Over time, the 17th Amendment – replacing the state-based selection of Senators with direct popular elections – has posed existential threats to America’s institutions and tranquility.
America has moved toward institutional decay and unwise policy decisions because of it, and we should repeal it.
To set the stage, let’s start with how we got here. Not long after America declared independence from monarchy, it quietly declared independence from democracy as well – James Madison made sure of it. The Founders feared that a direct democracy or a largely majoritarian government would lead to tyranny for the rest of the country. Madison, in particular, envisioned a system of government in which institutional restraints on populist passions took shape through deliberately aristocratic institutions that could “obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.”
Yet, this aristocracy differs from the European aristocracy, as it derives its status from wisdom and virtue, rather than patronage and lineage. Thomas Jefferson described this aristocracy of wisdom as a “natural aristocracy” in an 1813 correspondence with John Adams. The Founders envisioned a Republic that balanced the interests of the people with those of a natural aristocracy, creating a representative democracy that simultaneously pursued the common good. Adams had strong reservations about the natural aristocracy and its capacity to become a corrupt elite. Madison, too, feared a government solely made up of aristocrats and elites, declaring, “It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it…” While Madison valued institutional stability through a robust aristocracy, he recognized that political legitimacy can only come from all the people to prevent a tyranny of the minority.
Accordingly, Madison and the Founders constructed a delicate balance that derived itself from the great body of society while also obtaining rulers who possessed the qualities of wisdom and virtue. This “Madisonian Balance” divided power between representative majoritarian institutions and aristocratic anti-majoritarian institutions to prevent tyranny by either the minority or the majority. According to the “Madisonian Balance,” the House of Representatives and the popular vote component of the presidency reflect the popular will, while the Senate, Electoral College, and the Judiciary reflect the aristocratic will.
These aristocratic institutions serve as prudent guardrails to temper the popular passions unleashed by the majoritarian institutions. In practice, this delicate balance between these divided powers weathered minor changes before, including the expansion of the voter base and the clarifying reforms of the 12th Amendment. Yet, changes like the 17th Amendment have caused substantial issues by altering the position of the Senate in a majoritarian direction.
For over a century, the Senate operated within the “Madisonian Balance,” its members elected via state legislatures to create distance from public opinion and act as a guardrail against majoritarian impulses. This changed in 1913 with the 17th Amendment, which established the direct election of Senators by the state’s population. Largely led by the Progressive-era populist movement, the 17th Amendment was championed by progressives as an egalitarian reform of a corrupt oligarchy. In reality, the Senate’s historic place in the “Madisonian Balance” of American institutions was stripped of its intended aristocratic guardrail.
The result is a Senate that mirrors the House, driven by short-term incentives, performative behavior, and a sacrifice of the common good for the sake of majoritarianism. Without the prudent instincts of the Senate, the balance of power predictably moves toward the majoritarian bodies. Senators are now selected for popularity and partisan appeal, bound to an electoral cycle that rewards expediency over principle.
The political climate ushered in by the 17th Amendment reflects a philosophy antithetical to the delicate “Madisonian Balance” of the Founders; we are led by a mythologized view of popular sovereignty, an obsession with what “the people” want. As a result, the U.S. has moved toward the logical extreme of institutional decay, as populists from the Left and Right have fashioned themselves as anti-institutionalists and representatives of “the people.”
For instance, legal decisions, particularly by the Supreme Court, are no longer evaluated through a legal lens but through the emotional calculus of public agreement. The obsession with representing the people at the expense of our institutions, treating our courts as political obstacles rather than as neutral arbiters of the law, has provoked people to impeach justices or to pack the Supreme Court with policy loyalists if the judges don’t represent the so-called will of the people. But chasing democracy at the expense of institutional stability leads to the very thing the Founders feared: the tyranny of the majority. Democracy is not an end in itself, and should not manifest as unrestrained rule by an impassioned majority. Instead, it must operate within institutional constraints and uphold protections against large majoritarian movements.
To the Founders, popular sovereignty was not about glorifying “the people” as we use the term today, but rather pursuing a government that represents the body of the people. This body represents both the natural aristocracy and the common people in pursuit of the common good, which may not always align with the desires of the common people.
The current national debt crisis is a modern example of this division between the common good and popular opinion. Though the crisis represents an existential threat to the economic future of the United States, few economists and political scholars dare to propose unpopular spending cuts. Thus, without a major aristocratic policy-making institution within government, the U.S. is ill-equipped to confront this looming crisis. Today’s Senators, beholden to electoral majorities, express concern but rarely contradict their constituents’ beliefs, constrained by the bounds of electoral politics.
Ultimately, the original conception of the Senate was crucial in the “Madisonian Balance” constructed by our Founding Fathers. Without aristocratic guardrails, we drift toward majoritarianism that threatens to dismantle our institutions under the guise of democracy.
It’s time to preserve the Republic that our Founders carefully balanced and confront the amendment that broke it. Repeal the 17th Amendment. Restore the “Madisonian Balance.”
