatly because they believed that common men would be able to obtain their license, would be just as uneducated and greedy as themselves, and would bring all of these negative qualities into the office of the president (or other high-ranking positions). While it is true that many of the common people worried that even the wealthy and highly educated would be greedy and malicious, the very fact that the people of the lower classes even articulated the argument that a common man might become President and abuse his power highlights something important – the upper classes and the lower classes both believed that the lower classes were inferior and unfit to govern the nation.
What results from this favoritism towards the upper classes? It seems that the answer is a nation which is poised to stand the test of time. If nothing else, this longevity preserves the Founding Fathers’ good names. Perhaps these great men had wished only to protect their own interests as members of the aristocracy, or perhaps they saw this perceived inequality as the only way to preserve the unity of the union. While I do find considerable evidence that points to the Constitution as favoring the upper classes and the Founding Fathers as seeing the lower classes as inferior and reckless, it would be ignorant to write off these men as being elitist. To some extent, they cared about the common man because they went to great troubles to make him feel as though he was completely free.
Whether or not the Constitution enhances class divisions is a question of opinion, but the fact of the matter is that it created a nation and government that outlasted its writers. The onus is now on us to interpret the document not only in ways that we desire, but in ways that will benefit future generations for years to come. Those of us who are fortunate enough to wield a political license must be careful when we drive; we should not stray too far from the Founding Fathers’ path, or we risk damaging the often-tenuous socioeconomic connections that have formed around our political roadways. Whether we will widen or close the political gap between the upper and lower classes remains to be seen.
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