Americans have long struggled with maintaining a balance between elected democracy and popular democracy. For example, some of the earliest political controversies in the country raged over whether states should be represented equally or by population, a debate that resulted in our bicameral legislature. At the center of all American politics, from the Constitution to the present day, lies this issue. Power between groups appears to be cyclical, with one group always benefiting. The existence of tyranny within a power system can create surprisingly extreme shifts in which one group is so supremely in power that the entire system appears a caricature. Flos had almost total power in the antebellum era, where robber barons and corrupt politicians created a political scene in which very few people had a say and a tiny minority controlled the entire government. Conversely, in the 1960s, students rose to create the New Left, a movement that returned power to the people through political participation by an unprecedented generation of Americans. American politics has always seen a struggle between an elected democracy and a popular democracy, but some in history the combination of different power between the flower and the people and the existence of tyranny or established individualism creates unique polarizations, as an idea. They study the antebellum robber baron era and the grassroots movement of the 1960s.
In the years after the Civil War, America has undergone a complete economic collapse. “Tocqueville had, with his usual presence, predicted the emergence of a new industrial aristocracy. But, even with his formidable powers, he could not foresee the magnitude of the change” (Young 128). “At the beginning of the war, the manufacturing capital was about $1 billion, by the turn of the 20th century it was a million more” (Young 127). America has completely transformed from a nation of farmers to a world of corporate conglomerates, when money began to flow into the hands of a select few. Although most of the Horatio Alger to riches stories have been admittedly exaggerations, there is certainly a great capacity for people to accumulate large amounts of money very quickly, and some of these opportunities are morally reprehensible. J. P. Morgan, for example, began his chances in the civil war when he bought five thousand guns. for $3.50 each from the army arsenal, and they sold them in the common field for $22 each. The political scene was no less distorted: “Thomas Edison promised New Jersey politicians $1,000 each for peaceful legislation. Daniel Drew and Jay Gould hired $1 million to bribe the New York City Council to legitimize their issues of $8 million in ‘ cado irrigata’ (stock not representing real value)” (Zinn 254).
Boss William Tweed’s really incredible arrest about state and city in New York politics and politics in New York a> committed, the most serious displays. a permanent confidence in the corruption of his complexion;
“Tuedu’s government turned both into a large and succulent beard. Salvation was assessed at $3,450 against the city for $482,500; the market which had absorbed the cost of $11,000,000 was not yet completed. In 1870 Tuedu’s men certified bills for nearly $16,000,000, of which more than $14,000,000 was loot from mere representation they are” (Goldman 12).
But what was really amazing was, “the people… in staunch Boss supporters… Thousands of impoverished New Yorkers responded with regular votes for their jovial Boss, sometimes even with adulation of him as a kind of Robin Hood (Goldman 13). In reality, the politics of the day are just now the tyranny of the minority, ruling without the benefit of the minor, but also the tyranny of the majority, blind to its own safety In 1870 the addition was to be more than eighty-five percent. Your machine dutifully delivered a majority of eight percent of the number of voters counted” (Goldman 14).
Businesses could work with the system’s advantages so easily. Tom Scott, the unwitting father of the university, began as a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he tried to repeal the government’s mandated tonnage tax. When he was called into parliament, Scott lacked a large majority of support in both houses, and he acted in that position, mainly by making promises to build railway lines provide a service to particular communities for the support of the local delegation” headed by five of the seven members of the investigation. /tag/president-lincoln”>President Lincoln (Nace 59-60). However, it is not difficult to see how the political system is so corrupt, when the citizens resist political conflict” because of the economic boost, one could gain a presence, resulting in “members of the parties all social society and [rejecting] church services at the same time” (Nace 59).
The Supreme Court was also at the mercy of the ruling elite. “How could it be independent, with its members elected by the President and approved by the Senate? How could it be a middle ground between rich and poor, when its members were often rich lawyers of old, and almost always from refined sugar as a monopoly of manufacture, not commerce, and suggesting that the Act could be used to suppress “interstate strikes…because they were in restraint of trade” (Zinn 260). The Fourteenth Amendment was originally developed, rather than a bulwark of black causes and expanded civil liberties, body protection, and although this use was finally overturned in Munn vs. Illinois, “The American Bar Association … began a national education campaign to overturn the Court’s decision,” and succeeded in 1886 (Zinn 261). With the help of the courts, they had the power to get the job done easier.
After about a century, the tension between strict and expansive democracy raged. The 1960s were a tumultuous time. While the nation was dealing with a presidential coup, the British Invasion, and a civil war, students were also moving. Never in American history had so many movements for change been contracted in such a short space of years” (Zinn 539). for minorities , women, the poor, and the elderly, that Americans across the political spectrum now assume” (Morone 445). The nation of individualism has long been missing: “Lost faith in big powers — business. a>, government, religion – arose his faith, whether individually or collectively, is stronger than he is healthy” (Zinn 538). This individualism was widely reflected in many of the 1960s, and indicates a shift in power from the elite to the people. The variety of herbs that are carried out in the age is only possible because of this. As a result, individual acts were multiplied and were stronger for this. Soldiers and nurses responded to the war by refusing to show the war against them. Some received long prison sentences, while others faced the courts. It was a feeling that one person can make a difference, and millions of people who feel powerful are powerful. Young people signed up for the Peace Corps (more Harvard degrees applied to the Peace Corps than to corporate jobs); a volunteer for VISTA (domestic equivalent) risked their heads for civil rights and organized their own social movements” (Morone 433).
“We are the people of this generation, at least brought up in modest comfort, now living in universities, anxiously searching for the world we inherit” (Hayden OL). Thus begins the famous Student Democratic Association manifesto, in the Port Huron Statement. Written by Tom Hayden in 1962, the statement let the world know that SDS was ready and had a mission. “They challenged society to be individualized, organized, and moderated; everyone “participates in making decisions about their lives” (Morone 433). At the heart of the Port Huron Statement was a strong American push for direct democracy and political participation. This push, apart from Motivating Student Members Democratic Society, in the 1960s accomplished political activism. . The efforts of popular democracy in every political hole —— poverty institutions, United States . They were unlucky in the mission;
“The racially mixed SNCC Freedom Riders were arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, spent the night in jail, were taken to the Tennessee border by the police, returned to Birmingham, took a bus to Montgomery, and there were attacked by whites with fists and clubs, in a bloody scene.
SNCC used participatory politics to win the expansion of civil rights for all Americans.
What if you knew her / and found her dead on the ground / How can you run when you know? vn/tag/ohio-state-fair”>”Ohio,” where 1970 Kent State will mourn the massacre. “On May 4, when students gathered to demonstrate against the war, the National Guard fired into the crowd. Four students were killed. One is paralyzed for life. Students went on protests in four hundred colleges and universities. It was the first general strike in the history of the United States (Zinn 491). throughout the 1960s, and in many ways the government foreshadowed the government in the mid-70sCollege students mourned the nation’s tragedy at Kent.
The tension between popular democracy and elected democracy has been embedded in United States politics since the birth of the nation. Government, in its Constitution, pervades its history and certainly in the future. In the years that followed at the end of the Civil War there was a huge influx into political corruption, as politicians did what they chose to get. Political machines like Boss Tueda at Tammany Hall were the extreme instances of elected democracy in the game, as Tueda ruled not only the entire city, but also the state. Tom Scott re-invented the corporation using a variety of state seed and fornication methods. The political and business leaders of the Gilded Age exemplified the heart of elite democracy and also had popular support. . Fast forward 100 years and they are based on the same tensions as the student movements of the 1960s demonstrated. But this point in history was dominated by popular democracy and participatory politics. Students engage in direct democracy, coordinating in groups such as the Student Democratic Association and the Student Nonviolent Committee to protest, sit-in, Free Ride, or otherwise express their political beliefs and opinions. The tension between elite and popular democracy shows no sign of disappearing in today’s society, with a strong emphasis on elite democracy. George W. Bush has significant powers as a war-making and legislative president, and programs such as his alleged illegal wiretapping are reminiscent of the corrupt politics of the Gilded Age. By understanding the concept of a unique type of polarization in the power struggle between an elite and a democratic democracy, we can become more aware of our current situation and therefore be more prudent in our policy making.
Works Cited
Morone, James A. Hellfire Nation. Newport: Yale UP, 2003.
Come on, Ted. America’s Gangs: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Suppression of Democracy.
Tom, Hayden. Port Huron edition. Students for the Democratic Society. Port Huron, 1962.
Young, James P. Rethinking American Liberalism. Boulder: Westview P, 1996.
Zinn, Howard. United States. Harper Perennial, 2003.
