With the judicial filibuster debate raging, I thought it'd be a good time to learn more about the Constitution and try to get an idea of what the Framers were really thinking back in that sweltering summer of 1787. So today I started reading Charles Mee's "The Genuis of the People". The book tells the story of the Constitutional Convention.

I'm about three quarters of the way through and it's funny how sometimes I side with the Madisonians and their concept of a strong central government. Other times, I shake my head at Madison and wonder how he couldn't understand the fears of the smaller states.

As I read, there are men I'm less than impressed with (Alexander Hamilton is one, I don't like his rather elitist dismissal of the people) and while there are obvious heroes like Washington, Madison and Franklin, one of the men I most admire so far is George Mason. Prior to today, my knowledge of George Mason consisted of the fact that he has a University named after him (a friend of mine went to it). But now I know that Mason, in spite of his patrician background, was yet another true champion of the people.

In addition to conflicts between North & South, big states and small states, and proponents of local vs. centralized government, the Constitution Convention tackled the question of how to deal with imminent inclusion of Western states into the Union. Many delegates tried to frame the Constitution to permanently vest power in the more "enlightened" East. As Gouverneur Morris said:

Westerners would certainly "not be able to furnish men equally enlightened to share in the administration of our common interests. The Busy haunts of men-not the remote wilderness-was the proper School of political Talents. If the Western people get the power into their hands they will ruin the Atlantic interests."

To this Mason, from the traditional seat of power in Virginia, said:

if Western states were to be brought into the Union at all, "they must be treated as equals, and subjected to no degrading discriminatins. They will have the same pride and passions whic we have, and will not unite with or will speedily revolt from the Union, if they are not in all respects placed on an equal footing with their brethren."

Later in the Convention, Mason, himself a large land owner, again stood up for the common people, when it was proposed that suffrage be restricted to freeholders. Mason said:

"every man having evidence of attachment to and permanent common interest with the Society ought to share in all its rights and privileges. Was this qualification restrained to freeholders? Does no other kind of property but land evidence a common interest in the proprietor? Does nothing besides property mark a permanent attachment? Ought the merchant, the monied man, the parent of a number of children whose fortunes are to be pursued in their own Country, to be viewed as suspicious characters, and unworthy to be trusted with the common rights of their fellow Citizens?"

One of the things that's so great about Mason (and really, this applies to so many of the Framers) is that he didn't go to the Convention strictly to advance the cause of "his kind". I know some Democrats won't understand this, but Mason went against his own self interest and instead tried to do what he believed was right for his country.

I'm not sure what the Framers would think of we should do about the judicial filibusters. They saw the Senate as a check on the passions of the House, not on the powers of the President. But, they were just as worried about a tyranny of a majority (hence the Senate check on the House) as of a tyranny of a minority (the House check on the Senate). Of course, at the end of the day, those men were capable of crafting compromises that preserved our more perfect Union. Hopefully the "wise" men and women in the Senate today can do the same.