Why demagogues were the Founding Fathers' greatest fear Opinion

Updated: January 1, 2020 - 6:00 AM
Eli Merritt, For the Los Angeles Times Via Philadelphia Inquirer

There has been much talk lately among both Democrats and Republicans of the intents of the founders in the writing of the Constitution, especially involving the powers of impeachment...What has been sorely lacking from this conversation is an awareness of the framers’ overwhelming conviction that there was nothing more poisonous to constitutional democracies than demagogues — which to them meant a very specific kind of threat.

...Washington’s greatest fear that summer of decision in Philadelphia was that unwise, self-seeking politicians — even if fairly elected to public office — would tear down the central government and its constitutional laws for the sake of their own advancement and glorification...For the steady, rational Washington, “demagogue” was a forensic term that described a well-known class of political actors, known since Greek and Roman times, who obtain power through emotional appeals to prejudice, distrust, and fear.

This destructive risk of demagogues is one reason the 55 framers of the Constitution adopted the power of impeachment during the historic convention of 1787. They believed uniformly that some men, though elected by the people, would be temperamentally incapable of serving the public interest under the Constitution. Therefore, they offered Congress the remedy of impeachment and removal from office.

The framers did not view the exercise of this remedy to be an anti-democratic act of nullifying elections. On the contrary, they provided the people and their representatives with these emergency powers for the specific purpose of rescuing our democracy and Constitution from harm and destruction at the hands of demagogues.


https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/impeachment-constitution-founding-fathers-demagogue-20200101.html