By Steve Jost
Standard Deviations blog posts represent the views of the author(s)/organization(s), but not necessarily those of The Census Project.
Americans justifiably express great pride in their founding documents and the fact we are the world�s longest surviving democracy. Our presidents capture this pride in many forms, from Ronald Reagan�s �shining city on a hill,� to John F. Kennedy�s inspirational clarion in defense of freedom �…the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans�.� We are taught that our constitution has influenced the language and passages in other nation�s constitutions, especially principles of the rule of law, separation of powers, and the recognition of individual rights and liberties.
That our democracy is so widely emulated and has endured so long is derived from the Framers. As America grew �We the People� emerged and successfully protected against any monarch, emperor or despot. What counts is found in Article 1 of the Constitution. More specifically, it is the Decennial Census which launched a new country. Every ten years representation, taxation and even the selection of a President through the electoral college would be �reapportioned� by fresh results from the census. The new count in turn would enlarge America’s reach and serve as a reminder to the governing they derived their power only from the governed.
Put differently, the Census clause is foremost in the Constitution, appearing immediately following the first clause prescribing the form of the new Congress and before all other powers are defined, including those of the President and the Judiciary. The 14th Amendment expanded upon the conduct of apportionment, further enshrining what had been the intent and historical practice of the Framers to include every person resident in the country.
This was more than an artful solution to fulfill the promise of democratic representation. It was a turning point in world history as to the purpose of a census. The Framers knew from their own experience that every census in world history that proceeded America�s first in 1790 was a tool of the monarchy, or conqueror, or dictator over the people. Virtually every census had been used to assess taxes, conscript into military service or designate for slave labor those oppressed by the ruling administrations in Rome, Karakorum, Beijing or even London.
The Founders famously created a new constitution to demonstrate their shared belief that a state built upon the consent of “free and equal” peoples was the only legitimate form of government. A state otherwise conceived would lack authority without the �consent of the governed.� In addition to direct elections, a popular vote, and separation of powers in the government, the Apportionment clause became the instrumentality to enforce that consent over time as the population grew and changed. And, the Framers intended the U.S. to continually grow. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson makes clear that continuing immigration and population growth is actually key to the reasons for independence. �[King George III] has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners�� It therefore became necessary in the new nation to describe accurately and completely who all the governed were, and where they all resided.
The Founders included everyone resident in the country in the census, and so it has been in the United States since 1790, historically, legally and constitutionally. Minus a census, Americans could not lay claim to a government composed of free and equal people. Anything short would risk the authoritarian regimes which preceded it.
Recently reprised efforts in Congress to narrow or restrict the Apportionment count strike at the very genius of the Founders when launching the world�s oldest living democracy. This latest proposal is legally and constitutionally flawed. It itself bypasses the �consent of the governed,� seeking to do away with Article V of the Constitution which determines the method to amend the Constitution. The newest proposal would also set aside the 14th Amendment�s requirement to apportion seats in the House based on the number of �persons� living in the United States in order to achieve the goal to include only U.S. �citizens� � a choice Congress explicitly rejected when debating and then adopting the amendment in 1866. Who would be next in the future rounds of exclusion by partisan legislation?
Appreciation to my former boss, Dr. Ken Prewitt , who first taught me about the turning point for world census history, to Margo J. Anderson for her seminal social history on The American Census , and to Andrew Whitby for his new book The Sum Of The People on how the census shaped nations, and others whose work I rely upon.
Steve Jost is consultant to The Census Project, and previously served as Associate Director for Communications at the U.S. Census Bureau as an appointee of two U.S. Presidents.
