A Distinctly Republican Agenda and The Federalist

Forward thinking Republicans can restore our republic by turning to the founders’ political philosophy

With the Republican party becoming more competitive than ever before -- or at least the last 100 years -- forward thinking Republicans will have the opportunity to enact a distinctly republican agenda finally based on the Constitution and not progressive principles.

And by based on the Constitution I mean The Federalist.

The Federalist is the philosophical treatise originally appearing in newspapers as individual op-eds designed to convince citizens to support the adoption of the Constitution.

In it we have the only justification for why it exists in the first place and why our republic is a republic and not a democracy.

There the founders explain the republic’s built in balance of powers that contain special provisions for safeguarding the states’ sovereignty from the soon to be created national government.

One such provision was the process of state legislatures electing Senators.  The founders’ believed allowing the state legislatures to elect US Senators would guarantee the states’ interest would be protected from national encroachment.

The passage of the 17th amendment undid this superb republican check on mobocracy.

Accordingly the balance of power was tipped away from the states and toward the federal government by allowing Senators to be elected directly by citizens.  

This change in incentives empowered Senators to pass more legislation that would appease the masses instead of safeguarding their individual states against federal encroachment. Such legislation includes Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  

A new republican agenda of the future would undo this mess by repealing the 17th amendment.

By calling for a repeal of the 17th amendment, forward thinking Republicans can help guarantee future Senators will be less likely to vote for such vast transfers of wealth that will eventually bankrupt our nation.

Until the day the 17th is repealed, however, legislative Republicans will have to continue bending the knee to the progressive entitlement state that the Federalist ignoring Republicans of the past helped create.

The remainder of this series will continue sporadically in the future.  Tomorrow’s 8AM feature will discuss a different topic of interest.

Zigmund Reichenbach holds a M.A. in Philosophy from West Chester University.  You can find him commenting on news stories of national and state interest at his Facebook page Zigmund Reichenbach -- Commentator or you can follow him on Twitter @zreichenbach1.  To support the creation of articles like these visit our Patreon here.