BY LARRY SEIGLE
Below are excerpts from an article published in the Aug. 2,
1974, Militant under the headline "Behind the rulers' impeachment
`solution' to Watergate." This portion deals with how the
impeachment mechanism in the U.S. constitution was part of the
foundations of capitalist rule and has nothing to do with any
right by the toiling majority to check abuse of power or other
misdeeds by elected officials. The original article was one of a
four-part series in the Militant in the summer of 1974 that
explained what was behind the Watergate scandal and Nixon's
resignation and outlined a working-class course in response to
those events.
A look at the Constitution itself, and the origins of the impeachment mechanism, shows clearly that impeachment is no more democratic than the other "institutions of the Republic" that form the basis for capitalist rule in America. The American Constitution, which went into effect in 1789, set up a federal government founded on the twin principles of protection of private property and rule by the wealthy minority. With the exception of the Bill of Rights, which was appended only after mass pressure from the American people, there is precious little democracy in the Constitution.
The complicated system of "checks and balances," of which impeachment is one device, was created not to guarantee majority rule, but precisely to prevent it. The progressive liberal historians Charles and Mary Beard in their book, The Rise of American Civilization, summed up the views of the delegates to the constitutional convention in Philadelphia:
"Almost unanimous was the opinion that democracy was a dangerous thing, to be restrained, not encouraged, by the Constitution, to be given as little voice as possible in the new system, to be hampered by checks and balances." The Beards report that James Madison, "discoursing on the perils of majority rule," stated that the object of the Constitution was to "secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a [majority] faction and at the same time preserve the spirit and form of popular government."
The "Founding Fathers" were divided between the merchants of the North and the slavocracy of the South. To rule together they had to devise a system that would allow them to share power through flexible forms of government. At the same time, they needed to guarantee that the majority of the population, the small farmers, would be excluded from the decision-making body. (Women were given second-class status by the Constitution; slaves and Indians were denied all citizenship rights.)...
Private property excludes majority rule
The delegates to the Philadelphia convention first proposed
imposing stiff property qualifications, so only the wealthy could
vote and run for office. The Beards report:
"Though the suggestion was warmly received a number of capital obstacles were pointed out in the course of the debate. If each voter or officer was required to possess a large amount of personal property, such as stocks or bonds, then the existing voters, two-thirds of whom were farmers, would not ratify an instrument that disfranchised them.
"A landed qualification was, therefore, the only alternative but bitter experience had showed that it was the farmers who sent radicals to the state legislatures and waged the war on money lenders, merchants, and other holders of personal property....
"Finding that course barred, the delegates chose another way of dissolving the energy of the democratic majority. They broke its strength at the source by providing diverse methods for electing the agencies of the new government and threw special barriers in its path by setting those agencies, with their several ambitions, prerogatives, and insignia at cross purposes. In short, the Fathers created a system of `checks and balances,' dividing the power of the government among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches with confused and uncertain boundaries...."
The three branches preserved, as Madison had explained, "the spirit and form of popular government," but not the essence. At the same time, the Constitution provided mechanisms, including the impeachment provision, for mediating and resolving competing interests among the rulers.
Thus impeachment was carefully written into the Constitution as an alternative to any form of popular recall or democratic expression of popular will. It was no accident that the "Founding Fathers" gave the population no voice in the decision of whether to remove a president from office before the end of four years. Jealously reserving for themselves the right to resolve such questions, they had no intention of sharing this powerful weapon.
In the course of the massive expansion of U.S. imperialism and the growth of the powers of the executive branch, the ruling class has since refined the procedures for choosing successors to the presidency in the event of a vacancy in the office. These have included constitutional amendments and presidential succession acts passed by Congress. But not a single one of these refinements has given the American people any say in the matter.