HeavenlyPossum on Nostr: Compare the process by which the US constitution originally directed the selection of ...
Compare the process by which the US constitution originally directed the selection of justices on the Supreme Court—a tiny super-legislature with life tenure:
Free white adult male citizens, primarily property owners, would vote for electors, who would select the president. They would also vote for their state legislators, who would in turn select national senators. The president would then nominate candidates to the court and the senate would vote on those candidates, who would then enjoy life tenure.
Not quite as convoluted as the Venetian system, but the US republic was very explicitly modeled after this sort of aristocratic, slave-owning republican system from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The whole point was to ensure sustained, cooperative aristocratic rule by attenuating both the power of any one aristocratic clique and, more critically, any kind of popular will.
Free white adult male citizens, primarily property owners, would vote for electors, who would select the president. They would also vote for their state legislators, who would in turn select national senators. The president would then nominate candidates to the court and the senate would vote on those candidates, who would then enjoy life tenure.
Not quite as convoluted as the Venetian system, but the US republic was very explicitly modeled after this sort of aristocratic, slave-owning republican system from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The whole point was to ensure sustained, cooperative aristocratic rule by attenuating both the power of any one aristocratic clique and, more critically, any kind of popular will.