Bicameralism

WHEN THE FOUNDERS of the American confederation attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they were told the mind of the people of America was made up on the principle of having a legislature with more than one branch.

The bicameral form of government that America knows has its roots in the century preceding the American Revolution. This is when the people of England rose in a civil war to put an end to the absolutism of the rule by the Stuart kings and brought the king down to [Page 46]be the king-in-parliament. This now meant the actions of the king were dependent on the approval of two branches of parliament.

Dividing forms of governments into rule by one (monarchy), by the few (aristocracy), or by the many (democracy) reaches back to Polybius, a noted Greek philosopher. He insisted that unless each of these forms of government was not balanced by the other two, a government could degenerate into tyranny, oligarchy, or mob rule.

Bicameralism offered security against corruption and ambition. It was noted that in a republican government having two chambers, each chamber would keep the other's doings under close and suspicious watch. However, those founding fathers who penned the Constitution were not of one mind on the idea of having a Senate and House of Representatives. In the end, men like James Madison vigorously stated in The Federalist Papers that acceptance of the need for equal representation in the Senate for the states would be unavoidable if the nation were to be successful.

Federal states, such as the United States and Germany and others, have a two-chamber structure of government for accommodating territorial representation. There is an argument for the benefit of a bicameral system, such as a protection against the tyranny of the majority. There can also be an argument against bicameralism based on the tyranny of the minority. It is interesting to note that many of the drafters at the Constitutional Convention only saw U.S. Senators as agents of the state legislatures and defenders of the residual powers of the states. The Seventeenth Amendment took this power away from the states and gave it to the people.

It might be interesting to put forward the proposition that, in fact, the U.S. Constitution was deliberately designed to prevent the unfettered expression of the people's will, and in fact goes against the premise of one person, one vote. It could be said that the document that set up the bicameral system was meant to prevent true democracy in America, and has, in fact, set up a system based on minority rule.

As an example one only has to look at the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and how the small and unequal representation found in the current bicameral system has infected the judicial and executive branches. The U.S. Senate did confirm the appointment with a margin of four votes. The Senators who voted against the appointment represented 7 million more voters than those who voted for the appointment.