Lesson Five | Representation

[Music] long as people have been studying politics intelligently they've been understanding that one of the problems in it key in it is that you give some people power and you don't want them to abuse it how do you give it and limit it at the same time this is a question of particular importance in the American Revolution where they have of course thrown off the king extremely powerful man because he was bad and he was exceeding his authority and yet they had fought this war you know against this powerful King and they needed to assemble a lot of power to do it so they actually wanted more powerful government but they don't want it to abuse them what I think the wisest of them thought was that every human use of power required to be restrained and directed toward the good as opposed to self-interest or the bad so one of the ways they went they went about that was to make the government purely representative that means we get to pick the rulers but we don't rule so we said in the declaration independence that the king was suspending the legislature and wouldn't let them elect another one all right elect another one the representatives of the people are not meaning you see consent gives rise to representation now why would that make for a control on the government because the government doesn't receive its legitimacy without the consent of the governed yeah and it isn't even abstract right government is a monopoly you know it's if it's if it's true as we said before that politics is natural to the human being that they always live under laws then it arises from their gift of speech which is the classical argument and also the founders argument about government then there's always going to be government right and you're gonna be in the government and it's going to have a monopoly on force the other hand it can't really do anything unless you say it can and that's not the King's idea the King's idea is you're gonna have to have Kings it's in the order of nature I was born to this I'm gonna be the darn King and you're gonna be the people and I'm supposed to take care of you and you're supposed to do what I say and that's not grounded in the consent of either one of us we have the station we're stuck with it once you change that and you say the government can really only do what you say it can do that limits it drastically I mean how does the government established what's the first step in the establishment of the American government breaking away from the government we were under happened in the yeah okay that was good happened in the we have a code it happened in the what in the so we get the government right now we've given consent is that enough what else do we need wait because we have to keep giving it right you have to give consent to form the government but then after that do you need more do you need to be saying okay on an ongoing basis because if you do you're gonna need a Constitution what was hitler's constitutionally telling believe what I say or Die yeah yeah actually yeah I don't expect you kids to read my books so I can quote them Hitler came to power in 1933 and Hitler wouldn't take the job unless Hindenburg and the leaders of the main political parties would promise to support an enabling act he called it that would liberate the government to do whatever it wanted Hindenburg was reluctant about this and and Hitler very clever man offered him something he says I won't do anything that affects the powers of the presidency in other words the one person who won't I won't touch as you and so Hindenburg said okay right that itself is a kind of violation of consent right because end of the rule of law because now they're not going to live under the same law anymore right so Hitler's Constitution as Hitler's will and that'll work if one person gets to make all the decisions but if a lot of people are gonna make the decision you're gonna have to have some form by which they can indicate authoritative Lee what they agree to so if you're gonna involve a lot of people in the government you're going to have to have a constitution you're gonna have and you see why the constitution has to be different from the things that that is actually in the law because it prescribes the process by which the ordinary laws would be made it can't be the same as they right so and that is by the way implied right through the middle of the deck rights benefits when they talk about the king messin with the government all the time in the way that he was doing you see so consent requires representation and representation requires a written way for that to happen do you see why you'd have to have a representative form of government if you were gonna have a big country why is that I mean if you had a democracy you'd have to have everyone there there's too many people yeah I don't know how many of you been to Washington DC I go often we have the Kirby Center they're the people from coming from California would be at a terrible disadvantage from the people who live in Northern Virginia right and so it can't be very big if it's not gonna be representative is that there has to be some mechanism for consent and since they can't all meet the way they're going to have to elect some people now now that we know that consent requires not just agreement that there's going to be a country but a mechanism so that people can govern oversee the actions of the government over time and now that we see that if you're going to have a big country you're going to have to have representation this opens up a whole world these two things the founders it turns out are really glad that this world that I'm about to describe we're about to describe happens Cuffy is open because what do they think about democracy it fails and why because the majority ultimately starts to rule there's no protection of the minority interests becomes tyrannical you can't control faction defined faction Christian any group interests that may or may not have the majority Emily it's also on top of that the interest that it has is in violation of somebody else's interest within that group or of the of the whole yeah the public interest in the very famous Federalists in how do they describe the public interest there's an expression they use it's really great I think they describe it as the permanent and aggregate interests of the community well then yeah the permanent an aggregate interest of the community which would be this a separate thing from the particular or temporary interest of any one of us or group so it's not by the way just stopping the government from doing what it wants to the governed and remember in a representative system there's gonna be something you call the government and they're going to be different from the people they represent that's how we solve the problem that that Lilly brought up the problem that the people in California don't have the same chance to get to the meeting as the people in Northern Virginia right you're gonna appoint them to do it right and so one one thing representation does is it stops them the them who are the government from doing stuff to the government that the government don't like so if you have a constitution you can spread the decisions out over time by having representation we've already said you spread the decisions out over space right you can have a bigger country and everybody can have a second it because they'd have to go there all the time you they can all have the same say in it but also over time in other words reason alone of the people must be placed in control of the government their passions must be controlled by it rights James Madison that means by the way do you see what I just said the implication what I just said I think on this point that I know better than many citizens in there were and and the majority of the citizens in their worst moments are time wise right Constitution doesn't let me change it just because I think so or just because I've studied it for a long time government is by nature very powerful it has a monopoly on power it has to be like representative government requires a society separate from the government big enough to control that great you [Music]

Channel: Hillsdale College

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Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2019