Question

The framers of the Constitution designed the Senate to filter the output of the sometimes hasty House. Do you think this was a wise idea? Why or why not?

Answer 1

In a much more autonomous light the states are perceived than they are now. The Senate was where the states were able to meet as equals. Also, the Senate was originally selected by state legislatures, not by voters directly. The thought here was that legislators were more likely to choose qualified statesmen than the person of the popular vote. The six-year term was intended to separate senators a little, so they could do their job from a position of conscience and reason, rather than listening to what the people who chose them wanted every two years. It would also allow more consistency than would be the case if both the House and the Senate were to be replaced every two years.

The United States has been a different place. The slavery of Chattel is gone. The states ' sovereignty was severely curtailed. Through popular vote, the Senate is chosen. And, of course, as much as legislators do, senators pander. For its time, the idea was smart enough to be part of the compromise to get states to ratify the constitution. For the most part, the existing circumstances do not hold anymore.

Like any agreement that goes to a larger group for acceptance or rejection, they then picked up the best arguments they could have, especially in the Federalist Papers. There, as with a few other parts of the Constitution, if proposing a compromise, they did what you did, say there were no compromises and make panglosian arguments. So it's not that much that the Framers built a system in the way they claimed to work. They settled on a method instead and then set up arguments to support its adoption.