This week, we get into the weeds a little bit and take an in-depth view of the United States Senate: specifically, how the body was originally structured in the Constitution, how the 17^th amendment changed the method Senators were selected, and why that change was detrimental to our federal republic.

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Primary Sources:

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Edited by Clinton Rossiter. New York: Signet Classics, 2003.

Montesquieu. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated by Thomas Nugent. Revised by J.V. Prichard. Edited by David W. Carrithers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

National Archives and Records Administration. “U.S. Electoral College Votes.” Accessed June 18, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college.

Supreme Court of the United States. Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/531bv.pdf.

Secondary Sources:

Amar, Akhil Reed. America’s Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2005.

Boller, Paul F. Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Calabresi, Steven G. “Does the Incompatibility Clause Apply to the President?” Northwestern University Law Review 90, no. 2 (1996): 736-788.

Carrithers, David W. Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws in Historical Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

Dahl, Robert A. How Democratic is the American Constitution? New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Elazar, Daniel J. American Federalism: A View from the States. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

Ellis, Richard J. Presidential Elections: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012.

History.com Editors. “Presidential Elections That Didn’t Go According to Plan.” History.com. Last modified November 6, 2020. https://www.history.com/news/elections-popular-vote-electoral-college.

Keller, Morton. Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.

Kyvig, David E. Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996.

Leip, David. “Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.” Accessed June 18, 2025. https://uselectionatlas.org/.

Levinson, Sanford. Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It). New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

PBS. “The Election of 1824 Was Decided in the House of Representatives.” PBS LearningMedia. Accessed June 18, 2025. https://www.pbs.org.

Phillips, David Graham. “The Treason of the Senate.” Cosmopolitan, March 1906.

Ratcliffe, Donald J. “The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy, 1787–1828.” Journal of the Early Republic 33, no. 2 (2013): 219-254.

Rahe, Paul A. Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011.

Whittington, Keith E. “The Seventeenth Amendment and the Death of Federalism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 36, no. 3 (2006): 21–39.

Zywicki, Todd J. “Senators and Special Interests: A Public Choice Analysis of the Seventeenth Amendment.” Oregon Law Review 73, no. 1 (1994): 1007-1057.