In this article, Holcombe primarily argues the proposition that the government envisioned by the founders was a fundamentally different government design than the one that the United States ended up with. He argues that in the beginning, the American concept of liberty was most important. The people then were looking for protections from government, as they had seen arguably the worst of government up to that point. They were less concerned about all people being able to participate in government and more concerned about gaining protections from the oppression that they had previously experienced under King George. Now, things have changed, and the conception of liberty has been replaced by a system where people are much more concerned about participatory democracy.
The author notes that this is not necessarily a good thing. The American ideal is currently that democracy is good, and the will of the majority is good. The truth, as the author notes, is that democracy and the will of the people can sometimes lead to a form of tyranny that is just as bad as what one might experience under the compulsion of a king. Democracy is just a system designed to provide people with the kind of liberty that they are hoping to achieve. When democracy fails to do that, it becomes an impediment to what the population is trying to get done.
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"Democracy and the Founders".
Van Buren’s efforts are notable because they show the new reality of politics, as he was able to take advantage of a new electoral college system where a popular vote essentially elected the president. In the past, state legislators had control, and there was very little concern overall for whether the actual people had any say over what would take place in their government.
