Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1787.
Today, in our world, Alexander Hamilton is supposed to go on a 4 hour rant proclaiming the need for a Monarchy. It is supposed to be a boring failure, from which everyone leaves, bored, tired, and as always, annoyed at Mr. Hamilton. But now here for some reason he doesn’t.
Perhaps the night before, right as he began to write his speech, a breeze blew in from the window. Perhaps an insect that, in our reality, didn’t bite the esteemed Mr. Hamilton did in fact bite him. Perhaps he sneezed when he shouldn’t have. Perhaps he coughed at the wrong time. Perhaps he bought that mince meat pie for dinner when he should, as in our world, have had the chicken soup with dark bread. Perhaps he had one drink too many or one to few.
But, for whatever reason, Alexander Hamilton stands up today and argues in an unusually short and concise speech for a parliamentary style government. He points to the success of the British style as to a version that works. To him the appointed by state legislature Senate “provides an avenue for those with power and prestige to keep it,” while the multiparty and commonly elected lower house “the Congress of the People shall provide such a spectacle for the people to behold. The multitudinous parties, which are bound to arise out of such a wide people and such a wide group of interests, shall keep the people distracted by the going on of the Congress to pay attention to the Senate.”
The Constitutional Convention at this point breaks into violent debate. While Mr. Hamilton’s initial plan, an extremely strong upper house that elects the President, and a horridly weak lower house, is never adopted, a small group of delegates, each representing a different interest or another keeps the idea of a Congress of the People whose number is not based upon region or population, but by proportion of the votes alive.
And thus the stage is set for the Glorious Dance of American Politics.
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