MISSOURI WATCH: PARTY SYSTEM: DON'T MESS WITH THE CONSTITUTION

It doesn't take a Ph.D. in political science to observe that Americans are generally disillusioned with the men and women who govern them from city halls, courthouses and state and federal capitols. We have held contempt for politicians in this country since the days of George Washington, who, despite the fact he was the most popular figure in America at the time, had a surprisingly large number of critics.

What enhances thoughtful concern in this second half of the 20th century is that a growing number of citizens are disillusioned not only with the men and women elected to public office but in the political system within which these elected officials must work. It is one thing to be "sick and tired" of some hapless individual who lacked either the intellectual or moral stamina to occupy an important office in government and something quite different to advocate that the framework of a democratic republic be radically changed in order to satisfy public disenchantment of the moment.

Regardless of what steps are taken to keep undesirable candidates from being elected to positions of power and trust, we will always have some rotten apples who escape unnoticed until their turpitude is exposed to public view. This is true whether we have a democratic government or are ruled by the divine right of kings. The fault, as Brutus well recognized, was in human frailty, which oftentimes was merely a reflection of mankind as a whole.

Public surfeit with the structure of governance, however, is a danger of another color, and while a vast number of Americans still believe in the democratic process and representative government, a growing number have indicated their willingness to try something more direct, and thus promoted as something more efficient. It would be a mistake to underestimate voters' dislike of what is commonly called the two-party system that is the engine of both state and federal governments, except in Nebraska with its unilateral system.

Many disillusioned voters will voice their dislike of all things political by stating there is no difference between the two major political parties. In effect, this is an advocacy of changing the system, most often by injecting still another party in the political mix. At least some historians have suggested that this disenchantment with both the Republican and Democratic parties stems back to the populist energy created by former Alabama governor George Wallace, who amassed a great deal of grassroots support despite his advocacy of violent methods to stem integration. It might be easy to blame Wallace for this disdain for the republic but it would not be accurate, since there have been sizable segments of the U.S. population who espoused similar views as far back as the 1850's era of the Know-Nothing Party and similar groups that both preceded and followed this strange gathering.

Revolution has always brewed just under the surface of American life, and this is not as strange as it seems, even as it remains troubling. After all, our forefathers fomented a revolution of their own, in an era in which hostility to the throne was viewed as both heresy and a very good way of getting one's head severed from one's shoulders. To advocate revolution during the reign of King George, a practicing despot, required courage and not a small amount of visionary hallucination.

The founding fathers were certainly not oblivious to the dangers of creating a government that could be changed to meet the varying moods of a dissatisfied constituency. Madison, Hamilton and Jay all discussed these dangers when the republic's matrix was being hammered out in constitutional gatherings. Eventually all three agreed that a system of checks and balances, a division of power between relatively equal branches of government and a method of accountability through the campaign process would meet the criteria they sought: a democratic system that would provide stability and still permit advocacy of the public interest.

Whatever the current mood of dissatisfaction holds as gospel, our colonial constitutional framers succeeded beyond their fondest dreams in creating a government by, for and of the people that had never before existed, yet today exists all over the world. The framers' critics were wrong in the late 18th century and critics two centuries later are still wrong. The present constitutional framework in Washington and Jefferson City may not answer the immediate expediency demanded by the - dissatisfied among us, but it will assure the continued existence of a democratic system that, regardless of how poorly it is administered, will nevertheless continue to grant the fairest system of government to the greatest number of the governed.

Those who see the rise of a third party, regardless of how pure its founders' motives, risk ending a vital component the founding fathers were wise enough to insist upon: effective accountability. A third party president, for example, cannot realistically govern for any length of time with a two-party congress, which owes its tenure not to the occupant of the White House but to home state constituencies. We have witnessed for nearly a year the lack of effective leadership from an executive office that shares its objectives with a minority in the legislative branch. The result has been an ascendancy of a new majority party that lacks the essential component needed for its success: the presidency.

With neither party capable of gaining all its goals because of a division of power, it is not difficult to project the great difficulty that would be experienced by a president who is not a member of either party. There would be little or no loyalty, accountability or responsibility, with all parties granted the right to claim impotence and failure.

The American system of government works best only when the accountability sought by its framers functions as envisioned. To dilute responsibility is a sure path to even more public disenchantment and disillusionment.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.