Direct Election of Senators

Roger Sherman's proposal broke the deadlock between the large and small states when he proposed a bicameral legislature with one house to represent the states and a second house to represent the people.

This great compromise provided for equal representation of the states in the senate and proportional representation of the people in the House. This model created a combination of checks and balances and a separation of powers which would enable the government to function as it should,

The authors of the Constitution felt that the indirect election of senators was so important that they wrote into Article V an Amendment Protection Clause that prohibited Congress from proposing any amendment that would allow for the direct election of senators.

The clause reads "No state shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the senate without their consent", In order for an proposed amendment to be lawful ratified the unanimous consent of all of the 48 states would be necessary.

When 36 of the 48 states ratified the amendment the Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan declared it ratified even though it violated the provision found in Article V,

Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia have never ratified the amendment and the Constitutional right of these states to be represented in the senate has been taken from them,

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The direct election of senators violated the Amendment Protection Clause in the Article V of the Constitution and turned our bicameral  legislature into a unicameral legislature with two houses representing the people and no house to represent the states. With the 17th Amendment, we lost the separation of powers, the checks and balances, federalism and a republican form of government. 

It was accomplished "in the name of Democracy" - a direct assault upon the concept of Separation of Powers and of Federalism.  And it destroyed the Republic.

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