Us Constitution Undemocratic

The United States Constitution, while intended to create a democratic system of laws in our country, does include several undemocratic elements. The original U.S. Constitution differed greatly from our current version, as many amendments made a profound change in the way we currently perceive whether or not the document is democratic. Certainly one could, in modern times, argue that the biggest mistake the Founders made was not addressing slavery; indeed, the original Constitution does not speak about abolishing slavery at all (though this made sense, considering the 3/5ths Compromise was put into place during the Constitutional Convention). Even when slavery was finally abolished, it was still, and is today, considered legal as “punishment for a crime”, which one could say is not democratic at all. Similarly, the original Constitution did not include women’s suffrage, which did not come into place until the 19th amendment of the Constitution, nor did it establish the election of United States senators by popular vote. …show more content…
The Electoral College is a system many today think is inherently undemocratic. Using the Electoral College voting system, presidents can be elected regardless of whether or not they receive the popular, or majority, vote, meaning that the people can largely be unhappy with the selection of the president but not have any say on who gets elected in the long run. This effectively limits the people’s voting power to their state rather than the federal election, especially if they live in a state that tends to have a similar voting pattern each election year. Also, a naturalized United States citizen cannot become president. One could say this is not democratic because citizens are technically supposed to have equal rights under the Constitution, but citizens who are born in the United States have an opportunity to become president while naturalized citizens do