emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention,
and have often been found incompatible with the personal security
and rights of property, and have generally been as short in their
lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

Undoubtedly, the framers of the Constitution in thus limiting popular
rule did not take sufficient account of the genius of an
English-speaking people. A few of their number recognized this.
Franklin, a self-made man, believed in democracy and doubted the
efficacy of the Constitution unless it was, like a pyramid, broad-based
upon the will of the people.

Colonel Mason, of Virginia, who was also of the Jeffersonian school of
political philosophy, said:

"Notwithstanding the oppression and injustice experienced among us
from democracy, the genius of the people is in favour of it, and the
genius of the people must be consulted."

In this they were true prophets, for the American people have refused to
limit democracy as narrowly and rigidly as the framers of the
Constitution clearly intended. The most notable illustration of this is
the selection of the President. It was never contemplated that the
people should directly select the President, but that a chosen body of
electors should, with careful deliberation, make this momentous choice.
While, in form, the system persists to this day, from the very beginning
the electors simply vote as the people who select them desire. It should
here be noted that Thomas Jefferson, the great Democrat and draftsman of
the Declaration of Independence, was not a member of the convention.
During its sessions he was in France. He was instrumental in securing
the first ten Amendments and the subsequent adaptation of the
Constitution to meet the democratic instincts of the American people is
largely due to his great leadership.

Moreover, the spirit of representative government has greatly changed
since the Constitution was adopted. The ideal of the earlier time was
that so nobly expressed by Edmund Burke in his address to the electors
of Bristol, for the framers believed that a representative held a
judicial position of the most sacred character, and that he should vote
as his judgment and conscience dictated without respect to the wishes of
his constituents. To-day, and notably in the last half century, the
contrary belief, due largely to Jefferson's political ideals, has so
influenced American politics that the repr