The founders of our republic made a fateful decision on July 16, 1787, when they decided that the Senate would represent the states, instead of the people. We can trace later events that drove America toward the Civil War back to that choice – one that, as we’ll see, now heightens the bitter politics of our own time, and is driving us toward a Constitutional crisis.

Joseph P. Ellis, in his book, “The Quartet,” reveals that George Washington, James Madison, and many others at the Constitutional Convention opposed state-based representation in the Senate. They believed that a Congress with both chambers elected according to population would be indispensable. “Nothing else would,” as Mr. Ellis put it, “permit the Congress to speak for the American people as a whole.”

But each state had an equal vote at the convention, and those with small populations were determined to keep the power they had enjoyed in the past. The back-and-forth between the two sides produced a House of Representatives that directly represented the people. But it created, on the other hand, the Senate as we know it, with two Senators from each state, regardless of its population.

Washington and Madison took this as a “devastating defeat,” says Ellis. They foresaw the disunity that would come from this decision. The years leading up to the Civil War confirmed their fears.

H.W. Brands, in his book, “The Zealot and the Emancipator,” tells how Abraham Lincoln used a simple example to illustrate the effect of giving two votes to each state. He explained that it granted equal power to the slave-holding state of South Carolina and the free state of Maine. The problem was that Maine had twice as many voters as South Carolina did.

“Thus,” he said, “each white man in South Carolina is more than the double of any man in Maine.”

Unequal Senate representation gave slave-holders excessive power in the White House as well as in the Senate, because Senate representation partly determines the makeup of the Presidential Electoral College. 10 of the first 12 presidents owned slaves, eight of them while in office, according to the online statistics portal, Statista, at statista.com.

Slave holders also dominated the Supreme Court of the time. It declared, in its infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, that African-Americans had no rights and, furthermore, that the federal government couldn’t outlaw slavery in the territories. Seven of the nine justices on that court were, according to the National Museum of African History and Culture at nmaahc.si.edu, appointed by pro-slavery presidents.

“Dred Scott, like kerosene tossed into a simmering fire, played a significant role in igniting the Civil War,” says the article. Northern anger and frustration over the South’s excessive power propelled the anti-slavery candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to the presidency in a four-way race. The bonds holding the Union together unraveled, and the Civil War was on.

State-based Senate representation continues to distort our politics today. This time the inequalities appear in the disproportionate power that states with small populations, largely rural and conservative, enjoy. The Federal Register estimates the voting population of Wyoming to be 454,500 citizens, while California is home to over 30 million voters. This means that a voter in Wyoming has 67 times as much power in the Senate as a Californian does, dwarfing the inequality of Abraham Lincoln’s day.

Stephen Wolf of the Daily Kos on Feb. 15, 2023 revealed the result of this kind of disparity. Republicans have represented a minority of Americans in every session of the Senate since 1998, but they have nevertheless controlled the Senate more than half of that time.

The bias against large states will worsen in the future, as people continue to move away from rural areas and into urban ones. The Guardian, at guardian.com on 3-12-21, reported on research by political scientist David Birdsell showing that, based on present trends, 70% of the people will live in 15 states by 2040. They will, however, be represented by only 30 out of 100 Senators.

The inequalities extend into the Presidency, for the same reason as in Abraham Lincoln’s day. Republican candidates have, since 2000, lost the popular vote in five of the last seven elections. They nevertheless will, by the end of President Trump’s current term, have occupied the White House for more than half of that time, because of the connection between the Senate and the Electoral College.

The consequences also reach, again as in Abraham Lincoln’s day, into today’s deeply conservative Supreme Court. Six of its nine justices were nominated by Republican presidents and confirmed by Republican Senates.

Defenders of state-based representation claim that it unifies the country. Their reasoning reminds me of George Orwell’s novel, “Animal Farm.” A guiding principle was that everyone was equal, but some were more equal than others.

Today’s Senate doesn’t unite our polarized nation. It pulls us apart, as it did in Abraham Lincoln’s time. The disparities will continue to grow and, as the people become ever more frustrated, we’ll someday reach a Constitutional crisis.

The outcome will then determine if we’ll have a government that truly is, as President Lincoln said, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Lowell Harp is a retired school psychologist who served school districts in Ogle County. His column runs monthly in The Ogle County Life. For previous articles, you can follow him on Facebook at http://fb.me/lowellharp.