Willmoore Kendall's 1787 PlanKendall believed in a free society that encouraged liberty within limits.
Willmoore Kendall liked his democracy straight up. He used the word to mean that the people’s will prevailed in politics. Decisions made without majority approval were minority-made and thus undemocratic. The chief quest of Kendall’s life was to preserve democracy in the modern world. His holy grail was to solve Rousseau’s conundrum that “Men are born free and everywhere are in chains.” The Genevan philosopher thought democracy incompatible with modern life in large countries. Kendall admired Rousseau. But he believed majority rule could thrive in a world of nation-states. In time, he found the answer to Rousseau’s riddle right under his nose. The U.S. Constitution, he discovered, provided a profound plan to reconcile democracy with modernity.
Commitment to democracy preceded Kendall’s belief in a benevolent Constitution. As a young scholar, he accepted the progressive portrait of the Constitution as a device to protect monied interests. He saw the Electoral College, staggered elections, etc. as designed to frustrate the masses. Kendall moved to the right after World War II, but his commitment to majority rule remained unshakable. Labeled an “absolute majoritarian,” he believed 50 percent-plus-one of the people had the right to decide matters. Fifty percent-minus-one had the duty to obey. Thus, Athens had acted rightly to put Socrates to death. Any people, he suggested, needed the ability to perpetuate its values and to sanction those undermining them. The USA also had good reason to defend itself against those, such as communists, who worked to subvert its core principles. In championing these principles, Kendall even dared defend Senator Joseph McCarthy. So he was blacklisted from the higher echelons of academia and the federal bureaucracy.
Being canceled gave Kendall more time for his real forte: political theory. Kendall’s best work analyzed key historical texts to bring out facets of them that previous scholars had glossed over. In his John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority-Rule, for example, he argued that Locke had prioritized community sovereignty, including imposing the death penalty (Chapter 1 of the Second Treatise) over life, liberty, and property (Chapter 2). To refine his absolute majoritarianism, Kendall turned his expository powers to the Constitution. Analyzing its language, Kendall demonstrated that the document was a solemn act of political creation. Rather than “declaring” or “holding” truths, as the Declaration did, the Constitution “ordained” and “established” a new political entity. Kendall also noticed, contra his previous views, that the document was fundamentally democratic. Its first three words, “We the people,” asserted the right of Americans to create whatever government they wanted. The intent of the Constitution, proclaimed by Franklin in September 1787 and reiterated in The Federalist, was to promote the “happiness” of the American people.
Such happiness would result, thought Kendall, if the new government balanced the six goods listed in the preamble. These included union, justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and liberty. Asserted by the people, such principles were not inalienable. They could be lost through corruption, deceit, or stupidity. Each existed in tension with the others. Low taxes could bring prosperity but enable foreign invasion. Demand for unity might squelch freedom to debate, and so forth. To promote the people’s happiness—and to balance the principles of the preamble—was therefore a tough task. The framers, he maintained, were seeking a realistic path forward. Kendall, together with Madison, saw perfection as suited only for angels. Human beings had to compromise. As an anti-utopian treatise, the Constitution encouraged democratic realism. The chief attribute of the political system it established, Kendall suggested, was give-and-take among elected officials. Each such official represented a unique slice of a large and varied nation.
* * *
Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/willmoore-kendalls-1787-plan/
