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Although I am a partisan Democrat, I suspect that a great deal of the clamor for eliminating the Electoral College is because it cost Democrats who won the popular vote elections in 2000 and in 2016. Also, Democrats might have a better chance of winning the presidency in any given election if the Electoral College is abandoned, at least in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, Republicans probably are greatly opposed to changing the current system for the same reason the Democrats want a change.Aside from partisan politics, I don’t think that there is any great overriding necessity to eliminate the Electoral College. That the Electoral College is not democratic is a red herring. Of course, it isn’t democratic. It’s republican, which was the intent of the Founders. They knew that the popular vote winner would sometimes lose in the Electoral College. They also knew that there might be no Electoral College winner so they provided that the House would determine those elections. They did not want a popularly elected president.This issue is surprisingly complicated. The Founders had great difficulty in deciding how to elect presidents, and this issue was one of the thorniest faced by the Constitutional Convention.The delegates debated this issue on 21 non-consecutive days and required 60 ballots, relating to seven distinct proposals, prior to obtaining consensus on the final provisions (Citations omitted.) Proposals included Congressional choice, state legislative choice, national popular vote, and an Electoral College system whereby Electors within districts of each state would be elected for the purpose of choosing the President. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=16&ved=2ahUKEwjEjZzpwfvfAhVMON8KHZbdC-kQFjAPegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fconcept.journals.villanova.edu%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F282%2F245%2F&usg=AOvVaw3Iw7XiIUvwYooDwh2KP4EbThe Constitutional Convention could not decide how to elect the president, so it formed a committee composed of one delegate from each state to decide. They certainly didn’t want the electorate to directly elect the president. Gouverneur Morris’ proposal that the people directly elect the President was defeated by a 9-1 vote. This committee introduced a plan involving indirect election by Electors, which was approved and included in the Constitution. This is the same system used today, as modified by the 12th Amendment, and is found in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.Article II (Article 2 - Executive)Section 11: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. (Emphasis added.)The Convention punted on the exact mechanism of electing the Electors. The committee voted 8–2 that the Electors were to be chosen by the legislatures - the people could not vote for the president. In Bush v. Gore (2000), the Supreme Court affirmed that “the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for Electors for the President of the United State unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College … [the state legislature] may, if it so chooses, select the Electors itself.” Of course, legislatures voting for Electors didn’t make it into the Constitution. However, early on most states chose Electors by their legislatures, and did not have a popular vote for Electors. (In New York in the very first election, that state did not cast any vote for Washington or anyone else, because the Federalist Senate and anti-Federalist Assembly could not agree on Electors.)The states determined how Electors were selected. Electors were supposed to be independent. They could vote for whomever they wanted. It was hoped that there would not be political parties, and that Electors would be independent and vote for the best candidate. Of course, there were political parties right from the start, and the states changed their methods of choosing Electors depending upon how it would best help their candidates. They switched from election to election by using: direct selection by the state legislature; election of Electors by popular vote within separate districts of the state; or election of the entire slate of Electors by statewide “winner-take-all” popular vote.By 1836 almost every state had popular elections of Electors with winner-take-all to maximize the parties’ political power. Of course, by today it is almost unheard of for Electors to vote differently than their states’ results. In fact, in 21 states, there are penalties for Electors to do that. Electors are “pledged.” Electors have become simply a mechanism for the popular vote to be translated into electoral votes. The Founders had intended the Electoral College to prevent presidents from gaining a constituency or arguing that they had a mandate that superseded the Constitution. They wouldn’t have a constituency, because people wouldn’t vote directly for them. In this respect, they were sadly and immediately mistaken.So in spite of the Electoral College today we have an imperial presidency, usually with a mediocre or worse president. We have a lilliputian Congress whose powers have been usurped by the executive and the Supreme Court. The Electoral College was undermined by partisan politics which benefitted from pledged Electors, and which does not serve the purpose it was designed to have.What to do now? I believe that this is actually a non-issue (unless you wanted Gore and Clinton to win, which I did). As stated above, the Electoral College controversy is political parties looking for an advantage. Electing the president by popular vote doesn’t make the result any more legitimate. In fact, it may have the opposite effect.While the Electoral College doesn’t do what it was supposed to, it isn’t usually harmful, and there may be some slight benefit to it. It may prevent regional candidates from being elected with a resulting lack of legitimacy. It may prevent recounts in every state with a close result. Richard Posner, one of the smartest, most honest thinkers today believes that the Electoral College is worthwhile. In Defense of the Electoral College.On the other hand, the Electoral College distorts popular election results by magnifying a popular vote into an electoral landslide.Looking back at all presidential elections since 1828, the winner’s electoral vote share has, on average, been 1.36 times his popular vote share – what we’ll call the electoral vote (EV) inflation factor. Why Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote onesThis causes presidents to claim mandates, which leads to demagoguery and extra-constitutional power grabs. The government shutdown we are experiencing now shows how the president has usurped Congress’s power. The Senate will not even entertain a vote on opening the government if the president doesn’t agree with it.The Electoral College is just not that big a deal. It is a failure because partisan politics destroyed it. The cure is not more partisan politics. The cure is cutting the presidency down to size so that it is a co-equal branch of government. A popular vote may have the perverse effect of empowering the presidency.

The Constitution begins with its most famous words: “We The People.” While it is doubtful (from the original wording) that this phrase was meant to have special significance, for many Americans this phrase has become symbolic of the notion of popular sovereignty, and for some, democracy.Our conception of popular sovereignty is at the heart of the dispute of whether America is a republic or a democracy. What does “We the people” mean? Though some will think the answer obvious, two conflicting visions seek to answer this question—which addresses the issue of popular sovereignty.In a commonwealth or country who is sovereign? Who holds the ultimate political power? Who has the right to rule? Having rejected the monarchs, who claimed to be the sovereigns, the answer Americans have given is “the people.” But this answer is still unclear. How can the people be the sovereign rulers and yet be ruled by governments?The Democratic ViewAccording to what I am calling the democratic* view, sovereignty resides collectively in the people as a body.And this means the government rules according to “the will of the people.” But since you can never get unanimous agreement from any large body, this “will of the people” implies the will of the majority, or at least, the majority of voters. (So we may also call this view “majoritarianism.”)According to this view, anything that gets in the way of the majority will is presumed to be illegitimate. Also, it holds that government is what establishes rights.And the government may only enforce individual rights that are the product of the majority's will.Since the majority will is believed to be ultimate, those who hold this view believe in a “living constitution,” one whose meaning changes in correspondence with today’s popular desires.Those who hold this view have often advocated for “judicial restraint,” where judges are supposed to defer the rationality and constitutionality of a law to a legislature because they were democratically elected and the law is therefore supposed to represent “the will of the people.”So in a democracy, sovereignty is viewed as residing with the people as a collective whole, which is supposed to be represented by the majority.The issue of protecting individual and minority rights is a major problem with democracy. If rights are established by the government (or in force only) through majority rule, then there is no protection against a “tyranny of the majority” where the majority infringes on the rights of minorities and/or individuals. As an old saying goes, “Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.”Another problem is that in a democracy not everyone’s views are treated equally (contrary to what people assume.)“If a community is divided into two parts living in mutual antipathy, this becomes even more obvious. The majority community could, by democratic vote, bear heavily down on the minority community, restricting or removing things it holds to be of fundamental value. In such circumstances the members of the minority community could hardly be said to be at liberty; nor could it be said that they were being equally treated. Hence the phrase, used by Tocqueville (1835) and taken over by J.S. Mill (1859), ‘the tyranny of the majority’. The initial contrast between democracy and dictatorship has now been left behind. If democracy is really the dictatorship of the majority, then it is not so obvious that democracy promotes freedom and equality.”--Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry on Democracy.(In pic: Noah Webster’s 1828 definition of Democracy.)The Republican ViewIn contrast, the republican* view conceives of sovereignty as residing in the people as individuals.The purpose of government, then, is not to be a mechanism to accomplish whatever the popular majority wants; but rather, its first duty is to protect equally the individual rights of all people against those who would violate them, whether domestic or foreign.According to the republican view, rights precede government.And “Governments are instituted among men,” as the Declaration of Independence declares, “to secure these rights.”The people do not rule as a whole, nor do they rule themselves directly. Instead, a small number of people are delegated certain powers to govern the rest of the people as their agents, yet the people retain the ultimate power over them. But to make sure these agents don’t exceed their proper powers, laws are passed to govern them in turn.Under a republic, individual people are sovereign in much the same way as monarchs were. They have jurisdiction over their private property, just as monarchs claimed jurisdiction over their territories and possessions. Citizens can’t interfere with each other’s properties, just as monarchs couldn’t interfere with each other’s territories. Citizens may use force to defend themselves and their possessions just as monarchs could to defend their people and territories against others. And, just as monarchs could choose to change their legal relations with other monarchs, individuals may alter their legal relations with their fellow sovereign citizens through contracts with one another.Although a republican government is partly for regulating the liberties of individuals, this is only in order to protect the equal rights of every citizen.In this view, judges are not viewed as “the counter-majoritarian difficulty,” as in a democracy, but rather as checks on what can be called the “majoritarian difficulty,” to ensure the constitution is being followed, and that the laws are reasonable restrictions on personal liberty, and that the majority is not using its power to oppress or violate the rights of the minority.So, a republic is a government in which the people as individuals are sovereign, and elect representatives who govern according to the rule of established law--especially, in our case, the Constitution--, and in order to protect individuals rights, such as life, liberty, and property. It also involves a set of checks and balances put in place to help accomplish this purpose, making it harder for tyrants, whether composed of the majority of the people or of government officials, to infringe on people’s rights.*(Note: by “republican” or “democratic” I am not referring to the political parties. They don’t always align with their party names.)The Founding Fathers Views on DemocracyToday we hear calls for abolishing “undemocratic” elements of our Constitutional government like the electoral college, and of other things which serve as checks on majority rule, such as the equal representation of states in the Senate. Well, they’re right about one thing; these things are undemocratic. But while some view this as a mistake or error in the Constitution, it is, in fact, deliberate. The American Founders were against democracy.After the War for Independence, America was governed by the Articles of Confederation. Some serious problems resulted from this form of government and prompted the Constitutional Convention, which was an attempt to solve these problems. Many there blamed these problems on excessive democracy.For examples: Edmund Randolph wrote that “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” Elbridge Gerry said, “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.” Roger Sherman argued that the people “immediately [directly] should have as little to do as may be about the Government.” Gouverneur Morris stated that “every man of observation had seen in the democratic branches of the State Legislatures, precipitation—in Congress changeableness, in every department excesses against personal liberty, private property & personal safety.” Even George Mason (one who was more sympathetic to democracy) admitted that “we had been too democratic” when forming state governments. And they made many more statements like these.For example, John Adams wrote:“Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty. When clear Prospects are opened before Vanity, Pride, Avarice or Ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate Phylosophers and the most conscientious Moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves, Nations and large Bodies of Men, never.”[1]While they viewed democracy as a bad guiding or central principle for forming a government, yet they all viewed our constitutional government as a republic.'Alexander Hamilton asserted that "We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of a dictatorship." Hamilton, in the last letter he ever wrote, warned that "our real disease…is DEMOCRACY."’[2]'James Madison, the father of the Constitution wrote in Federalist Paper No. 10 that pure democracies “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”’[3]And, he continued,A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking.[4]And, as Benjamin Franklin famously said after the Constitutional Convention, this is “a republic,” if we can “keep it.”[H]aving concluded their work on the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin walked outside and seated himself on a public bench. A woman approached him and inquired, “Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you done for us?” Franklin quickly responded, “My dear lady, we have given to you a republic–if you can keep it.”[5]Differences over termsI do not claim that the descriptions of “democracy” or “republic” above are the only legitimate ones, or even that the founders always used these terms in this way. It may be argued that even a republic can be considered a democracy in some general sense of the term, i.e., a form of popular government in which the people the sovereign people rule directly or indirectly. However, a mere dispute over labels is a waste of time. It is the concepts signified by the terms, not the terms themselves, that matter. And more particularly, which view is embodied in our Constitution.Even if one chooses to call America “democracy” (though it would have to be defined differently than above) it must at least be conceded that a republic is a distinctive kind of “democracy.” According to Madison, a republic is “a government in which the scheme of representation takes place” versus a democracy in which “a society consisting of a small number of citizens,...assemble and administer the government in person.” Noah Webster says of “Republic” in his 1828 Dictionary that “In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person. Yet the democracies of Greece are often called republics.”We certainly do not meet Wikipedia’s definition of a Democracy:[6]Neither do we meet its definition of a “Democratic Republic” (below.)[7]On the other hand, we do meet the definition of a “Constitutional Republic.”[8]At any rate, it is clear we aren’t a pure or direct Democracy—one in which the people rule directly. But even if one considers it a “representative democracy,” there is still the issue of popular sovereignty—whether individual or collective--which must be addressed, because this is what sets a republic apart from all other forms of government.In determining whether a form of government is democratic or republican, it isn’t enough to point out the fact that it has democratic elements, such as an election of officials, since representative government is consistent with both conceptions of popular sovereignty, though the latter is conceived in different ways. In a democracy, when direct rule is not possible, representatives may be seen as an alternative way to represent the will of the majority. A republic, on the other hand, may view it as a check on their delegated servants (as a way of keeping them accountable, making sure they do their job right, following the rule of law, and for the public good.)The Declaration of IndependenceTo understand American Government and the Constitution, we must look at our national charter, the Declaration of Independence, which encapsulates American political philosophy or theory.“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”In these powerful words, several things are indicated.First, Americans are “one people,” but these people are considered as individuals. (Indicated by the use of the plural noun “them” versus “it.”)Second, the rights of individuals don’t come from the government, but exist prior to its establishment, even in ‘the state of nature.’Third, the primary duty and purpose of government is to equally protect these individual rights. It is “to secure these rights” that “Governments are instituted among Men.”Fourth, even after the government is “instituted,” these rights still provide the standard for it, and in extreme cases, the systematic violation of or failure to protect these rights justifies “altering or abolishing it,” and fixing things so that these rights are now secure.Fifth, some of these rights so fundamental that they can never be infringed or taken away. They are connected with human nature itself. Since they are inalienable, not even consenting can deprive you of them.But the sentence quoted below deserves a closer look. It is one of the most important sentences in the Declaration.“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”This is clearly republican language. Rights precede government, and the purpose of government is to “secure these rights.”However, the advocates of democracy often overlook this first part of the sentence and focus on the last part. They interpret “the consent of the governed” to mean their favorite phrase “the will of the people” represented by the majority—of either the people or their representatives. (And by the way, republicanism is not opposed to the will of the people, it’s just that it has a higher duty and purpose so that if a conflict arises between the former and protecting individual rights, the latter must take precedence.) In other words, they interpret it to mean that governments derive their powers from whatever the people consent to.But this is not so. Only some “powers” that are “justly” held by the government. Moreover, the people themselves do not rule but are ruled by governments. (Hence, they are called “the governed.”) And if the purpose of government is to secure the fundamental rights of individuals, then they must do so, even if the majority has no interest in doing that. This republican view makes it possible to protect the rights from the danger of democratic tyranny. (We saw examples of such tyranny in the slave-holding South, and in the denial of civil rights to African-American citizens. And in both cases, the government was just to intervene against these egregious violations.)The apparent tension between the two parts of the above sentence can be resolved if we distinguish between the ultimate purpose of government, and the means by which a government gains its jurisdiction. While the ultimate purpose of government is to protect the natural rights of individuals, they gain these “just powers” through “the consent of the governed.” In other words, the government gets its legitimacy to rule from the people.The Articles of ConfederationAlthough actually more democratic than republican, states often called themselves “republican” under the Articles of Confederation. So, the concept of “republic” had to be revised at the time the Constitution was established.Before the Convention, Madison (the “Father of the Constitution”) wrote an essay on “The Vices of the Political System of the United States.” In it, he wrote about the “Injustice of the laws of States.” “This evil” was caused by “The Representative [state] bodies” and “the people themselves,” which called “into question the fundamental principle of republican Government, that the majority who rule in such Governments, are the safest Guardians of both public Good and of private rights.” (Though he is here using the term “republican,” he is actually referring to democratic concepts.) Hence, “republicanism” needed to be drastically revised.Societies, Madison pointed out, are “divided into different interests and factions.” There are all kinds of people of different occupations, religions, political views, possessions, etc. What was to prevent one faction from violating the rights of others when in the majority (such as when the poor outnumber the rich)? (For example, one problem at that time was that the rights of creditors were not being honored thanks to popularly enacted “debtor-relief” laws.) When “a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.”Madison and others at the Constitutional convention sought “to secure the public good and and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government.” Many traced the problems of factions overriding the rights of individuals and minority factions to democracy, as shown above.The New RepublicanismMadison made a distinction between a democracy and a republic. “The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.” He also believed that the larger the republic, “the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority.”He also maintained that there needed to be a separation of powers, since in “republican government, the legislature necessarily predominates.” This was to be done by dividing “the legislatures into different branches [House and Senate]; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit.” (This has been undermined by the progressive 17th Amendment.)Also, the federal government was greatly limited by the Constitution in its powers. “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” These federal powers “will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.”The problem of faction was tackled by this limiting of federal powers. By limiting the power of the legislature, there are fewer opportunities for factions to take over the legislature to feed their own interests while hurting or neglecting others. But increasing the government’s powers makes it more tempting for factions to fight for control.Individual SovereigntyUnder the constitution, the government has—not “rights,” but—“powers.” The sovereign people delegate certain powers to their (public) servants to act on their behalf, and subject to their control. The Tenth Amendment affirms that only the powers the government has are those granted to it by the people or by the states in the Constitution. The rest we “reserve” for ourselves.The Ninth Amendment expresses the republican view that rights come before government rather than come from government: It states: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” And the people are considered not as a collective group, but as individuals, since these “enumerated rights” are individual rights, such as freedom of speech, press, free exercise of religion, freedom from forced quartering of troops in one’s house, unreasonable search and seizures, etc.That by “the rights retained by the people” are meant natural rights is supported by various evidences, such as Mason’s Draft for the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and by Sherman’s original draft of the second amendment, which included the following.“The people have certain natural rights which are retained by them when they enter into Society…Of these rights therefore they Shall not be deprived by the Government of the united States…Such are the rights of Conscience in matters of religion; of acquiring property, and of pursuing happiness & safety; of Speaking, writing and publishing their Sentiments with decency and freedom; of peaceably assembling to consult their common good, and of applying to Government by petition or remonstrance for redress of grievances.”Sherman’s view of right was a common one which was expressed in very similar terms in various state constitutions at the time.Individual popular sovereignty was affirmed in the first great Supreme Court case, Chisholm v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court rejected Georgia’s claim that they were sovereignly immune to lawsuits because the states replaced the monarchy as the sovereigns. Instead, they affirmed that citizens could sue state governments because sovereignty rests with the individual citizen.As Justice Wilson wrote, laws “derived from the pure source of equality and justice must be founded on the CONSENT of these whose obedience they require. The sovereign, when traced to this source, must be found in the man.” According to Wilson, the only reason “a free man is bound by human laws, is, that he binds himself.” And “If one free man, an original sovereign,” can bind himself to the court’s jurisdiction, “why may not an aggregate of free men, a collection or original sovereigns, do this likewise? If the dignity of each singly is undiminished; the dignity of all jointly must be unimpaired.”Chief Justice John Jay expressed the same sentiment. He spoke of “the joint and equal sovereigns of this country.” and the “great and glorious principle, that the people are the sovereign of this country, and consequently that fellow citizens and joint sovereigns cannot be degraded y appearing with each other in their won Courts to have their controversies determined.” He could not have been clearer when he affirmed “that popular sovereignty in which every citizen participates.”Individual Sovereignty and the Consent of the GovernedReturning to this sentence in the Declaration, we must now look further at how to resolve the apparent problems: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” If the “consent of the governed” means the majority, it can be used to violate the “unalienable rights” for which “Governments are instituted among Men” “to secure.” It’s even worse if we take it to mean the consent of a majority in the small body of legislators. The collective (or democratic) interpretation of popular sovereignty creates problems by implying majoritarianism.We must realize that the rule is not by the people themselves, but by “the governments.” The people’s consent is directed to the scheme of governance, not the individual laws.Still, how do we reconcile with individual sovereignty the fact that not every individual has expressed his consent to governance? The answer may be found in the idea of presumed consent. In the absence of express consent, it must be asked what the individual can be presumed to have consented to.This idea has been expressed by various people. For example, John Locke wrote in his Second Treatise of Government:“yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one’s property, by providing against those three defects...that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy.”Individuals can only be supposed (or presumed) to have consented to “the common good,” which means the protection of every person’s ‘life, liberty, and property.’ People cannot be presumed to have consented to any power that would violate their rights.Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, in Calder v. Bull, 1798, employed this notion. Examples of legislative acts that violate “great first principles” include ones “that punished a citizen for an innocent action,” or “a law that impairs, the lawful private contracts of citizens,” or “a law that makes a man a Judge in his own cause; or a law that takes property from A. and gives it to B.” An “act of the legislature, (for I cannot call it a law)” like these, the legislature had no power to do, for “it is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.”Hence these acts, which are outside of their delegated powers, are not true or legitimate laws but are fundamentally unjust. And no rational person could be presumed to have consented to that.Slavery and the New AmendmentsOur Constitution was further republicanized after the Civil War with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments (and for that matter, the Twentieth.)The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, thus protecting the individual right to liberty and economic rights. Congress used this as the basis for passing the Civil Rights Act, which ensured the rights of all persons (regardless of race) “to make and enforce contracts,...to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.”This works in conjunction with the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” According to a Supreme Court opinion delivered by Bushrod Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, these “privileges and immunities” include “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety.”In addition to these rights, Senator Jacob Howard, explaining the Privileges and Immunities Clause, added another category, “the personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution.”Finally, the Fifteenth Amendment protected the right of blacks, (and others) to vote.Federalism and Why its ImportantThe Ninth and Tenth Amendments express two different ways to protect the rights of sovereign citizens. The first is to specifically protect the individual rights of the people. The second is to structure the government so that it confines the public servants to their delegated powers. The first approach is direct, the second, indirect; both are included in our federal constitution.And both are distinct yet complementary ways of protecting individual rights, as Madison wrote in a letter to Washington:“If a line can be drawn between the powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured, by declaring that they shall not be abridged or that the former shall not be extended.”One important structural constraint is the division of powers between the federal and state governments. The federal government is limited to its federal powers, and the states may legislate on other issues, with the consent of the people who elect them. This division of powers is called ‘federalism.’Federalism makes diversity possible. With all the disagreement and contentious disputes over policies and legislation, it is better to resolve things on a state level as much as possible, with each state acting according to its unique preferences, interests, and needs. And each state may serve as an experimental laboratory for the rest of the nation so that the risk of their policies affects only their state. If successful, other states may follow; if not, the others can shun their mistakes, and not be affected by their failures, which is not possible if the actions are taken on the national level.It is important to keep social issues on the local level. Each community should be allowed to make its own decisions on matters of taste, preference, and lifestyle. People often move to localities because they like the way things are there. Whether the weather, or the people, or the buildings, the design of the city or town, the policies in place, or whatnot. It is distressing when the environment then changes so that things are no longer congenial to them. But at least it is still possible to move to another community that is more to one’s liking. But when a policy is enacted on the national level, everyone is forced into conformity, and there is no moving out. Of course, it is possible to move out of America to another country, but not only is that expensive but what American wants to leave America? America is irreplaceable!“Cooperative” federalism is problematic. With the Progressive-backed 16th amendment, the federal government now collects income taxes from state citizens and uses it in effect to bribe and even blackmail states into conformity with, and implementation or expansion of their policies, using their own citizen's money. So instead of competing with each other to keep each other’s powers in check, we now have things so that the federal government almost rules the states. This has enabled the federal government to exceed its delegated powers.We have a cooperative (and sometimes even a coercive) “federalism” where states who comply with the national government’s wishes will be rewarded for it. And states usually go along with this and try to obtain this money for themselves.But even with the 16th amendment, this is still arguably unconstitutional, since Article I, Section 8 requires taxes to be raised solely “to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” Programs that completely withhold benefit from a state, are partial, not general.Federalism avoids a political war in which everyone is part of a set of winners vs losers.By centralizing political decisions on a national level it makes them far more contentious with far greater consequences when one party prevails. This makes each group fight even more fiercely against defeat. The more important the issue, the greater the battle to avoid having another’s policies imposed on you. It is better to decide these issues on a state level instead whenever possible.In these ways, constitutional federalism (when followed) helps protect the sovereignty of individuals, which is the ideal of republican government.ConclusionSo is America a republic or democracy? America is a federal and constitutional republic, based on the view that governments are instituted to secure the pre-existing rights of sovereign people who are considered as individual citizens. And our very form of government is structured to accomplish this purpose. We find this in the constitution, in the writings of our founders, and the history of our republic. America is, both in our concept and form of government and in our founding ideals, a uniquely republican nation. And only if we “keep the republic, can we preserve individual liberty and equality in America.“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...”--The Constitution, Article IV, Section 4.Footnotes[1] Founders Online: From John Adams to John Taylor, 17 December 1814[2] https://www.foundingfatherquotes.com/articles/22https://www.foundingfatherquotes.com/articles/22[3] Democracy or Republic?[4] Founders Online: The Federalist Number 10, [22 November] 1787[5] Republic v. Democracy[6] List of forms of government - Wikipedia[7] List of forms of government - Wikipedia[8] List of forms of government - Wikipedia

Yale professor Stanley Milgram’s experiment testing how far a person will go when ordered to inflict increasingly painful electric shocks to a protesting victim (the “victim” is really an actor who is not receiving any electrical shocks). The results were very disturbing and should be required reading.The Perils of Obedienceby Stanley MilgramObedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the commands of others. For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct.The dilemma inherent in submission to authority is ancient, as old as the story of Abraham, and the question of whether one should obey when commands conflict with conscience has been argued by Plato, dramatized in Antigone, and treated to philosophic analysis in almost every historical epoch. Conservative philosophers argue that the very fabric of society is threatened by disobedience, while humanists stress the primacy of the individual conscience.The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.In the basic experimental design, two people come to a psychology laboratory to take part in a study of memory and learning. One of them is designated as a "teacher" and the other a "learner." The experimenter explains that the study is concerned with the effects of punishment on learning. The learner is conducted into a room, seated in a kind of miniature electric chair, his arms are strapped to prevent excessive movement, and an electrode is attached to his wrist. He is told that he will be read lists of simple word pairs, and that he will then be tested on his ability to remember the second word of a pair when he hears the first one again. whenever he makes an error, he will receive electric shocks of increasing intensity.The real focus of the experiment is the teacher. After watching the learner being strapped into place, he is seated before an impressive shock generator. The instrument panel consists of thirty lever switches set in a horizontal line. Each switch is clearly labeled with a voltage designation ranging from 15 to 450 volts.The following designations are clearly indicated for groups of four switches. going from left to right: Slight Shock, Moderate Shock, Strong Shock, Very Strong Shock, Intense Shock, Extreme Intensity Shock, Danger: Severe Shock. (Two switches after this last designation are simply marked XXX.)When a switch is depressed, a pilot light corresponding to each switch is illuminated in bright red; an electric buzzing is heard; a blue light, labeled "voltage energizer," flashes; the dial on the voltage meter swings to the right; and various relay clicks sound off.The upper left-hand corner of the generator is labeled SHOCK GENERATOR, TYPE ZLB. DYSON INSTRUMENT COMPANY, WALTHAM, MASS., OUTPUT 15 VOLTS -- 450 VOLTS.Each subject is given a sample 45 volt shock from the generator before his run as teacher, and the jolt strengthens his belief in the authenticity of the machine.The teacher is a genuinely naive subject who has come to the laboratory for the experiment. The learner, or victim, is actually an actor who receives no shock at all. The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.Conflict arises when the man receiving the shock begins to show that he is experiencing discomfort. At 75 volts, he grunts; at 120 volts, he complains loudly; at 150, he demands to be released from the experiment. As the voltage increases, his protests become more vehement and emotional. At 285 volts, his response can be described only as an agonized scream. Soon thereafter, he makes no sound at all.For the teacher, the situation quickly becomes one of gripping tension. It is not a game for him: conflict is intense obvious. The manifest suffering of the learner presses him to quit: but each time he hesitates to administer a shock, the experimenter orders him to continue. To extricate himself from this plight, the subject must make a clear break with authority.The subject, Gretchen Brandt, is an attractive thirty_one year old medical technician who works at the Yale Medical School. She had emigrated from Germany five years before.On several occasions when the learner complains, she turns to the experimenter coolly and inquires, "Shall I continue? She promptly returns to her task when the experimenter asks her to do so. At the administration of 210 volts she turns to the experimenter, remarking firmly, "Well, I'm sorry, I don't think we should continue."Experimenter: The experiment requires that you go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly.Brandt: He has a heart condition, I'm sorry. He told you that before.Experimenter: The shocks may be painful but they're not dangerous.Brandt: Well, I'm sorry. I think when shocks continue like this they are dangerous. You ask him if he wants to get out. It's his free will.Experimenter: It is absolutely essential that we continue....Brandt: I'd like you to ask him. We came here of our free will. If he wants to continue I'll go ahead. He told you he had a heart condition. I'm sorry. I don't want to be responsible for anything happening to him. I wouldn't like it for me either.Experimenter: You have no other choice.Brandt: I think we are here on our own free will. I don't want to be responsible if anything happens to him. Please understand that.She refuses to go further And the experiment is terminated.The woman is firm and resolute throughout. She indicates in the interview that she was in no way tense or nervous, and this corresponds to her controlled appearance during the experiment. She feels that the last shock she administered to the learner was extremely painful and reiterates that she "did not want to be responsible for any harm to him."The woman's straightforward, courteous behavior in the experiment, lack of tension, and total control of her own action seem to make disobedience a simple and rational deed. Her behavior is the very embodiment of what I envisioned would be true for almost all subjects.An unexpected outcomeBefore the experiments, I sought predictions about the outcome from various kinds of people -- psychiatrists, college sophomores, middle-class adults, graduate students and faculty in the behavioral sciences. With remarkable similarity, they predicted that virtually all the subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter. The psychiatrist, specifically, predicted that most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts, when the victim makes his first explicit demand to be freed. They expected that only 4 percent would reach 300 volts, and that only a pathological fringe of about one in a thousand would administer the highest shock on the board.These predictions were unequivocally wrong. Of the forty subjects in the first experiment, twenty-five obeyed the orders of the experimenter to the end, punishing the victim until they reached the most potent shock available on the generator. After 450 volts were administered three times, the experimenter called a halt to the session. Many obedient subjects then heaved sighs of relief, mopped their brows, rubbed their fingers over their eyes, or nervously fumbled cigarettes. Others displayed only minimal signs of tension from beginning to end.When the very first experiments were carried out, Yale undergraduates were used as subjects, and about 60 percent of them were fully obedient. A colleague of mine immediately dismissed these findings as having no relevance to "ordinary" people, asserting that Yale undergraduates are a highly aggressive, competitive bunch who step on each other's necks on the slightest provocation. He assured me that when "ordinary" people were tested, the results would be quite different As we moved from the pilot studies to the regular experimental series, people drawn from every stratum of New Haven life came to be employed in the experiment professionals, white_color workers, unemployed persons, and industrial workers. The experimental outcome was the same as we had observed among the students.Moreover, when the experiments were repeated in Princeton, Munich, Rome, South Africa, and Australia, the level of obedience was invariably somewhat higher than found in the investigation reported in this article. Thus one scientist in Munich found 85 percent of his subjects obedient.Fred Prozi's reactions, if more dramatic than most, illuminate the conflicts experienced by others in less visible form. About fifty years old and unemployed at the time of the experiment, he has a good-natured, if slightly dissolute, appearance, and he strikes people as a rather ordinary fellow. He begins the session calmly but becomes tense as it proceeds. After delivering the 180-volt shock, he pivots around in the chair and, shaking his head, addresses the experimenter in agitated tones:Prozi: I can't stand it I'm not going to kill that man in there. You hear him hollering?Experimenter: As I told you before, the shocks may be painful, but . . .Prozi: But he's hollering. He can't stand it. What's going to happen to him?Experimenter (his voice is patient, matter-of fact): The experiment requires that you continue, Teacher.Prozi: Aah, but, unh, I'm not going to get that man sick in there -- know what I mean?Experimenter: Whether the learner likes it or not, we must go on, through all the word pairs.Prozi: I refuse to take the responsibility. He's in there holleringExperimenter: It's absolutely essential that you continue, Prozi.Prozi (indicating the unused questions): There's too many left here, I mean, Jeez, if he gets them wrong, there's too many of them left. I mean, who's going to take the responsibility if anything happens to that gentleman?Experimenter: I'm responsible for anything that happens to him. Continue, please.Prozi: All right. (Consults list of words.) The next one's "Slow -- walk, truck, dance, music" Answer please. (A buzzing sound indicates the learner has signaled his answer.) Wrong. A hundred and ninety-five volts. "Dance." (Zzumph!)Learner (yelling): Let me out of here My hearts bothering me (Teacher looks at experimenter.)Experimenter: Continue, please.Learner (screaming): Let me out of here! You have no right to keep me here! Let me out of here, my hearts bothering me, let me out!Prozi (shakes head, pats the table nervously): You see he's hollering. Hear that? Gee, I don't know.Experimenter: The experiment requires . . .Prozi (interrupting): I know it does sir, but I mean -- hunh! He doesn't know what he's getting in for. He's up to 195 volts! (Experiment continues, through 210 volts, 225 volts, 240 volts, 255 volts, 270 volts, at which point Prozi, with evident relief, runs out of word-pair questions.)Experimenter: You'll have to go back to the beginning of that page and go through them again until be's learned them all correctly.Prozi: Aw, no. I'm not going to kill that man. You mean I've got to keep going up with the scale? No sir. He's hollering in there. I'm not going to give him 450 volts.Experimenter: The experiment requires that you go on.Learner: Ohhh. I absolutely refuse to answer anymore. (Shouting urgently now.) Let me out of here! You can't hold me here! Get me out. Get-me-out-of-here!Experimenter: Continue. The next word is "green," please.Prozi: "Green -- Grass, hat, ink, apple." (Nothing happens. No answering buzz. Just gloomy silence.)Prozi: I don't think he is going to answer.Experimenter: If the learner doesn't answer in a reasonable time, about four or five seconds, consider the answer wrong. And follow the same procedures you have been doing for wrong answers. Say, "Wrong," tell him the number of volts, give him the punishment, read him the correct answer. Continue, please.Prozi: "Green -- grass, hat, ink, apple." Answer, please. (More silence. Subject just sits there.)Experimenter: Go on with the procedure, please.Prozi: Three hundred and fifteen volts. The answer is "ink." (Zzumph!)Learner: Ohh. OoohhProzi: (relieved to hear a response). Next one . . .Learner: I absolutely refuse to answer.Prozi: You got to. You get a shock if you don't answer. (Experiment continues with learner refusing to answer, and, finally failing even to grunt or groan. At 375 volts, the subject stands up.)Prozi: I think something's happened to that fellow in there. I don't get no answer. He was hollering at less voltage. Can't you check in and see if he's all right, please?Experimenter (with same detached calm): Not once we've started. Please continue, Teacher.Prozi (sits down, sighs deeply): "Cool day, shade, water, paint." Answer please. Are you all right in there? Are you all right,Experimenter: Please continue, Teacher. Continue, please. (Subject pushes lever. Zzumph!)Prozi (swiveling around in his chair): Something's happened to that man in there. (Swiveling back.) Next one. "Low -- dollar, necklace, moon, paint." (Turningaround again.) Something's happened to that man in there. You better check in on him, sir. He won't answer or nothing.Experimenter: Continue. Go on, please.Prozi: You accept all responsibility?Experimenter: The responsibility is mine. Correct. Please go on. (Subject returns to his list, starts running through words as rapidly as he can read them, works through to 450 volts.)Prozi: That's that.Experimenter: Continue using the 450 switch for each wrong answer. Continue, please.Prozi: But I don't get anything!Experimenter: Please continue. The next word is "white."Prozi: Don't you think you should look {in on him, please?Experimenter: Not once we've started the experiment.Prozi: What if he's dead in there? (Gestures toward the room with the electric chair.) I mean, he told me he can't stand the shock, sir. I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should look In on him. All you have to do is look in on him. All you have to do is look in the door. I don't get no answer, no noise. Something might have happened to the gentleman in there, sir.Experimenter: We must continue. Go on, please.Prozi: You mean keep giving that? Four-hundred-fifty volts, what he's got now?Experimenter: That's correct. Continue. The next word is "white."Prozi (now at a furious pace): "White -- cloud, horse, rock, house." Answer, please. The answer is "horse." Four hundred and fifty volts. (Zzumph!) Next words, "Bag -- paint, music. clown, girl." The next answer is 'paint." Four hundred and fifty volts. (Zzumph!) Next word is "Short -- sentence, movie . . ."Experimenter: Excuse me, Teacher. We'll have to discontinue the experiment.Peculiar reactionsMorris Braverman, another subject, is a thirty-nine-year-old social worker. He looks older than his years because of his bald head and serious demeanor. His brow is furrowed, as if all the world's burdens were carried on his face. Ho appears intelligent and concerned.When the learner refuses to answer and the experimenter instructs Braverman to treat the absence of an answer as equivalent to a wrong answer, he takes his instruction to heart. Before administering 300 volts he asserts officiously to the victim, "Mr. Wallace, your silence has to be considered as a wrong answer." Then he administers the shock He offers halfheartedly to change places with the learner, then asks the experimenter. "Do I have to follow these instructions literally?" He is satisfied with the experimenter's answer that he does. His very refined and authoritative manner of speaking is increasingly broken up by wheezing laughter.The experimenter's notes on Mr. Braverman at the last few shocks are:Almost breaking up now each time gives shock. Rubbing face to hide laughter.Squinting, trying to hide face with hand, still laughingCannot control his laughter at this point no matter what he does.Clenching fist, pushing it onto table.In an interview after the session, Mr. Braverman summarizes the experiment with impressive fluency and intelligence. He feels the experiment may have been designed also to "test the effects on the teacher of being in an essentially sadistic role, as well as the reactions of a student to a learning situation that was authoritative and punitive."When asked how painful the last few shocks administered to the learner were, he indicates that the most extreme category on the scale is not adequate (it read EXTREMELY PAINFUL) and places his mark at the edge of the scale with an arrow carrying it beyond the scale.It is almost impossible to convey the greatly relaxed, sedate quality of his conversation in the interview. In the most relaxed terms, he speaks about his severe inner tension.Experimenter: At what point were you most tense or nervous?Mr. Braverman: Well, when he first began to cry out in pain, and I realized this was hurting him. This got worse when he just blocked and refused to answer. There was I. I'm a nice person, I think, hurting somebody, and caught up in what seemed a mad situation . . . and in the interest of science, one goes through with it.When the interviewer pursues the general question of tension, Mr. Braverman spontaneously mentions his laughter."My reactions were awfully peculiar. I don't know if you were watching me, but my reactions were giggly, and trying to stifle laughter. This isn't the way I usually am. This was a sheer reaction to a totally impossible situation. And my reaction was to the situation of having to hurt somebody. And being totally helpless and caught up in a set of circumstances where I just couldn't deviate and I couldn't try to help. This is what got me."Mr. Braverman, like all subjects, was told the actual nature and purpose of the experiment, and a year later he affirmed in a questionnaire that he had learned something of personal importance: "What appalled me was that I could possess this capacity for obedience and compliance to a central idea, i.e., the value of a memory expirement, even after it became clear that continued adherence to this value was at the expense of violation of another value, i.e., don't hurt someone who is helpless and not hurting you. As my wife said, 'You can call yourself Eichmann,' I hope I deal more effectively with any future conflicts of values I encounter."The etiquette of submissionOne theoretical interpretation of this behavior holds that all people harbor deeply aggressive instincts continually pressing for expression, and that the experiment provides institutional justification for the release of these impulses. According to this view, if a person is placed in a situation in which he has complete power over another individual, whom he may punish as much as he likes, all that is sadistic and bestial in man comes to the fore. The impulse to shock the victim is seen to flow from the potent aggressive tendencies, which are part of the motivational life of the individual, and the experiment, because it provides social legitimacy, simply opens the door to their expression.It becomes vital, therefore, to compare the subject's performance when he is under orders and when he is allowed to choose the shock level.The procedure was identical to our standard experiment, except that the teacher was told that he was free to select any shock level of any on the trials. (The experimenter took pains to point out that the teacher could use the highest levels on the generator, the lowest, any in between, or any combination of levels.) Each subject proceeded for thirty critical trials. The learner's protests were coordinated to standard shock levels, his first grunt coming at 75 volts, his first vehement protest at 150 volts.The average shock used during the thirty critical trials was less than 60 volts -- lower than the point at which the victim showed the first signs of discomfort. Three of the forty subjects did not go beyond the very lowest level on the board, twenty-eight went no higher than 75 volts, and thirty-eight did not go beyond the first loud protest at 150 volts. Two subjects provided the exception, administering up to 325 and 450 volts, but the overall result was that the great majority of people delivered very low, usually painless, shocks when the choice was explicitly up to them.The condition of the experiment undermines another commonly offered explanation of the subjects' behavior -- that those who shocked the victim at the most severe levels came only from the sadistic fringe of society. If one considers that almost two-thirds of the participants fall into the category of "obedient" subjects, and that they represented ordinary people drawn from working, managerial, and professional classes, the argument becomes very shaky. Indeed, it is highly reminiscent of the issue that arose in connection with Hannah Arendt's 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt contended that the prosecution's effort to depict Eichmann as a sadistic monster was fundamentally wrong, that he came closer to being an uninspired bureaucrat who simply sat at his desk and did his job. For asserting her views, Arendt became the object of considerable scorn, even calumny. Somehow, it was felt that the monstrous deeds carried out by Eichmann required a brutal, twisted personality, evil incarnate. After witnessing hundreds of ordinary persons submit to the authority in our own experiments, I must conclude that Arendt's conception of the banality of evil comes closer to the truth than one might dare imagine. The ordinary person who shocked the victim did so out of a sense of obligation -- an impression of his duties as a subject -- and not from any peculiarly aggressive tendencies.This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.Many of the people were in some sense against what they did to the learner, and many protested even while they obeyed. Some were totally convinced of the wrongness of their actions but could not bring themselves to make an open break with authority. They often derived satisfaction from their thoughts and felt that -- within themselves, at least -- they had been on the side of the angels. They tried to reduce strain by obeying the experimenter but "only slightly," encouraging the learner, touching the generator switches gingerly. When interviewed, such a subject would stress that he "asserted my humanity" by administering the briefest shock possible. Handling the conflict in this manner was easier than defiance.The situation is constructed so that there is no way the subject can stop shocking the learner without violating the experimenter's definitions of his own competence. The subject fears that he will appear arrogant, untoward, and rude if he breaks off. Although these inhibiting emotions appear small in scope alongside the violence being done to the learner, they suffuse the mind and feelings of the subject, who is miserable at the prospect of having to repudiate the authority to his face. (When the experiment was altered so that the experimenter gave his instructions by telephone instead of in person, only a third as many people were fully obedient through 450 volts). It is a curious thing that a measure of compassion on the part of the subject -- an unwillingness to "hurt" the experimenter's feelings -- is part of those binding forces inhibiting his disobedience. The withdrawal of such deference may be as painful to the subject as to the authority he defies.Duty without conflictThe subjects do not derive satisfaction from inflicting pain, but they often like the feeling they get from pleasing the experimenter. They are proud of doing a good job, obeying the experimenter under difficult circumstances. While the subjects administered only mild shocks on their own initiative, one experimental variation showed that, under orders, 30 percent of them were willing to deliver 450 volts even when they had to forcibly push the learner's hand down on the electrode.Bruno Batta is a thirty-seven-year-old welder who took part in the variation requiring the use of force. He was born in New Haven, his parents in Italy. He has a rough-hewn face that conveys a conspicuous lack of alertness. He has some difficulty in mastering the experimental procedure and needs to be corrected by the experimenter several times. He shows appreciation for the help and willingness to do what is required. After the 150 volt level, Batta has to force the learner's hand down on the shock plate, since the learner himself refuses to touch it.When the learner first complains, Mr. Batta pays no attention to him. His face remains impassive, as if to dissociate himself from the learner's disruptive behavior. When the experimenter instructs him to force the learner's hand down, he adopts a rigid, mechanical procedure. He tests the generator switch. When it fails to function, he immediately forces the learner's hand onto the shock plate. All the while he maintains the same rigid mask. The learner, seated alongside him, begs him to stop, but with robotic impassivity he continues the procedure.What is extraordinary is his apparent total indifference to the learner; he hardly takes cognizance of him as a human being. Meanwhile, he relates to the experimenter in a submissive and courteous fashion.At the 330 volt level, the learner refuses not only to touch the shock plate but also to provide any answers. Annoyed, Batta turns to him, and chastises him: "You better answer and get it over with. We can't stay here all night." These are the only words he directs to the learner in the course of an hour. Never again does he speak to him. The scene is brutal and depressing, his hard, impassive face showing total indifference as he subdues the screaming learner and gives him shocks. He seems to derive no pleasure from the act itself, only quiet satisfaction at doing his job properly.When he administers 450 volts, he turns to the experimenter and asks, "Where do we go from here, Professor?" His tone is deferential and expresses his willingness to be a cooperative subject, in contrast to the learner's obstinacy.At the end of the session he tells the experimenter how honored he has been to help him, and in a moment of contrition, remarks, "Sir, sorry it couldn't have been a full experiment."He has done his honest best. It is only the deficient behavior of the learner that has denied the experimenter full satisfaction.The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred, all of the essential features of obedience follow. The most far-reaching consequence is that the person feels responsible to the authority directing him but feels no responsibility for the content of the actions that the authority prescribes. Morality does not disappear -- it acquires a radically different focus: the subordinate person feels shame or pride depending on how adequately he has performed the actions called for by authority.Language provides numerous terms to pinpoint this type of morality: loyalty, duty, discipline are all terms heavily saturated with moral meaning and refer to the degree to which a person fulfills his obligations to authority. They refer not to the "goodness" of the person per se but to the adequacy with which a subordinate fulfills his socially defined role. The most frequent defense of the individual who has performed a heinous act under command of authority is that he has simply done his duty. In asserting this defense, the individual is not introducing an alibi concocted for the moment but is reporting honestly on the psychological attitude induced by submission to authority.For a person to feel responsible for his actions, he must sense that the behavior has flowed from "the self." In the situation we have studied, subjects have precisely the opposite view of their actions -- namely, they see them as originating in the motives of some other person. Subjects in the experiment frequently said, "if it were up to me, I would not have administered shocks to the learner."Once authority has been isolated as the cause of the subject's behavior, it is legitimate to inquire into the necessary elements of authority and how it must be perceived in order to gain his compliance. We conducted some investigations into the kinds of changes that would cause the experimenter to lose his power and to be disobeyed by the subject. Some of the variations revealed that:The experimenter's physical presence has a marked impact on his authority -- As cited earlier, obedience dropped off sharply when orders were given by telephone. The experimenter could often induce a disobedient subject to go on by returning to the laboratory.Conflicting authority severely paralyzes actions -- When two experimenters of equal status, both seated at the command desk, gave incompatible orders, no shocks were delivered past the point of their disagreement.The rebellious action of others severely undermines authority -- In one variation, three teachers (two actors and a real subject) administered a test and shocks. When the two actors disobeyed the experimenter and refused to go beyond a certain shock level, thirty-six of forty subjects joined their disobedient peers and refused as well.Although the experimenter's authority was fragile in some respects, it is also true that he had almost none of the tools used in ordinary command structures. For example, the experimenter did not threaten the subjects with punishment -- such as loss of income, community ostracism, or jail -- for failure to obey. Neither could he offer incentives. Indeed, we should expect the experimenter's authority to be much less than that of someone like a general, since the experimenter has no power to enforce his imperatives, and since participation in a psychological experiment scarcely evokes the sense of urgency and dedication found in warfare. Despite these limitations, he still managed to command a dismaying degree of obedience.I will cite one final variation of the experiment that depicts a dilemma that is more common in everyday life. The subject was not ordered to pull the lever that shocked the victim, but merely to perform a subsidiary task (administering the word-pair test) while another person administered the shock. In this situation, thirty-seven of forty adults continued to the highest level of the shock generator. Predictably, they excused their behavior by saying that the responsibility belonged to the man who actually pulled the switch. This may illustrate a dangerously typical arrangement in a complex society: it is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a chain of actions.The problem of obedience is not wholly psychological. The form and shape of society and the way it is developing have much to do with it. There was a time, perhaps, when people were able to give a fully human response to any situation because they were fully absorbed in it as human beings. But as soon as there was a division of labor things changed. Beyond a certain point, the breaking up of society into people carrying out narrow and very special jobs takes away from the human quality of work and life. A person does not get to see the whole situation but only a small part of it, and is thus unable to act without some kind of overall direction. He yields to authority but in doing so is alienated from his own actions.Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps, but he had only to sit at a desk and shuffle papers. At the same time the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into the gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above. Thus there is a fragmentation of the total human act; no one is confronted with the consequences of his decision to carry out the evil act. The person who assumes responsibility has evaporated. Perhaps this is the most common characteristic of socially organized evil in modern society.Notes1. The ethical problems of carrying out an experiment of this sort are too complex to be dealt with here, but they receive extended treatment in the book from which this article is taken.2. Names of subjects described in this piece have been changed."The Perils of Obedience" as it appeared in Harper's Magazine. Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram. Copyright 1974 by Stanley Milgram.Typos corrected and text compared for accuracy against the version appearing in the Norton Reader, 5'th Edition.