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Re the Revolution (3)

Michael Ceraolo

And the alleged revolution came and went
and Rhode Island remained ruled by a royal charter
originally given by a now-long-dead English king
more than a hundred years back in the past
And the franchise was criminally limited,
even by the standards of the day
And misapportionment was rampant:
land was equally represented,
but people were not
And
perhaps the worst offense of all,
from the perspective of representative government,
was that the old royal charter
contained no provision for its amendment
(The more things don’ t change,
the more they stay the same)

Finally,
more than fifty years into the life of the republic,
the good people of Rhode Island had had enough
of waiting for those in power to do the right thing,
and a People’ s Constitutional Convention was held;
competing with the ‘Freeholders’ one held at nearly the same time
And in an election to ratify the People’ s Constitution
a majority of men marked in the affirmative
Would the status quo quit,
finally acceding to the will of the people?

Duh
Of course they didn’ t
First,
the ‘Freeholders’ constitution was put to a vote
and narrowly defeated, with many thousands less voting
And measures in the minority legislature
to put the People’ s Constitution to a ‘formal’ vote
and to expand the franchise were defeated,
with only a few of the status quo
willing to consider real representative government
“The Tory party will do anything and everything they can do
and will attempt many things which they cannot
sooner than recognize the right of the people at large
to make and alter their government at will”
And to prove the point,
the legislature passed the Algerine Act,
which made it treason to try
to establish a new constitution
outside ‘legitimate’ channels,
or to stand as a candidate for office
under a ‘fraudulent’ constitution
And thus,
under the Great Man Theory of History,
what followed is known as The Dorr War,
after Thomas Dorr, the People’ s Governor

Dueling inaugurations were held on successive days in May,
Dorr being sworn in in Providence,
the charter governor in Newport
And
a few weeks later Dorr and a few of his followers
tried to capture the state arsenal in Providence
The ‘battle’ consisted of a failed attempt
to fire a cannon on the arsenal,
then retreat
And even though
“We have a Constitution,
which has been rightfully adopted
by a majority of the whole People”
“the Suffrage majority will not fight nor vote”
And so,
even then in America,
the courts would have the last word
And
the Supreme Court preferred
style over substance,
supporting the form of republicanism
(no matter how low a percent of ‘eligible’ voters
to the substance of living breathing democracy

Resolved:
“the people have the right themselves
to alter or abolish the governments
under which they existed”
Defeated by the Court
and decided in the negative:

“certainly it is no part of the judicial functions . . .
to prescribe the qualifications of voters . . .
nor has it a right to determine
what political privileges the citizens of a State
are entitled to,
unless
there is an established constitution
or law to govern its decision”

Institutionalism had invalidated individual rights
The government controlled the people
rather than the people the government

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