Posted on 03/08/2010 7:42:55 AM PST by Publius
Returning to his earlier technique of probing questions, the writer known as John DeWitt opens up arguments that resonate today. It was a perspicacious individual who could dissect the role money plays in politics.
1 To the Free Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:
2 Civil liberty in all countries [has been] promoted by a free discussion of public measures and the conduct of public men.
3 The freedom of the press has, in consequence thereof, been esteemed one of its safeguards.
4 That freedom gives the right at all times to every citizen to lay his sentiments in a decent manner before the people.
5 If he will take that trouble upon himself, whether they are in point or not, his countrymen are obliged to him for so doing, for at least they lead to an examination of the subject upon which he writes.
6 If any possible situation makes it a duty, it is our present important one, for in the course of sixty or ninety days you are to approve of, or reject, the present proceedings of your Convention, which, if established, will certainly effect in a greater or less degree during the remainder of your lives those privileges which you esteem dear to you and not improbably those of your children for succeeding ages.
7 Now, therefore, is unquestionably the proper time to examine it and see if it really is what, upon paper, it appears to be.
8 If with yours eyes open, you deliberately accept it, however different it may prove in practice from what it appears in theory, you will have nobody to blame but yourselves, and what is infinitely worse, as I have before endeavored to observe to you, you will be wholly without a remedy.
9 It has many zealous advocates, and they have attempted, at least as far as their modesty would permit, to monopolize our gazettes with their encomiums upon it.
10 With the people they have to manage, I would hint to them, their zeal is not their best weapon, and exertions of such a kind, artful attempts to seize the moment, do seldom tend either to elucidate and explain principles or ensure success.
11 Such conduct ought to be an additional stimulus for those persons who are not its professed admirers to speak their sentiments with freedom, however unpopular.
12 Such conduct ought to inspire caution, for as a man is invariably known by his company, so is the tendency of principles known by their advocates; nay, it ought to lead you to [inquire] who are its advocates.
16 In such examinations as these, you cannot misspend a proportion of the sixty days.
17 All contracts are to be construed according to the meaning of the parties at the time of making them.
18 By which is meant that mutual communications shall take place, and each shall explain to the other their ideas of the contract before them.
19 If any unfair practices are made use of, if its real tendency is concealed by either party, or any advantage taken in the execution of it, it is in itself fraudulent and may be [voided].
20 There is no difference in the constitution of government – consent, it is allowed, is the spring – the form is the mode in which the people choose to direct their affairs, and the magistrates are but trustees to put that mode in force.
21 It will not be denied that this people, of any under heaven, have a right of living under a government of their own choosing.
22 That government originally consented to, which is in practice what it purports to be in theory, is a government of choice; on the contrary, that which is essentially different in practice from its appearance in theory, however it may be in letter a government of choice, it never can be so in spirit.
23 Of this latter kind appear to me to be the proceedings of the federal Convention; they are presented as a frame of government purely republican and perfectly consistent with the individual governments in the Union.
24 It is declared to be constructed for national purposes only and not calculated to interfere with domestic concerns.
25 You are told that the rights of the people are very amply secured, and when the wheels of it are put in motion, it will wear a milder aspect than its present one.
26 Whereas the very contrary of all this doctrine appears to be true.
27 Upon an attentive examination you can pronounce it nothing less than a government, which in a few years, will degenerate to a complete aristocracy, armed with powers unnecessary in any case to bestow, and which in its vortex swallows up every other government upon the continent.
28 In short, my fellow citizens, it can be said to be nothing less than a hasty stride to universal empire in this western world, flattering – very flattering – to young ambitious minds but fatal to the liberties of the people.
29 The cord is strained to the very utmost.
30 There is every spice of the sic jubeo possible in the composition.
31 Your consent is requested because it is essential to the introduction of it; after having received confirmation, your complaints may increase the whistling of the wind, and they will be equally regarded.
32 It cannot be doubted at this day by any men of common sense that there is a charm in politics.
33 That persons who enter reluctantly into office become [habituated], grow fond of it and are loath to resign it.
34 They feel themselves flattered and elevated, and are apt to forget their constituents until the time returns that they again feel the want of them.
35 They uniformly exercise all the powers granted to them, and ninety-nine in a hundred are for grasping at more.
36 It is this passionate thirst for power which has produced different branches to exercise different departments and mutual checks upon those branches.
37 The [aristocratic has] ever been found to have the most influence, and the people in most countries have been particularly attentive in providing checks against it.
38 Let us see if it is the case here.
39 A President, a Senate, and a House of Representatives are proposed.
40 The Judicial Department is at present out of the question, being separated excepting in impeachments.
41 The Legislative is divided between the People who are the [democratic], and the Senate who are the [aristocratic] part, and the Executive between the same Senate and the President who represents the [monarchic] branch.
42 In the construction of this system, their interests are put in opposite scales.
43 If they are exactly balanced, the government will remain perfect; if there is a [preponderance], it will firmly prevail.
44 After the first four years, each senator will hold his seat for the term of six years.
45 This length of time will be amply sufficient of itself to remove any checks that he may have upon his [independence] from the fear of a future election.
46 He will consider that it is a serious portion of his life after the age of thirty that places of honor and trust are not generally obtained unsolicited.
47 The same means that placed him there may be again made use of; his influence and his abilities arising from his opportunities will, during the whole term, increase those means; he will have a complete negative upon all laws that shall be general or that shall favor individuals, and a voice in the appointment of all officers in the United States.
48 Thus habituated to power, and living in the daily practice of granting favors and receiving solicitations, he may hold himself completely independent of the people and at the same time ensure his election.
49 If there remains even a risk, the blessed assistance of a little well-distributed money will remove it.
50 With respect to the Executive, the Senate excepting in nomination, have a negative upon the President, and if we but a moment attended to their situation, and to his and to the power of persuasion over the human mind, especially when employed in behalf of friends and favorites, we cannot hesitate to say that he will be infinitely less apt to disoblige them than they to refuse him.
51 It is far easier for twenty to gain over one, than one twenty; besides, in the one case we can ascertain where the denial comes from, and the other we cannot.
52 It is also highly improbable, but some of the members, perhaps a major part, will hold their seats during their lives.
53 We see it daily in our own government, and we see it in every government we are acquainted with, however many the cautions, and however frequent the elections.
54 These considerations, added to their share above mentioned in the Executive department, must give them a decided superiority over House of Representatives.
55 But that superiority is greatly enhanced when we consider the difference of time for which they are chosen.
56 They will have become adepts in the mystery of administration, while the House of Representatives may be composed perhaps two-thirds of members just entering into office little used to the course of business and totally unacquainted with the means made use of to accomplish it.
57 Very possible also in a country where they are total strangers.
58 But, my fellow citizens, the important question here arises, who are this House of Representatives?
59 “A representative Assembly,” says the celebrated Mr. Adams, “is the sense of the people, and the perfection of the portrait consists in the likeness.”
60 Can this Assembly be said to contain the sense of the people?
61 Do they resemble the people in any one single feature?
62 Do you represent your wants, your grievances, your wishes, in person?
63 If that is impracticable, have you a right to send one of your townsmen for that purpose?
64 Have you a right to send one from your county?
65 Have you a right to send more than one for every thirty thousand of you?
66 Can he be presumed knowing to your different, peculiar situations – your abilities to pay public taxes, when they ought to be abated, and when increased?
67 Or is there any possibility of giving him information?
68 All these questions must be answered in the negative.
69 But how are these men to be chosen?
70 Is there any other way than by dividing the Senate into districts?
71 May not you as well at once invest your annual assemblies with the power of choosing them – where is the essential difference?
72 The nature of the thing will admit of none.
73 Nay, you give them the power to prescribe the mode.
74 They may invest it in themselves.
75 If you choose them yourselves, you must take them upon credit and elect those persons you know only by common fame.
76 Even this privilege is denied you annually, through fear that you might withhold the shadow of control over them.
77 In this view of the system, let me sincerely ask you, where is the people in this House of Representatives?
78 Where is the boasted popular part of this much admired system?
79 Are they not cousins, [germane] in every sense to the Senate?
80 May they not with propriety be termed an assistant [aristocratic] branch who will be infinitely more inclined to co-operate and compromise with each other than to be the careful guardians of the rights of their constituents?
81 Who is there among you would not start at being told, that instead of your present House of Representatives consisting of members chosen from every town, your future houses were to consist of but ten in number and these to be chosen by districts?
82 What man among you would betray his country and approve of it?
83 And yet how infinitely preferable to the plan proposed?
84 In the one case, the elections would be annual, the persons elected would reside in the center of you, their interests would be yours, they would be subject to your immediate control, and nobody to consult in their deliberations.
85 But in the other, they are chosen for double the time, during which, however well disposed, they become strangers to the very people choosing them, they reside at a distance from you, you have no control over them, you cannot observe their conduct, and they have to consult and finally be guided by twelve other states whose interests are in all material points directly opposed to yours.
86 Let me again ask you, what citizen is there in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that would deliberately consent laying aside the mode proposed, that the several senates of the several states should be the popular branch and together form one national House of Representatives?
87 And yet one moment’s attention will evince to you that this blessed proposed representation of the people, this apparent faithful mirror, this striking likeness, is to be still further refined and more [aristocratic] four times told.
88 Where now is the exact balance which has been so diligently attended to?
89 Where lies the security of the people?
90 What assurances have they that either their taxes will not be exacted, but in the greatest emergencies and then sparingly, or that standing armies will be raised and supported for the very plausible purpose only of cantoning them upon their frontiers?
91 There is but one answer to these questions.
92 They have none.
93 Nor was it intended by the makers they should have for meaning to make a different use of the latter, they never will be at a loss for ways and means to expend the former.
94 They do not design to beg a second time.
95 Knowing the danger of frequent applications to the people, they ask for the whole at once and are now by their conduct, tearing and absolutely haunting of you into a compliance.
96 If you choose all these things should take place, by all means gratify them.
97 Go and establish this government which is unanimously confessed imperfect, yet incapable of alteration.
98 [Entrust] it to men, subject to the same unbounded passions and infirmities as yourselves, possessed with an insatiable thirst for power, and many of them carrying in them vices, [though tinseled] and concealed, yet in themselves not less dangerous than those more naked and exposed.
99 But in the meantime, add an additional weight to the stone that now covers the remains of the great Warren and Montgomery; prepare an apology for the blood and treasure, profusely spent to obtain those rights which you now so timely part with.
100 Conceal yourselves from the ridicule of your enemies, and bring your New England spirits to a level with the contempt of mankind.
101 Henceforth you may sit yourselves down with propriety and say, “Blessed are they that never expect, for they shall not be disappointed.”
John DeWitt’s Critique
This is a mighty blast, and if DeWitt errs in certain specifics, his overall case that the federal government this new Constitution mandates will be aristocratic, unresponsive and successively removed from its people is, in the light of subsequent history, difficult to deny.
First, a side note that will become something more, DeWitt's apologia for having expressed an opinion on the matter in the first place.
3 The freedom of the press has, in consequence thereof, been esteemed one of its [civil liberty's] safeguards.
4 That freedom gives the right at all times to every citizen to lay his sentiments in a decent manner before the people.
There was no First Amendment yet, there was no Bill of Rights, and yet here the reader perceives its seeds and the conviction that such a right belongs to “every citizen” and not exclusively to a professional class of journalists. It is in accordance with this right that DeWitt pens the following, and whether it be accurate or not, it at least broaches the topic.
It is November 1787 as he writes, some sixty to ninety days by his reckoning before a decision in the matter must be finalized – it was in actuality to be another eight months. There is once again a sense of urgency and an obvious apprehension that such a decision, active “for succeeding ages” (6), may be made in haste or from momentary passions fed by well known advocates.
9 It has many zealous advocates, and they have attempted, at least as far as their modesty would permit, to monopolize our gazettes with their encomiums upon it.
10 With the people they have to manage, I would hint to them, their zeal is not their best weapon, and exertions of such a kind, artful attempts to seize the moment, do seldom tend either to elucidate and explain principles or ensure success.
It is a caution against any attempt to pass the document through temporary popular acclamation and a warning of backlash should it be attempted. Contemporary political observers will smile at its relevance today.
To the main case, DeWitt fears that the structure of the proposed new government will lead to the accession to power of what might become a new aristocracy. One understands this alarm in view of how recently the country had discarded the old one. DeWitt is not subtle about accusing the proponents of the Constitution of precisely such a design: ambitious men (13) waiting to make it a stepping stone to posts of honor, men who openly profess to be tired of a government of choice and pray for one of force (14), and those who desire an absolute monarchy (15). It is difficult to judge how accurate these accusations were in the absence of specific names, but on the whole most modern observers might be forgiven for suspecting DeWitt of overstating his case in this regard.
Both in DeWitt's previous piece and in the closing of this one, he indicates a belief that the current plan, once accepted, will be:
97 ...confessed imperfect, yet incapable of alteration.
The purpose of this piece is to raise concerns that the plan will be different in application than in theory (20), and to warn that by the principle of Rousseau's social contract it may fail by dissimulation.
17 All contracts are to be construed according to the meaning of the parties at the time of making them...
19 If any unfair practices are made use of, if its real tendency is concealed by either party, or any advantage taken in the execution of it, it is in itself fraudulent and may be [voided].
That is a clear warning of the consequences of a legalistic bait-and-switch, a tendency which DeWitt foresaw, knowing it to be an innate characteristic of any would-be ruling class. What did he see in the proposal that conflicted with its ostensible purpose?
27 ...nothing less than a government, which in a few years, will degenerate to a complete aristocracy...which in its vortex swallows up every other government upon the continent.
He repeats his disdain for the proponents.
30 There is every spice of the sic jubeo [“thus I command”] possible in the composition.
One is disinclined to completely cede that point to DeWitt. Except for an emotive preamble, the Constitution is notoriously matter-of-fact in its composition, by both today’s standard and that of DeWitt’s. The reader gets another hint of the social contract theory.
31 Your consent is requested because it is essential to the introduction of it...
After which, consent will no longer be required, and complaints will be ignored. Nor is there any real provision for the continued voluntary acceptance of such a contract by succeeding generations.
Lastly, before he delves into the specifics of the plan, DeWitt warns about the tendency of those with a little power to grasp for more (35). To the plan, DeWitt considers that:
39 A President, a Senate, and a House of Representatives are proposed.
40 The Judicial Department is at present out of the question, being separated excepting in impeachments.
This may strike the modern reader as somewhat strange until it is recalled that the principle of judicial review, that is, the ability of the Supreme Court to invalidate legislation as unconstitutional, was yet to be established in Marbury v. Madison (1803). Yet the actual participation of the Judicial branch in the impeachment process is limited to the Chief Justice presiding only in the case of impeachment of a President, and the judgment of such cases to be strictly within the purview of the Senate (Article I, Section 3). It is perhaps a misreading of DeWitt’s, and not the last one.
41 The Legislative is divided between the People who are the [democratic], and the Senate who are the [aristocratic] part, and the Executive between the same Senate and the President who represents the [monarchic] branch.
The reference is clearly to the popularly elected House and the appointed Senate providing the poles within Congress. However, DeWitt’s impression that the Executive branch includes the Senate is contrary to the very clear language of Article II. DeWitt’s social model is based on king, aristocracy and people, reminiscent of the French Estates, and although it was, for the time, the very latest in social theory, it was not in fact reflected in the proposed Constitution. What he means by this model is that the checks and balances within the Constitution are intended to be checks and balances between these conflicting elements of society. With respect to the three actual branches of government, it is demonstrably true that:
42 In the construction of this system, their interests are put in opposite scales.
But in fact it wasn't balanced quite as DeWitt's apparent conception of social modeling represents. Nevertheless, he continues with the prediction that the Senate's members, being only up for replacement every six years, will tend toward aristocracy, even to some of its members holding their seats for life (52), a point which a study of the Senate in the opening years of the 21st Century must find to be valid.
48 Thus habituated to power, and living in the daily practice of granting favors and receiving solicitations, he may hold himself completely independent of the people and at the same time ensure his election.
49 If there remains even a risk, the blessed assistance of a little well-distributed money will remove it.
It is difficult to fault DeWitt’s prescience here. It is to be recalled that the popular election of the Senate (17th Amendment, 1913) was intended to address both the difficulties inherent in state governments naming them and outright bribery, no fewer than nine cases of which were brought before the Senate between 1866 and 1906. In fact, it shifted that bribery into the form of pork-barreling rather than ending it.
Twice more (50, 54) DeWitt presses a conception of the relation of the Senate to the Executive that is not evident in Article I. From there he proceeds to a criticism of the structure and function of the House of Representatives. It is decidedly not, in the classical sense, democratic.
60 Can this Assembly be said to contain the sense of the people?
62 Do you represent your wants, your grievances, your wishes, in person?
63 If that is impracticable, have you a right to send one of your townsmen for that purpose?
64 Have you a right to send one from your county?
65 Have you a right to send more than one for every thirty thousand of you?
The answer, of course, is no. In fact, today it is quite a bit less directly representative than that – the current House has one member for roughly every 689,000 citizens. DeWitt – and probably everyone else involved, including the Constitution’s proponents – would have been horrified. Moreover, it is that very House that controls the rules under which its members are elected and serve.
73 Nay, you give them the power to prescribe the mode.
74 They may invest it in themselves.
So they have, and more – they have exempted themselves from obedience to legislation they pass under a far wider scope than originally anticipated, have private benefits, vote their own salaries and enjoy a pension plan available to them after only a single term.
DeWitt would prefer an annual election to ensure accountability (76). With all this in mind, plus the modern popular election of Senators, he asks:
79 Are they not cousins, [germane] in every sense to the Senate?
80 May they not with propriety be termed an assistant [aristocratic] branch who will be infinitely more inclined to co-operate and compromise with each other than to be the careful guardians of the rights of their constituents?
In fact, that is precisely what they have become. And those same tendencies toward elitism, aristocracy, lack of accountability and lack of closeness to the citizens they represent are evident in the modern House. That is not to say that the relative shortness of a two year term is not significant, as the current furious debate over health care demonstrates so vividly. DeWitt is only partially correct on the issue even after more than two centuries. It is, to be sure, a flaw, but not apparently a fatal one.
Finally, DeWitt points out the potential power for abuse of a federal government that is so removed from the direct contact with the citizen.
89 Where lies the security of the people?
90 What assurances have they that...their taxes will not be exacted, but in the greatest emergencies and then sparingly...
92 They have none.
No, we do not, rather the opposite. In summation, DeWitt has predicted the tendency of government toward elitism, toward the formation of a quasi-aristocratic ruling class trending away from accountability, and away from direct daily relationships with its citizens. It is a systemic tendency away from representation and toward rule, and it was built into the plan from the very beginning.
But it is obvious that DeWitt expected the new government to exhibit these failings fairly rapidly. Why then has it taken so very long for the system proposed, and eventually ratified, to fall into its current state of bloated ossification? That also was built in. And so was the remedy, so long as the citizens are still capable of the courage required to use it.
Joseph Warren and the Masonic Connection
John DeWitt recalls Joseph Warren and Richard Montgomery in stirring language at the end of his essay. Montgomery, who died at Quebec, was Irish-born and a New Yorker, possessing little connection to Massachusetts. But Dr. Joseph Warren was another story.
The stratification of American town society presented occasional opportunities for talent to break through the barrier of birth, else American society would have looked like the Hudson Valley, where the wealthy patroon families ran a feudal arrangement not much different from mediaeval Europe. In some regions, local churches permitted people of different social classes to mix, even though pews were passed down in a family from one generation to the next. What was universal throughout the Colonies was the presence of Freemasonry and its leveling effect.
In a town’s Masonic lodge, the Grand Master might be a shopkeeper or farmer, and the members of the town gentry might occupy a lower stratum within the lodge. This permitted townsmen to mingle in a rough equality that contributed to the growth of democratic practice.
In Boston, it was difficult to discern the line that separated St. Andrew’s Masonic Lodge from the Sons of Liberty, the Committee of Correspondence and the Minute Men. At the center of each was Dr. Joseph Warren, Grand Master of St. Andrew’s.
Warren had gone to Harvard to study medicine, hung up his shingle as a physician, and immediately plunged into the whirlwind of revolutionary politics with the Stamp Act. His annual speech on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre became a major event in town, with Americans cheering him on and British soldiers heckling him.
In 1774, Warren authored the Suffolk Resolves, which were endorsed by the First Continental Congress and defined the American position against the actions of the British government. The Resolves were passed to the Masonic lodges in America where they were read to the membership. Then they were read in the town squares. It was reported that grown men wept when they heard Warren’s words, because if a man as good as Dr. Warren favored a strong stance against the Mother Country, then that cause was truly righteous.
It was Warren who organized the network of riders that warned of British troop movements on the eve of the attack on the arsenal at Concord. In the rolling battle than went from Concord back to Boston, Warren treated the wounded while under enemy fire.
His final battle was Breed’s Hill where he was one of the last Americans behind the defensive parapet to leave – after his troops had slaughtered nearly half the British assault force. A musket ball hit him in the head, ending the life of one of America’s greatest, but least known, heroes. He was buried where he fell on Breed’s Hill and then disinterred a number of times as British officers wanted to make absolutely sure that their greatest enemy in Boston was dead. The decapitation of the corpse for trophy use in London was prevented by a British officer who himself was a Freemason.
Nearly a year later, his lodge brothers went to the battleground and dug up his moldering remains once more, returning them to Boston for a proper Masonic funeral.
Discussion Topics
Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution
5 Oct 1787, Centinel #1
6 Oct 1787, James Wilson’s Speech at the State House
8 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #1
9 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #2
18 Oct 1787, Brutus #1
22 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #1
27 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #2
27 Oct 1787, Federalist #1
31 Oct 1787, Federalist #2
3 Nov 1787, Federalist #3
Does anyone think there has ever been a discussion at the DailyKos concerning the Federalist papers or debates on the Constitution?
Bttt for the others
And perhaps at his political naivete. His logic is compelling to those who study history but, as we know, logic does not always carry the day. Zeal is often as much or more of an influence on political movements as any logical argument. Unless a logical argument is able to impassion its audience, it will remain only for posterity.
9 It has many zealous advocates, and they have attempted, at least as far as their modesty would permit, to monopolize our gazettes with their encomiums upon it.
10 With the people they have to manage, I would hint to them, their zeal is not their best weapon, and exertions of such a kind, artful attempts to seize the moment, do seldom tend either to elucidate and explain principles or ensure success.
He certainly understands zeal and its effects but his morality and perhaps lack of political savvy prohibit him from using it.
The bottom line is that people, being human, are not always compelled by logic.
3) “The freedom of the press has, in consequence thereof, been esteemed one of its safeguards.”
Of all the woe's that DeWitt anticipated he failed to anticipate that one perspective would capture and dominate political thought for 60 years. Even as late at the Civil War..publishers/papers were clearly slanted but they made no pretense of their bias.
24)It is declared to be constructed for national purposes only and not calculated to interfere with domestic concerns.
Nothing but raucous laughter here.
31)”Your consent is requested because it is essential to the introduction of it; after having received confirmation, your complaints may increase the whistling of the wind, and they will be equally regarded. “
Consent of the governed seems to be anachronism.
32-35) “ It cannot be doubted at this day by any men of common sense that there is a charm in politics. That persons who enter reluctantly into office become [habituated], grow fond of it and are loath to resign it.
They feel themselves flattered and elevated, and are apt to forget their constituents until the time returns that they again feel the want of them. They uniformly exercise all the powers granted to them, and ninety-nine in a hundred are for grasping at more.”
Need I mention the Kennedy seat.
One of the failings of the constitution was it's lack of term limits...Obvious from these writings the founders anticipated the rise of a permanent political class but they failed to act on these concerns.
45)”This length of time will be amply sufficient of itself to remove any checks that he may have upon his [independence] from the fear of a future election. “
Reference remarks 32-35
98)”[Entrust] it to men, subject to the same unbounded passions and infirmities as yourselves, possessed with an insatiable thirst for power, and many of them carrying in them vices, [though tinseled] and concealed, yet in themselves not less dangerous than those more naked and exposed. “
One of the other failings of the constitution was allowing a group of men...to exempt themselves from the laws that they saddle the rest of us with.
Even as late at the Civil War..publishers/papers were clearly slanted but they made no pretense of their bias.
Actually it was as late as World War II. The Mainstream Media, as we know it today, espouses a bland, elitist, corporatist liberaralism far removed from the muscular liberalism of the New Deal generation. Today, eight companies control most TV stations, most radio stations, most general circulation magazines, most publshing concerns, all networks and all movie studios. If you research the organizational affiliations of the members of the boards of directors of these eight companies, your hair will stand on end.
Consent of the governed seems to be anachronism.
A disturbing thought. Latest polling indicates that most people believe the government no longer enjoys the consent of the governed, which is the American version of the Chinese "mandate of heaven." This would indicate that if elections don't solve the problem, "politics by other means" is the next logical step.
One of the failings of the constitution was it's lack of term limits...Obvious from these writings the founders anticipated the rise of a permanent political class but they failed to act on these concerns.
This was a major bone of contention at the Convention. There was a need to balance the threat of a permanent political class against the need for institutional memory, particularly the kind of memory that understands how the levers of power work.
During the first half of the 19th Century, presidents came and went, and most had little impact. The country was run by three men in Congress -- Webster, Clay and Calhoun -- and when they died within a few years of each other, events spun out of control, and the country broke apart.
Institutuional memory is important, but there needs to be a balance.
One of the other failings of the constitution was allowing a group of men...to exempt themselves from the laws that they saddle the rest of us with.
This is a good one. At the time of the Founding, the Framers could not conceive of the men in politics exempting themselves from the laws they passed. This was a matter of honor, and the code of the time simply could not imagine congressmen and senators behaving like the inherited nobility of England.
On the road or I'da chimed in earlier. A BTT for the evening crowd.
I've referred a couple of times now to the French Estates, and so for those who haven't googled it up or remember it from school it's this - the French government at the time was, of course, a monarchy, but its structure revolved around the First Estate, the clergy, the Second Estate, the aristocracy, and the Third Estate, the commoners. The King was nominally in no Estate at all, which led to problems when the Third estate started chopping up the Second and exiling or impoverishing the First.
Within the First estate there was, at the time of the Etats-General, a division between those clergy originating from the commoners and those, the "upper" clergy, who were from the nobility. That was actually a fairly late innovation, somewhat reminiscent of the striation that took place in Italy during the Renaissance. And it meant that the First Estate was, by the time of the writing of the Federalist Papers, enough of a reflection of the other two to disable it from intervention in the conflict between aristocracy and commoners.
That's the model reflected in DeWitt's imagery of the proposed Constitution and how it might reflect society as a whole. In the end, it did after a fashion, but it wasn't French society that it ended up mirroring, nor was it the English one whose Parliament and Common Law were the Constitution's obvious progenitors. It was truly a new society, still in the process of formation.
One notes with amusement that the French Revolution included, at least at this point, a press that was to name itself a Fourth Estate, equal in importance to but independent of the others. Our own media appear to have similar notions of self-aggrandizement but have yet to demand an actual chamber of Congress to themselves. That does not mean they don't think they deserve one. ;-)
As a Mason, I can testify that the most common portrait I’ve seen in Masonic buildings is Washington and not Warren.
Now on to the concept of annual elections. The idea is noble. The people will reject unresponsive politicians almost immediately. It sounds like ideal solution as long as one side is presented. The truth is that all the ivory tower eggheads in Washington won elections. Mostly, they’ve won several elections. Their records are known, their ideas are known, and they are re-elected. So when we rant about the fools in government, it’s really a fallacious argument. They’re in government because people put them there, and they often do pretty much what was expected of them. Are we surprised when Nancy Pelosi votes for a liberal law?
We shouldn’t be surprised. The people of San Fancisco put her there because of what she promised to do, and now she’s doing it. Her electorate loves her. She promises to take money from boogeymen and give it to nice people. Her electorate may be stupid, but they also can vote. Now imagine that she had to run for office every year. Who here thinks that this would make her less liberal?
She would be worse. She’d have to throw things out to the majority of the district constantly. It’s obvious what they want, and what kind of candidate they will support. If someone came along next year, propped up some imaginary crisis, and promised to throw more money at it than Pelosi, she would lose. An even worse liberal would take her place. How do you beat someone who throws money at the voters? Promise to throw more money at them. Promise to do more populist things, and if those things ignore the applicable laws, promise to find the means to do it anyway.
This is what we elect in this country, a gang of babbling dopes that believe their own press releases. The idea that an honest press might somehow combat this trend is laughable. DeWitt complained about media bias and the country didn’t even exist yet. Yet it must not have been so bad since his own letters were published. Small news sources were easy to create and as small institutions, they were better able to respond to change.
What existed in 1787 disappeared for a long time in this country. It’s only returning now. The internet is an open forum for ideas. The effect of this website in the 2004 election is dramatic proof of that. A small town conversation can reach the national interest. Now we shall see for how long foolish ideas can succeed.
Nah, ya think? lol
“This would indicate that if elections don’t solve the problem, “politics by other means” is the next logical step. “
I fear we are getting close.
I know this is a huge amount of work.. I am grateful.
This is my first opportunity to take these through , but with the blessing of being able to do it both methodically and with a guide.. I am blessed.
These are formidable documents .
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