Majority Rule :: Essays Papers

Majority Rule According to John C. Calhoun’s â€Å"Disquisition on Government†, Rousseau’s ideas were wrong. Unlike Rousseau, Calhoun believes that man is more self-interested than socially interested therefore Rousseau’s idea of a sovereign making a fair general interest decision obsolete. Calhoun acknowledges the fact that in any society there has to be a decision making procedure and a form of power. He then explains how that power will naturally make self-interest a priority. Calhoun breaks up the decision making process of voting into two different categories, numerical/absolute majority and constitutional/concurrent majority. Calhoun stresses the fact that there is a major difference between these two and â€Å"that they cannot be confounded without leading to great and fatal errors†. Numerical majority is described as a majority of numbers, which does not consider the actual people who make up this â€Å"so called† majority. Mr. Calhoun insists that confounding the two majorities and considering numerical majority as the only majority will in fact tear apart the popular government. Instead he explicates the importance of every persons opinion, this is what is so overlooked in a majority rule, because there are more numbers does not make that a right majority. A majority is most often in control or heavily involved with its government. Calhoun explains that if a constitution is made to be easily changed to limit the powers of some departments, as well as this may seem, can cause harm. A majority that is limited by one of these provisions will find it easier to do away with these provisions because of their numbers, while the minority will not have the ability to keep the provisions. These beliefs are easily correlated with the issues of states rights during the civil war. I agree with Calhoun and his beliefs of majority. Although our nation today is prosperous this does not make the decisions of and other events in our country right. We have almost lost touch with many groups and simply dubbed them the minority.