eme
Court, "to designate our form of government as a democracy, but in the
true sense in which that term is properly used, as defining a government
in which all its acts are performed by the people, it is about as far
from it as any other of which we are aware."[18]

In the United States at the present time we are trying to make an
undemocratic Constitution the vehicle of democratic rule. Our
Constitution embodies the political philosophy of the eighteenth
century, not that of to-day. It was framed for one purpose while we are
trying to use it for another. Is free government, then, being tried here
under the conditions most favorable to its success? This question we can
answer only when we have considered our Constitution as a means to the
attainment of democratic rule.

It is difficult to understand how anyone who has read the proceedings of
the Federal Convention can believe that it was the intention of that
body to establish a democratic government. The evidence is overwhelming
that the men who sat in that convention had no faith in the wisdom or
political capacity of the people. Their aim and purpose was not to
secure a larger measure of democracy, but to eliminate as far as
possible the direct influence of the people on legislation and public
policy. That body, it is true, contained many illustrious men who were
actuated by a desire to further what they conceived to be the welfare of
the country. They represented, however, the wealthy and conservative
classes, and had for the most part but little sympathy with the popular
theory of government.

"Hardly one among them but had sat in some famous assembly, had signed
some famous document, had filled some high place, or had made himself
conspicuous for learning, for scholarship, or for signal services
rendered in the cause of liberty. One had framed the Albany plan of
union; some had been members of the Stamp Act Congress of 1765; some had
signed the Declaration of Rights in 1774; the names of others appear at
the foot of the Declaration of Independence and at the foot of the
Articles of Confederation; two had been presidents of Congress; seven
had been, or were then, governors of states; twenty-eight had been
members of Congress; one had commanded the armies of the United States;
another had been Superintendent of Finance; a third had repeatedly been
sent on important missions to England, and had long been Minister to
France.

"Nor were the future careers of many