1913: Direct Election of Senators

One of the safeguards built into the Constitution was the whole idea of separation of powers. The idea that not one of the three chambers of our government; legislative, judiciary, or executive, can unilaterally act on it's own without the other two having a say in the process somewhere. There is a delicate balance of power that the Founders sought to attain, and that worked very well on the whole for the first half of our countries history without any significant meddling.

Some positions were meant to be directly elected and accountable to the people, such as the House of Representatives. Others were not. The Senate was originally composed of men selected by the state legislators. Why was this? Because of the whole separation of powers