American History

In his book, Toward and American Revolution, Jerry Fresia gives a thought-provoking account of one particular event in Americas political history   the framing and ratification of the Constitution.  Fresias approach differs from other authors in the sense that he sees the making of the Constitution from a different perspective.  Fresia sees something wrong about America based on what happened in 1787.  He views it as the creation of an elite plutocracy rather than a real democracy which is popular in nature. At the end of book, he calls for a  need for revolutionaries  to continue the struggle for real and genuine democracy in the United States.
    Upon closer examination of the Founding Fathers who drafted and signed the Constitution, they were all elites in society whether they were  old money  like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or the self-made ones like Roger Sherman of Connecticut.  Other accounts considered them as  demigods  because of their stature not only based on their socio-economic background but also by the reputation they built during the American Revolution. They came together in Philadelphia in response to a brewing crisis that threatened to undermine the stability of the fledgling United States of America.  Realizing that the Confederation Congress was not strong enough to promote stability, they decided to create a new government that would be strong and centralized to ensure the survival of the nation.  They decided to create a (federal) republican form of government rather than create their own monarchy.
    However, Fresia saw it differently.  When provisions for the Constitution were proposed and drafted, he noticed that these provisions did not intend to serve the majority but to protect the interests of the framers and their ilk. These educated and enlightened men feared granting too much power to the less educated and less privileged majority. They saw them as a threat who would use their power to promote an egalitarian society. This means that by creating equality, they might take away all their privileges and patrimony that they had built up through the years. In addition, despite breaking away from the British monarchy, most of them admired the system and liked the functions which they wanted to adopt in the new government they created, stopping short however of creating a new monarchy and instead giving the leader (President) limited powers as part of the separation of powers stipulated in the provisions of the Constitution. Furthermore, the framers made sure that the powers of the majority are limited to electing only their representatives to Congress and stopped short in giving them the right to elect senators and a President which was back then reserved to an Electoral College .
    Apparently, what Fresia saw was the same as some of the framers noticed like Benjamin Franklin and George Mason to name a few. In the case of Franklin, he had reservations in signing this  imperfect  document, yet he bowed to the will of the majority and expediency and signed it. As for Mason, he too noticed this and threatened to boycott the signing unless a Bill of Rights was added.  Despite what came out of the Convention, the Founding Fathers (at least some of them) were hoping that the American people would eventually mature and use their newly-bestowed powers judiciously. In one anecdote, Franklin was asked by a passerby what government did they give them and he answered wittily,  a Republic, if you can keep it  Franklins point was the responsibility for having a true democratic government rests with the people if they would be involved and not merely leave politics at the hands of politicians. This is how democracy is supposed to work and to a certain extent, it has and will continue to do so in the years to come.