Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median and Mode
Et 11 ch. 7
1. Chapter 7 – Hammering Out a
Federal Republic, 1787-1820
2. ‘D e m o c r a t i z a t i o n’
OK, so what the devil is this ‘democratization’ - ? I’m sure if I asked you to define ‘democracy,’
most if not all of you would come up with ‘the people vote,’ or ‘everyone’s equal,’ and my
guesswork here is based on plenty of experience with this question. How about ‘government
based on participation of the people, either directly or through elected representatives,” that
work for you? It does for me. So OK, then what does this ‘democratization’ mean? If you
think about words like ‘urbanization,’ ‘industrialization,’ ‘Americanization,’ you might think that
when you throw the suffix ‘ization’ onto the end of a word, then you are talking about that thing
growing, changing, evolving…and you’d be right. If this is the case, then ‘democratization’
must refer to the ‘growth or evolution of democracy.’
Yeah. We use the word ‘democratic’ to mean more things now than we did two hundred years
ago – now it also has to do with fairness; respect for the opinions of others, regardless of how
much you might disagree; and also the process of making everyone equal to one another.
There is a great deal of evidence in the early history of the U.S. that that latter usage applies
to: “the process of making everyone equal to one another.”
In many ways, the Constitution was anti-democratic: senators were originally selected by their
state legislatures, not elected by the people; the president was elected indirectly through the
screening process of the electoral college; and the members of the Supreme Court were
appointed to their positions for life. But right off the bat, the new Congress began, for a variety
of reasons, the process of making the country more fair, more just, more equal – more
democratic.
The first measure taken was to pass the Judiciary Act of 1789. This clarified the system of
justice in the United States by creating a system of federal district courts, with one to be
located in each state; and three circuit courts that would listen to appeals from the districts; the
Supreme Court would, of course, be above them all. In addition to this, the
3. Judiciary Act also stated that
cases that came up in the state
courts involving federal law were
open to appeal to the Supreme
Court. This latter aspect of the
Act was essential as it
guaranteed that when it came to
the interpretation of federal law,
and most importantly the
Constitution, federal judges would
have the last word.
So this sounds like more good
work on the part of the Founding
Fathers of ours, right?
Expanding the number of federal
courts so that more people to get
access to federal justice,
especially if they had already
been tried or seen their case
through the state system, and not
gotten the outcome they believed
they were entitled to – this is very,
very good, and very democratic?
So if that’s the case, then why
didn’t they just write all of this into
the Constitution to begin with???
4. Alexander Hamilton, that’s why. I told you he was one of the two
most influential men actually at the Convention, and in some
ways Hamilton is more important for what didn’t get into the
Constitution, than what did. In this case, towards the end of the
Convention, there was discussion of a broader definition of the
judicial system (which is what the Judiciary Act of 1789 ended
up doing), as well as a ‘bill of rights,’ with the Federalists
generally arguing against the need for these things, and the Anti-
Federalists arguing in favor. But -- it was Hamilton, the
Federalist, who most successfully argued against these things
being included within the Constitution. Hamilton was a very
keen judge of human nature, and a realist right down to his toes.
He knew that the majority of men who would take part in the
state conventions to vote on ratification of the Constitution would
be well off, if not downright wealthy; and he quite rightly guessed
that many of these men would be less inclined to favor a new
government that stripped the power from their local (state)
governments, if it also seemed to be treating the lower class as well as they themselves would be
treated. The battle for ratification would be harder if many of these men were set against the
Constitution. So Hamilton successfully argued against making the Constitution too democratic, and in
favor of leaving some of the more democratic and egalitarian measures out of the document, with a
gentlemen’s agreement at the Convention being made by the delegates that once ratification had
succeeded, the new government would then implement a broadly-democratic judicial system, as well as
a ‘bill of rights.’ So you can see from this that even thought the majority of men leading the early
republic were all to some degree or another ‘men of property’ or “notables” (as any big-shot was known
back then), they were, nonetheless, committed to the idea of a republic of virtue and equality…even if
that equality did not yet apply to anyone other than white males…
6. The Federal System of Courts of Appeal at present – if you are wondering where
numbers 12 and 13 are, they are the D.C. Circuit and the Federal Circuit which, for
reasons unknown to me, are never numbered on these graphics – bizarre.
16. The Executive Mansion after the British ransacked it and set the interior
ablaze during the War of 1812
17. This map shows the process, in three stages, by which the Native Americans of the
eastern part of the United States lost their land, whether through treaty or war.
