Posted on 07/04/2008 12:41:42 PM PDT by Earthdweller
... And Benjamin Franklin said that they (the Founders) had given us a Republic, if we could keep it.
With respect to what the founding fathers believed in their time, they would likely appreciate that we still firmly support many issues they believed in, so much so that they are almost no longer issues.
But this would be different if they knew the *context* of the growth of the US since their time.
In their time, the big issues were things like the US being dominated by the coercive acts of the English crown, people being punished for political speech and religion, soldiers being quartered in people’s homes against their will, the use of kangaroo and mock courts (Ahem! Canada), and the importance of democracy and representation.
Today, they would be extremely glad that the best of our Presidents have spread democracy hither and yon around the world. And many of them would have been relieved that slavery was finally abolished.
If anything, they would realize that their biggest mistake was in not creating an orderly and routine process to reduce the size of the federal government. A process out of the hands of the federal government to control or diminish.
They would still have very mixed feelings about federalism and anti-federalism, and would still be able to get into heated arguments about it (ATTN: Europe and Iraq), as it really is a magnificent paradox.
This being said, the events that would have utterly confounded them in US and international history would have left them with jaws agape.
The French Revolution, for example, was a horror that rattled them to their bones. And yet the Europe wide revolutions of 1848 would have had their rapt attention with the great spread of their ideas of democracy.
Having lived through the incredibly brutal Pontiac’s Rebellion, the Indian policies of the US would have captured Thomas Jefferson’s attention, who both admired the Indians and yet whose policies ended up with them being internally displaced to West of the Mississippi.
The founding fathers would have been horrified with the American humiliation of the War of 1812, saved to a great extent by the European Napoleonic Wars.
And even in their time, to some extent they foresaw the US Civil War over slavery, if not in such a violent manner. Manifest Destiny, “From Sea to Shining Sea” might have them wondering why we stopped at Canada and Mexico.
But even they would be lost with the coming of industrialization, for it ended the America they knew. Truly it, more than anything else, would have inclined them to call for a new constitutional convention.
Not in sorrow, nor in anger, but in amazement of what the future held.
Yet it would not be the discarding of their truly amazing philosophy, found in their contemporary writings. Instead it would polish those ideas tarnished over time by pragmatism and cynicism.
Socialism would go right out the window, and without having to see its dire and horrific consequences since their time. They would have seen its inevitable murderousness in the French Revolution, and could be spared knowledge of the evil of communism that once afflicted half the world.
They would cuttingly despise efforts to elevate treaties with foreign despots over constitutional law, and surely save their bitterest criticisms for the judicial tyranny of precedent which calls up “down” and day “night”.
As do we, they would have mixed feeling about the Pax Americana, but I truly think they would accept it as a noble army for the cause of good and justice in the world, not an oppressive legion seeking to rebuild Rome.
And they would certainly personally feel comfortable being armed in such a world as we have today. If not as concerned against crime as we, then as insurance against a government long overdue for pruning, and probably unwilling.
But that is not government’s choice to make, for it is our servant, not our master. Something that they would think is “self evident”.
All told, they would wish to see the greatness that we, the people, have made of their new nation.
They would probably be disappointed in the way federalism and the separation of powers have been abandoned. On the other hand, they would probably be pleased that we are not as bad as the rest of the world.
bttt
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