ulation or the will of a numerical majority. It followed thatnthere was no such thing as “the people” apart from its geographical-cultural-legal-politicalncharacter. A nation is morenthan merely numbers of individuals counted by the head andnliving within a geographical area. As a nation the “people” isnthe product of its total historical inheritance, which gives it anunique social character. The unwritten constitution of thenAmerican people was in its total social inheritance, which tonFrost was even more important than its written legal and politicalnConstitution.nFrost was well aware that there are serious weaknesses in allnforms of government, including democracy. But he loved andnpreferred “the liberal ease of democracy,” because “democracynwith all its faults is the world’s best bet till the people’s virtuenall leaches out of them.” He distinguished between the Frenchnrevolutionary Jacobin type of “democracy” and the Americannconstitutional democracy of representative republican government.nThe French democracy was essentially egalitarian andnleveled out all individual and class differences; Americanndemocracy was centered in liberty, not in equality, and placednstrong limitations on the legal and political power of the state,nthrough divided and balanced powers between the states andnthe federal government, in order to provide the maximumnfreedom to persons and local authorities. Frost rejected thenegalitarian theory of popular absolute sovereignty, with itsnmodern slogan “one man, one vote.” When Carl Sandburgnpublished what Frost called his “New Deal-Fair Deal” propagandanpoem, “The People, Yes,” Frost responded that his viewnof American democracy would say “The People, yes, and thenPeople, no.” His faith in the people under democratic governmentnincluded an awareness of their weaknesses as well as theirnstrengths and virtues. He rejected popular sovereignty basednonly upon numbers in favor of a corporate conception ofnsovereignty and representation, which included the originalnconstitutional federalism of the Founding Fathers, with strictlyndefined limitations on federal power; territorial democracynfor election to the federal Senate; population for election tonthe lower House; and the electoral college for election of thenPresident.nFrost identified his party politics by calling himself, at variousntimes, “a Madisonian-Washingtonian-Jeffersonian Democrat,”nor “a Grover Cleveland Democrat,” or “an Old LinenDemocrat.” What kind of Democrat was Frost? hi his poemn”Build Soil—^A Political Pastoral,” the chief character clearlynspeaks for the poet;nI was brought upnA state-rights free-trade Democrat. What’s that?nAn inconsistency.nOnce when Frost was accused by a New Deal Democrat of beingnpolitically inconsistent or “mixed-up,” he replied: “No, I’mnnot mixed up, I’m well mixed.” He noted that the politicalnmixture in his party politics began at birth, when he wasnnamed after the Confederate general, Robert Lee Frost. Henadded: “You know, I inherited my status as a State-rightsnDemocrat from my father—maybe my grandfather. I’ve nevernoutgrown it.” Whether mixed-up or well mixed, Frost certainlynwas one of the most original and unstereotyped Democratsnthat the Democratic Party ever had.nThe wide-ranging class and nationality groups that comprisednthe Democratic Party certainly suited the poet’s intensenindividualism. As a party man Frost was very much like WillnRogers, who once quipped: “I’m a Democrat. I don’t belongnto any organized party.” Similarly, Frost once said: “Being anDemocrat is like being a woman; you can always change yournmind.” He then added: “There are more different ways of beingna Democrat than of being a Republican.” Frost made thisnremark in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a middle-aged couple,nconservative. Republican, Harvard friends, after the husbandnhad expressed his amazement that Frost identified himselfnas a Democrat. The wife had listened intently to thenpoet’s statement, and then responded vehemently: “You’renright, Mr. Frost, there’s only one kind of Republican,” pointingnto her husband, “and there he sits!” Frost enjoyed tellingnthis story to a group of the faculty at the Bread Loaf School ofnEnglish in Vermont, during the summer of 1961, in the presencenof Donald Davidson, a Southern Jeffersonian Democrat.nDavidson then asked Frost: “What kind of Democrat are you?nDemocrat with a capital ‘D,’ or with a lower case ‘d’?” Frostnanswered: “I’m a G-D Democrat.” The “G-D,” he went onnto say, stood for “Godawful-Disgruntled,” and that he hadnbeen a “G-D” Democrat since 1896, when Grover Cleveland’snsecond term of office ended.nFrom the time of Woodrow Wilson until his death in 1963,nFrost continued to despair of the Democratic Party muchnas a father might despair of a wayward child. He believed thatnbeginning with Wilson the Democratic Party in particular andnthe modern world in general became infatuated with sentimentalninternational pacifism, partly in reaction to World WarnI, but also based on the belief in the natural goodness and socialnbenevolence of man. Frost’s comment on the tragic fatenof Wilson, written in 1928, is highly revealing of the illusionnhe perceived in Wilson’s international pacifist politics:nIt’s a sad story—one of the saddest in history. … Inweaken now at the thought of him fallen with a crashnalmost Napoleonic. He had calibre, he saw as vastly asnanyone that ever lived. He was a great something, if itnwas only a great mistake. And he wasn’t merely hisnown mistake. He was the whole world’s mistake … asnmuch the whole world’s as was Napoleon or Alexander.nSome might think his failure was in missing a marknthat someone to come after him will hit, but I suspectnit was worse than that: he missed a mark that wasn’tnthere in nature or in human nature.nAccording to Frost, the same conflict between freedom and externalnauthority that was at the core of each individual person’snrelationship to society also applied to each particular nation’snrelationship with the world. Therefore, he vehemently opposednthe idea that the legal and political sovereignty of thenUnited States, and its legitimate self-interest, should be sacrificednto any international power, including Wilson’s Leaguenof Nations. The noble cause of world peace did not justify thenloss of national sovereignty.nIn 1920, right after James Cox was nominated by thenDemocrats for the presidency. Frost stated his opposition tonCox for following VVilson’s international polities, and hopednthat Harding would be elected, provided he was anti-international.nFrost distinguished between national isolationismnand imperialist intervention in the internal affairs or conflictsnof other nations, and in “Build Soil—A Political Pastoral,” hennnAUGUST 1992/21n