People can sometimes be overwhelmed

There has been a lot of talk this election season, in the presidential campaigns and in the race to choose Indiana's next U.S. senator, about the Constitution and our nation's founding principles. Some of those who most loudly call for a "return to constitutional principles" also view "compromise" as a dirty word. This is ironic, because the suggestion that compromise is bad would have been anathema to our nation's founders. The Constitution itself was the product of grand compromises -- between small and large states, between different interests, and over slavery. Without a willingness to compromise, our great republic -- the world's oldest and most successful democracy -- would have been stillborn.

The most accurate source for the Founders' original intent is the Federalist Papers, a series of arguments written in 1787 and 1788 in support of the Constitution's ratification. These brilliant and timeless documents, penned mostly by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, are studied to this day in college classrooms, law schools and by Supreme Court justices.

Hamilton, speaking of the importance of compromise, wrote in Federalist No. 85 that "I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices as of the good sense and wisdom of the individuals of whom they are composed." The United States and its republican form of government must "necessarily be a compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations." The Founders, believing that no person or faction had a monopoly on the truth, designed a system to take human nature into account. The checks and balances built into the Constitution require compromise and collaboration for that system to function.

Understanding that people can sometimes be overwhelmed by their passions or their narrow self-interests to the detriment of society as a whole, the Founders intended the Senate to take the long view and be somewhat isolated from the immediate and potentially radical demands of the citizenry. With its six-year terms of office -- longer than that of the president -- the Senate could serve as "a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions," noted Madison in Federalist No. 63.

In words written 225 years ago that arguably presaged today's tea party, Madison went on to observe in No. 63 that "there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?"

That "temperate and respectable body of citizens" would be the Senate. In his classic book "House and Senate," political scientist Ross Baker notes: "What Madison and the other proponents of the Constitution wanted was, not an unresponsive Senate, but one that responded to popular demands only after careful deliberation." These deliberative senators would be people of great character and broad thinking. In Federalist No. 62, Madison described "the nature of the senatorial trust," which required a "greater extent of information and stability of character."

For 36 years, Dick Lugar embodied the Founders' vision of the Senate, always thinking of the national interest, always looking over the horizon for both Indiana and the United States. Next month, Hoosiers will decide who will replace this elder statesman. Whichever candidate wins the bid to fill Lugar's shoes, be it Joe Donnelly or Richard Mourdock, I hope he will understand the Senate's purpose, be willing to collaborate on occasion with the other party for the greater good of the country, and will thus grow into the role of senator intended by our nation's Founders.