美国革命时期关于代表制的分歧与争论

Disagreements and Debates on Political Representation in Revolutionary American

在美国革命领导人和后世的研究者看来,代表制共和政体的建立乃是美国革命中意义最为深远的政治创新。形成于中世纪、长期作为君主制统治辅助机制的代表制,在美国革命时期复杂的思想论争、利益博弈和权力斗争中发生转化,变成了现代民主(共和)政体的基础性制度。美国革命一代关于代表制进行过多次热烈的讨论,其中贯穿着民众主义和精英主义的分歧与竞争,反映了民众和精英之间的猜忌、冲突和较量。同时并存的多种代表制主张经过争论、平衡与折中,形成了作为现代民主的机制的代表制理念,并且预示了此后美国民主政治的演化路径。

The making of representative republican government in the American Revolution was, in the eyes of the revolutionary leaders and later-age scholars as well, a political innovation of greatest significance. Political representation, which was born in Middle Ages and grew up as a supplementary mechanism for monarchial governance, had been transformed within a context of severe ideological debates, interest contests, and power struggles in revolutionary America, and became a fundamental institution for modern democratic-republican government. The contests,balances, and compromises between populism and elitism, which reflected jealousy, conflicts, and combats between ordinary Americans and the founding elites, defined the trajectory and nature of the development of the idea of representation, and foreshadowed later evolution of democratic politics in the United States.