The Original American Constitution

The original American Constitution created a system often characterized as representative democracy, but it is more properly seen as a pluralist democracy. This definition has become even more cogent as time has passed, for where there were once a relatively few interest groups bargaining and compromising with government, there are now many.

The U.S. Constitution and the system of government it created have been marked by their ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and both have developed along with the country. In the beginning, the governmental structure created was not the system of equality of opportunity and treatment before the law that has often been claimed. The Constitution as ratified in 1787 did not apply equally to all the people in the new United States. Many provisions did not apply to women, for instance, and slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation. Property owners were given greater power and more rights than those who did not own property. At the same time, the document also reflected a desire for balance and justice and developed a number of means to accomplish this, from the checks and balances between branches to the larger balance between federal prerogatives and states' rights. Different groups benefited more from the Constitution in 1787, and in part the battle between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists was over what groups would gain the greatest benefits. As pointed out by Charles A. B

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nt, the Antifederalists insisted on the addition of a bill of rights. The Federalists had deliberately omitted a bill of rights, and so they expressed their opposition to the document. The Bill of Rights would be added as the first ten amendments to the Constitution in 1791. The promise of future amendments was key to gaining the needed support of the Antifederalists for the Constitution. In this sense, the aristocratic element seems to have carried the day and to have structured a document that protected their rights (the male property owners) first, giving them more power as recognition of their greater value. At the same time, the accommodation made to the Antifederalists was more than just compromise but also involved an expression of the sense of justice that infuses the American experience. The primary intent of the Framers was balance, to balance the rights of different groups, to balance the powers of the different branches of government, to balance the power of the states against the power of the federal government. The aristocratic Federalists believed that an elite was better suited to administer government and dispense justice, but justice was always seen as a matter of balancing the inherent rights of the indiv

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