The framers of the Constitution meant that it should be so.
In a very able article in the last number of this magazine Mr. Frederick Upham Adams discusses the necessity for amendments to the Constitution.
He cites four changes that should be made.
First.—The election of President and Vice-President should not be decided by a majority of the states, but by a majority of the people.
Second.—United States Senators should not be elected by legislatures, but by direct vote of the people of the states.
Third.—The states should be represented in the Senate according to population.
Fourth.—The powers and functions of the Federal Judiciary should be enumerated and limited.
I heartily concur with Mr. Adams in his view of the Federal Judiciary. It has usurped functions and powers unprecedented in the history of judicial tribunals.
In order to change the character of the government at Athens from an aristocracy to a democracy Solon gave the people control of the courts, which exercised the supreme power over laws and men. Aristotle says that by this method the people established a democracy where there had previously been an aristocracy. The aristocrat controlled the lawmaking power, but as the people controlled the judiciary a pure democracy resulted.
Alexander Hamilton used the same device for the opposite purpose. He took away from the people and put into the hands of the aristocracy the supreme control over our laws and rulers, and our judiciary, thus controlled, has changed the United States, which under the old Confederation was a democracy, into an aristocracy.