The chief advantage of having certain powers set aside for the central Government and all others reserved to the States is that majority tyranny, ig prevented and a species of local option allowed. To a person emotionally interested in the cause advocated by a majority this curb on its power, this inability to compel them to come in is an unbearable restraint.
What is really wrong is not the Supreme Court but the Constitution. The difficulties to which the separa~ lon "of executive and legislative power have led are specially marked the realm of foreign affairs. The executive sigs an agreement and the legislature rejects it. The system of cheeks and balances is all check and no balance, The executive would be prepared to negotiate a war debt ent, or a ce-operative type of neutrality bill and negotiation is its function. But acceptance of the instrument once negotiated depends upon Congress, for it is a legislative function and Congress alone can make fan agreement the law of the land.
The powers possessed by the State governments also has its drawbacks, for all States though they must treated as equals are not in fact equals. An undemocratic exaggeration of power is placed in the hands of the rural states. (Just as under the old Soviet constitution the powers of industrial areas were distorted, the opposite evil. There has sprung up a vested Interested of State jobholders protected by the Constitution far more powerful than any industrial vested interest, and far more dangerous to the workings of democratic government.
A State government can keep rival parties off the ballot for example. If there should be a three-parly presdential election in which neither candidate obtains, a clear majority then the election would be thrown Into the House where the state re-
Presentatives vote as slate units. The sparsely populated agricultural States would have an equal voice with a large population state such as New York or Pennsylvania.
In a country such as the United States in which the elected politicians reflect predominant opinion in their district "rather than exercise judg-
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