Superb:Balance and order. All very Newtonian-1776-now

The Scientific Revolution, and particularly Newton’s work, taught men that the universe wasn’t willful or chaotic, but governed by rules of order. Once you knew the rules, the physical universe became predictable. The physical world was, in 18th-century parlance, a “mechanical” place.

So be it: 1776–present

 

Effect on the Constitution’s Structure

Much of the final Constitution resembles an interlocked and finely tuned machine. As Charles Carroll of Carrollton wrote:

“The three distinct powers of the federal Govt. are skilfully [sic] combined so as to balance each other, by that reciprocal check & counterpoise, which the most approved writers on Govt. consider as its chief perfection … [T]he several State-Governments will always keep it within its own & proper sphere of action: [T]hus while it restrains the State-Governments within their orbits, it is by them retained within its own; acting, & acted upon it will produce that order, that stability in the civil, which we see exists in the physical world, where if I may compare great things to small, every planet, every center of each system attracting & attracted, repelling, & repelled keeps that station, & rolls within those spheres, which the great Author of all being has prescribed to each.”

Further exemplifying the intricate and balanced structure is the Constitution’s Article V, which sets forth the amendment process. Madison was its principal draftsman, and it shows that he shared his generation’s “mechanical” mode of thought:

• Article V prescribes two ways of proposing amendments—a more democratically based congressional method and a state-government-based convention method.
• For Congress to consider proposing, only a voting majority need agree; but to actually propose, two-thirds of each house must agree.
• Conversely, for a convention to consider an amendment, two-thirds of the states must agree; but for the convention to propose only a voting majority of states need agree.
• Paralleling the two ways of proposing are the two ways of ratifying: by popularly elected state conventions (considered the more democratic mode) or by state legislatures (more state-government based).
• Both methods of ratification require approval by three-fourths of the states, a margin that ensures both widespread state agreement and widespread popular agreement.