Should democracy be practiced in moderation?

Yesterday I quoted from the infamous segregationist U.S. senator from South Carolina, “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman who pushed the 1907 law limiting the ability of corporations to contribute money to political candidates.

Two years before his death, Tillman wrote, "I have come to doubt that the masses of the people have sense enough to govern themselves."

Later I was reading excerpts from Emory University professor Patrick Allitt, author of “The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History.”

He observed that the supporters of the Constitution — particularly Madison, Hamilton and Jay, authors of the Federalist papers under the collective pseudonym of Publius, a reference to Publius Valerius, who founded the Roman republic — had a certain distrust of ordinary voters.

“Because men are swayed by self-interest, because they are passionate, ambitious, and greedy, the Constitution places limits on how much power they can exercise, and for how long,” Allitt writes.

Under the original Constitution the only federal body directly elected by the people is the House of Representatives, and those for terms of only two years. The Senate, until the 17th Amendment in 1913, was elected by state legislatures. The president and vice president are elected by the Electoral College. Federal judges are appointed for life.

The Constitution was designed to restrain unlimited power, even from the tyranny of the majority.

The role of the federal government was to be limited, too.

“Publius was careful to reassure readers that the reach of the federal government was limited to issues of collective concern that could not be taken care of locally.” Allitt writes. “Individual states would conduct their own affairs and need not fear obtrusive federal officials; the Constitution was not creating a single, all-powerful national government. In the Federalist, No. 45, he wrote that ‘the powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the state.’”

How’s that working out?