대의(代議)와 국민주권주의 — 미국 제헌과정에서의 논쟁을 중심으로 —

The primary aim of this article is to embark on a search for new ways of understanding the concepts of representation and popular sovereignty. It will do so by revisiting and examining the various views put forward during the founding period of the Unites States. Justification for this lies in the fact that ‘representation’ was the most hotly debated issue throughout the colonists’ pursuit of independence and the ratification of the federal constitution. Three views will be analyzed: a) Edmund Burke, as the ‘spokesperson’ for the British constitutional tradition rejected by the American founding; b) the Federalists who were instrumental in both the drafting and ratification of the constitution; and c) the Antifederalists who opposed the constitution on grounds that it will lead to the loss of hard-earned liberty. All were in agreement that representation and popular sovereignty were the foundation of any legitimate constitutional order. Yet, they disagreed profoundly on what those terms meant and how they might be implemented. In the short run, the Federalists may have won the debate. In the long run, however, our constitutional discourse is still marked by the coexistence of the vocabularies and agreements that have been bequeathed to us by the American founding. We too regard representation and popular sovereignty as axiomatic, but we tend to haphazardly select inconsistent arguments drawn from the three views. The article concludes by suggesting that a way out of this may also be found in the ratification debates of the U.S. constitution.