Too bad we have that political class, anyway, along with regular people who believe politics should be inaccessible to regular people.
This is simply factually untrue. The Articles of Confederation, and Constitution were written by and for the political class, and each addressed the immediate concerns of the political class (much narrower than the also narrow enfranchised class) at the time it was drafted and in the domain to which it was addressed. The Declaration was drafted by and for the needs of the same class but tangentially directed at the public in the US as a propaganda document, but it was even more directed at the British political class to create pressure for an immediate accommodation of the American political class (a task at which therr are some signs it might have succeeded had events on the ground not spiralled out of control as quickly as they did.)
The existence of a massive political propaganda effort to sell the document to the enfranchised class of a particular state (broader than the elite political class but narrower than regular people) does not prove (indeed, if anything argues against the conclusion) that the document itself was intended to be understandable too and responsive to the interests of even the enfranchised class, much less regular people.
You're skipping over the fact that only property owning white men were initially allowed to vote.
That was the group which expected to gain political power from the Declaration and Constitution - that was the target audience.
Defining "regular people" has a fraught history in the USA.
You've changed the discussion from the intended simplicity of politics to an argument about who was allowed to vote. In some ways, this type of strawman is similar to the types of arguments that create difficulties and barriers with present day politics.
Yet they didn't provide for direct democracy, enfranchised only part of the population, took the highest political offices for themselves, ect. Look at the first 5 presidents, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe. These were not some common guys off the street. These were the political elites of Colonial England and then early America.
I was disagreeing directly with your point that this was intended to be simple, or for "regular people". I contend that it wasn't any of this - it was intended to enrich a room-full of people with the support of wealthy elites. The immediate effect was to shift power only slightly, and not in the direction of regular people. How is that a strawman, please?
From Wikipedia: "The language of the concluding endorsement... was made intentionally ambiguous in hopes of winning over the votes of dissenting delegates" - the exact opposite of your claim.
> this type of strawman is similar to the types of arguments that create difficulties and barriers with present day politics.
Ironic.
You are pretending that the endorsement actually had anything to do with the text of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. I assume the endorsement you are plucking a reference to is, "Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present". You didn't mention it, so your statement isn't clear.
Thanks for your time, but I have no interest in discussing side arguments further and further from my point about politics being simple, where anyone can be involved.
If anything, the barriers appear to me to be greater.
Diogenes.
See George Washington's retirement speech:
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=15&page...
That's why we have a tradition of presidents only serving a maximum of two terms; which we only turned into a law when the tradition was violated.
What's why? I skimmed that link, couldn't see a reference to two terms, maybe I missed it.
Maybe this is close to the truth:
"Surprisingly, many of the Framers—including [Alexander] Hamilton and [James] Madison—supported a lifetime appointment for presidents selected by Congress and not elected by the people,” the [National Constitution Center] writes. “That would have made the presidency what Virginia’s George Mason called an ‘elective monarchy,’ however, and when this was put to a vote it failed by only six votes to four."
Instead, they devised a complicated voting system involving the electoral college that would still ensure, as the framers desired, that presidential elections were not solely in the hands of ordinary voters. Within this system, they shortened a president’s appointment from life to four years. And because most of the framers didn’t want to set a limit on how many four-year terms a president could serve, they didn’t say anything about it in the Constitution.
Nevertheless, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson ended up setting a two-term precedent. Washington declined to run a third time, but did clarify that he would’ve if he felt he was needed. Jefferson, on the other hand, specifically thought that two terms was enough for one person, and that more might overextend executive power. After these presidents, two terms became the unofficial standard.
That is, until FDR broke tradition by winning elections in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944.
https://www.history.com/news/why-presidents-have-term-limits