Never defer to me on anything

by Publicola, Wednesday, June 03, 2026, 13:40 (6 days ago) @ Flann

If you squint a certain way, the un-representativeness of the state legislatures is a foundational problem for this country. It arguably was the fundamental issue that precipitated the move from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. At least that's the way some at the 1787 convention viewed it -- they argued that Congress under the AOC was rendered useless because state legislatures appointed representatives who would pursue the narrow priorities of the state legislatures rather than the interests of the people of the states. This is why some at the convention pushed for direct election of senators -- partly to prevent the states from meddling in the internal operation of the federal government, but also on the notion that the people of the several states better grasped the significant long-term benefits of an effective central government than their representatives in the state legislatures . This never was a majority position at the convention, but state legislatures appointing senators wasn't really either -- it was favored by some (Dickinson) but was viewed as a barely palatable compromise by many.

It'd be interesting to consider what the country would've looked like if it had direct popular election of senators from the outset. I kinda wonder how that would've shaped the slavery issue.