We the People: James Madison's Best Invention Yet

In his book, Inventing the People, Edmund Morgan answers a question posed by philosopher David Hume, who noted “the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.” Morgan agreed with Hume that governments operate under tacit consent, and adds that the consent implies acceptance of fictions meticulously cultivated by those who govern. One of those fictions is a central tenet of democracies all over the world: “the people” and their sovereignty. Today, the more direct implementations of democratic principles may come across as an actualization of those fabrications, but their fictitiousness still holds -- the idea of “the people” lacks an explicit description and the concept of popular sovereignty cannot be practiced in legitimate accordance to its definition.

By the end of the Glorious Revolution in England, governmental powers had been passed on from the king to the Parliament, as it invented the idea of “the people”. The narrative repeated itself across the pond, as the founding fathers gathered in 1787 with an objective to strengthen congress. As the meeting unexpectedly became a constitutional convention, James Madison recognized that if “the people of the United States as a whole...could be thought to stand superior to the people of any single state,” the disease of factionalism could be rid of. As Parliamentarians had trumped divine right with popular sovereignty, Federalists had trumped state sovereignty with popular sovereignty.

As a result of the new constitution, federalists were pleased that a small number of the “natural aristocracy” would be elected as representatives. Similar to the federalists, Socrates had been a huge pessimist about democracy by birthright and favored an intellectual democracy instead. This was because, on a journey to sea, deciding who would be in charge of the vessel would best be conducted by people knowledgeable about the rules and demands of seafaring, not just anyone. On the same vein, Voting in an election and deciding the future of a country are skills, not a random intuition, and thus needs to be taught systematically. Since the American independence, the quality of “the mere people” has changed. Nowadays, a lot of the common people are arguably as well educated as the natural aristocrats. It is commonly known that before a citizen’s political decision-making, they should be well informed on details and be sufficiently exposed to the various arguments. Learning what’s best for the country is not so much harder than turning on the radio, 9 o’clock news, or the cell phone. Also, everyone has the opportunity to voice their opinion, with methods ranging from wearing a pin to disobeying the law as a demonstration, voting, signing petitions, campaigning, participating in protests, and many more.

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Therefore, arguably, the issues that federalists aired in allowing an ignorant population decide its future have been solved. People consider issues rationally and deeply before deciding on a stance, and thus have become credible, noteworthy sources through which representatives can base their decisions. Consequently, it could easily be mistaken that the fictional idea of “the people” has become an actuality. Nevertheless, a perceptive examination reveals that the concept of “the people” still remains, and may forever remain, a fictional concept that we choose to believe in to legitimize democratic governance. First of all, it is an abstract idea whose definition isn’t even agreed upon. An entity that has multiple understandings and constantly shifting identity can’t possibly exist in a single, concrete form. Moreover, as long as the mass can’t govern the mass, it can’t be factually that “the people” are sovereign; rather, a subgroup of “the people” is.

To start off, there is no real definition of who “the people” even are. For Edmund Burke, “the people” are a historical, continuous entity that encompasses all past and future generations. For federalists like James Madison, “the people” are an invented entity that, whether intentional or accidental, ended up serving manipulative, elitist purposes. Ordinary men thought they were voting representatives of themselves, but because of the bicameral structure of the legislature, only the higher society would probably ever win elections. For anti-federalists like Thomas Paine, “the people” would be persons living in a state at the particular point in time. Hence there is no unified understanding of “the people” -- it is a most nebulous concept, vague enough to not append particular rights and responsibilities. But then to ascribe a will to a body so amorphous, as if it were a single entity with a single outlook and a single interest, and to try to capture such nonexistent will would be to uphold a fiction.

Secondly, the idea that “the people” are sovereign in democracies would only be true in a literal sense if there were no representatives at all and “the giddy multitude” really did rule themselves in whatever form. This, for practical reasons, obviously cannot be materialized in actuality, and thus the universally believed version of popular sovereignty must be a fiction. Even though, in theory, people maintain their superiority over the government, once power is infused in the few representatives, presidents, and judges, they lose the upper hand. Still, because people are involved in their governments, popular sovereignty is a fiction closer to fact. Furthermore, “if subjects and rulers were the same, if government was by the people,” there would be no need for a constitution in the first place. Morgan quotes a Federalist’s question regarding the constitution: “‘Why then should the people...convey or grant to themselves what was their own inherent and natural right?’” The answer would be that they shouldn’t have to; a disguised purpose of the constitution had been to introduce and start planting the idea of a sovereign people.

All things considered, however, fictions are convenient and necessary. The very basis of political systems is composed of fictions that cannot be true. Citizens must still have faith in them because they stand for something greater than words can describe. They must be honored to legitimate democracies, to quell dissent, to nurture deference, but most importantly to preserve the passion for collective strength.