The “hidden hand”? Not so hidden.
There has been a remake of the entire landscape of America since the rise of “Progressives”, which dominated much of US politics from the time of Teddy Roosevelt forward. Superficially, TR was a “Republican”, but that term is meaningless in relation to what he initiated, and which was carried forward with Woodrow Wilson. The “progressive” amendments, i.e., the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth, were all “Cram-down” acts, passed in the passion of the moment. The Eighteenth was the only one ever repealed (by the Twenty-First), having to do with the growth of lawlessness in the decade and a half between 1918 and 1933, when it became illegal but highly fashionable to consume alcohol in practically any form.
Lawlessness did not stop with the passage of the Twenty-First, but at least the masses could be suitably anesthetized so they did not particularly notice the vast erosion of other liberties at the time, all in the name of “fairness”, which was determined by the “Brain Trust” that was gathered to create and implement the New Deal.
Actually, the so-called New Deal was a rebranding of the same Social Democracy doctrines that had been introduced in 1871 to the newly formed German Confederacy that had been created under the Chancellorship of Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I, German Emperor. This “safety net” had been around in the various European states in some form or another since the Middle Ages, and was an outgrowth of feudalism and “Noblesse Oblige” doctrine, which demanded generosity from the ruling class.
These old doctrines were exactly what the colonists who flocked to the North American continent were seeking to flee, and when attempts were made to re-impose the “divine right” of a king upon these rebellious souls, finally resulted in the “American Experiment”, codified in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
By all standards, the “American Experiment” was a wildly successful application of the concept of a representative republic, displacing both hereditary rulers and raw democracy, which each lead to the same result, extensive control by a small oligarchy. By encouraging the productivity of each individual to be suitably rewarded, the growth of this new nation was phenomenal, outstripping and surpassing even that of the British Empire by the early part of the Twentieth Century, and creating the American Century.
But alas, some few individuals, unable to participate in all this new-found prosperity, agitated for and obtained concessions from the new wealth created by this boom, and restored some form of the Noblesse Oblige. The mistake came when it became a doctrine of elected government, and charity was taken out of the hands of individual donors and institutionalized as a government “right”, nowhere to be found in any draft of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Sure, some of the provisions as written in the Eighteenth Century were flawed, and subject to re-interpretation and amendment, but it was a pretty darned good approximation of moving toward a greater degree of personal freedom than had ever been known on such a large scale in all of human history.
And yet, there are those who would retreat altogether from this experiment in the elevation of the sanctity of the individual, and revert to the old forms of oligarchy. No matter how this reversion is dressed up, human beings are not members of some huge ant hill, and subjecting entire populations to an imposed conformity is no way to run a railroad.
To support your statement, I say that the structure of our government was the reason for our prosperity. The Articles of Confederation, drafted in 1777, ratified in 1781 were soon recognized as “imbecilic” and quickly replaced in 1789.
The same American people, good and bad, virtuous and devious alike, who watched assaults on their property and were only months from dissolution, took a deep breath and created our wonderful constitution. The same people who suffered under the Articles were liberated under the Constitution. It was the structure of the Constitution that saved the rapidly failing United States.
The 17th Amendment fundamentally altered the structure of our government. It removed the vertical separation of powers that James Madison said was essential to keep the national government from consolidating all authority. Men are no different today than they were 200 or 2,000 years ago. They tend to accumulate power if they can; it is our/their nature. The division of power between the federal and State governments was the first line of defense of our freedoms.
We have zero hope of restoring our freedoms as long as Senators represent, like their House brethren, the mob and not the States.