I was perusing Google books looking for old science fiction when I ran across a book by Frederick Upton Adams.
The book is "President John Smith: the story of a peaceful revolution". The book was written in 1893 just after the 1892 election.
The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (Clute and Nichols, 1992) describe this book and another "The Kidnapped Millionaires: A Tale of Wall Street and the Tropics" as "put into stiffly earnest narrative form the arguments that direct election of the US President would lead to a benevolent socialism and that the tycoons of Wall Street were a doomed race."
These are excerpts from the preface to the 1896 edition.
...
Not many years ago such an event as the legislative theft of a great franchise was regarded with public horror. A decade ago a national bond steal would have aroused vast indignation. But a nation, like an individual, can become accustomed to almost anything. In view of the complacency with which the American people permit themselves to be deceived, swindled and robbed, and their evident enjoyment of the operation, the author is sometimes of the opinion that he was unduly excited over the events of 1893, and that perhaps general bankruptcy, distress, poverty and national decadence are matters of small consequence.
...
Silver should not be the great issue in 1900. It is not worthy in itself of the struggle made in its behalf. More than that, the people cannot win. They might succeed at the polls, but that would avail them nothing. They would eventually be defeated either by the corrupt use of money at Washington or by that last resort of an influential minority—the Supreme Court of the United States.
The great issue of 1900 will be: "Shall the Constitution of the United States be so amended or revised that the rights of the Majority shall be preserved? Shall the Majority rule?"
To-day the majority has no right which a fortified minority is bound to respect. The people of the United States are powerless to enact legislation for the redress of their grievances. Instead of wasting their time in . an attempt to pass a free silver bill—which the Supreme Court will promptly declare unconstitutional— they should turn their attention to a crusade, which, when successful, will make constitutional any enactment passed by a majority vote of the free citizens of the United States.
The United States is not a republic. The Republican party is not republican. The Democratic party is not democratic. Does the Supreme Court represent the people? Are its members elected or appointed by the people? Are they responsible to the people? Can the people by any legal process remove or discipline them when they have trampled under foot some law which the people have passed after a victorious struggle with their oppressors? No.
....
As one who believes that the majority of the people of a republic is right; as one who believes they should be permitted to make and unmake laws without an appeal to any higher body; as one who believes there is and can be on higher authority than the majority, and that they can be safely entrusted with the regulation of their affairs and the shaping of their prosperity and happiness, the author dedicates this book to the American people with this sentiment:
"The rights of the Majority shall no longer be
abridged."
Frederick U. Adams.