Posted on 07/25/2008 9:09:03 PM PDT by K-oneTexas
Woodrow Wilson's Constitution
by Robert Curry
Issue 112 - July 23, 2008
Justly revered as our great Constitution is, it could be stripped off and thrown aside like a garment, and the nation would still stand forth in the living vestment of flesh and sinew, warm with the heart-blood of one people, ready to recreate constitutions and laws. ... Woodrow Wilson
Justly revered, but not by Wilson. He really did want to cast it aside, writing “no doubt a great deal of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle…”
Our Presidents take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Lincoln believed that he was bound by that oath to “face the arithmetic” of a bloody Civil War. Yet only a few decades later, Wilson is eager to rid America of the Constitution of the Founders. How did this, how could this, happen?
You can go a long way toward understanding the history of our Constitution by examining the lives of just two men, John Witherspoon and Woodrow Wilson. Both men were powerful agents of change and, at the same time, great symbols of the intellectual currents of their times. In addition, they have story lines with astonishing parallels. Both were president of Princeton, transforming it by importing a model of the university from Europe, both had a powerful impact on the direction of American politics by their writing and speaking, and for both Princeton was a springboard to positions of political eminence.
As a teacher and a political leader, John Witherspoon had an impact on the original Constitution that is almost impossible to overemphasize; if his only contribution to American history was the education of James Madison, he would still deserve to be considered one of the most important of the Founders. In the words of John Adams, “he is as high a Son of Liberty, as any man in America.” A Scot, educated at Edinburgh, and a student of Adam Smith, David Hume and Thomas Reid, he brought the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment to Princeton, and re-made Princeton on the Scottish model of the university. A signer of the Declaration of Independence and a hard-working member of the Continental Congress, he is the perfect symbol of the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the Founders and the Founding.
If you want to understand how the Constitution was rewritten in the 20th century by the Progressive movement, the place to start is with Woodrow Wilson. Wilson too re-made Princeton, this time on the model of the German university. At a time in which German scholarship was in fashion, he was a champion of Hegelianism, helping to introduce a strain of thought into the American body politic that was fundamentally opposed to the natural rights philosophy of the Founders. Hegel’s historicism—the belief that all thought is historically conditioned—was the intellectual foundation of Progressivism and of Wilson’s belief that the Constitution was an antique absurdity. Wilson championed the idea of “the living Constitution” which enables activist judges to re-write the Constitution according to the Progressive notions of the day.
Could you be more forth coming and specifically list or state what errors are in the authors article? Maybe you could even add information you have from reading the letters of Walter Page.
If you look at TR's issue positions, they are frighteningly similar to the nonsense coming out of the mouths of today's Democrats.
No one named Roosevelt, in all the history of America, has ever been a friend to the Constitution.
Wilson and Karl Marx were both fans of Hegel, in his younger day Marx was a member of the Young Hegelians until he broke with them and went his own way. Hegel was still important in Marxist thought.
Wilson gave us the Federal Reserve system and the Income tax, as well as laying the ground work for the United Nations.
The place to start when discussing the beginning of the re-writing of the constitution is Abe Lincoln. The destruction of our constitutional form of government began with him. Kudos to those who pointed out that Teddy Roosevelt is high on the list, he is usually overlooked as a prime enemy of the constitution.
Edward Mandell House was a close advisor to both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Wilson referred to him as his alter ego. House groomed Wilson for the presidency and many believe Wilson was merely House’s puppet. House wrote a book called “Philip Dru: Administrator”, that was a fictionalized acount of his socialist plans. Philip Dru’s intention was to remake the mechanism of government by creating a new American Constitution, better fitted for the spirit and conditions of the twentieth century.
The real beginning of American Marxism....
The Republican Party:
There are NO conservative roots there.
by Al Benson, Jr.
Awhile back I received an email from a conservative activist who was urging people to try to get the Republican Party “back to its conservative roots.” My first thought was “what conservative roots?” Anyone who has done any real homework as to the origins of the Republican Party and is not wearing blinders has got to realise that the Republican Party in this country had radical, leftist beginnings, hardly to be considered conservative by any stretch of the imagination.
Mash The Link Below To Read Entire Article:
http://albensonjr.com/noconservative.shtml
The terms "radical" and "conservative" an "leftist" vary in accordance with the political zeitgeist of the era to which they are applied.
The anti-slavery principles which led to the founding of the GOP might have beeen considered "radical" in the 1850s in many quarters. But the Republican Party effectuatated their major achievement of ridding the country of slavery by constitutional means - using the amemdment procedure in the original constitution to bring about the 13th Amendment, and the 14th and 15th amendments to supplement it. So in adhering to constitutional amendment to effect the change it sought, one could describe the early early Republican Party as "conservative." Contrast that to later eras where the Constitution was merely flouted in order to achieve "radical" or "progressive" ends.
so glad to see someone groks it
Relating to what HuntsvilleTxVeteran said in reply 2, here are the letters, but from what I have read I don’t see the problem.
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE
BY BURTON J. HENDRICK
GARDEN CITY. NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1923
http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/memoir/Page/PageTC.htm
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