Posted on 07/05/2011 8:53:47 PM PDT by neverdem
There's little that's intelligent or informed about Time magazine editor Richard Stengel's article "One Document, Under Siege" (June 23, 2011). It contains many grossly ignorant statements about our Constitution. If I believed in conspiracies, I'd say Stengel's article is part of a leftist agenda to undermine respect for the founding values of our nation.
Stengel says: "The framers were not gods and were not infallible. Yes, they gave us, and the world, a blueprint for the protection of democratic freedoms -- freedom of speech, assembly, religion -- but they also gave us the idea that a black person was three-fifths of a human being, that women were not allowed to vote and that South Dakota should have the same number of senators as California, which is kind of crazy. And I'm not even going to mention the Electoral College."
My column last week addressed the compromise whereby each slave was counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College.
Had slaves been counted as whole people, slaveholding states would have had much greater political power. I agree the framers were not gods and were not infallible, but they had far greater wisdom and principle than today's politicians.
The framers held democracy and majority rule in deep contempt. As a matter of fact, the term democracy appears in none of our founding documents. James Madison argued that "measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."
John Adams said: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
Stengel's majoritarian vision sees it as anti-democratic...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
This right here is a distortion. The Constitution came out of Philly intentionally devoid of a Bill of Rights, and James Madison opposed a Bill of Right up until that position became politically untenable.
The framers didn't give us a bill of rights--their opponents did.
Liberals are sickening.
Here's another laugher. The framers sought to expand national power. The federalists trusted the central authority far more than they trusted the states. This is one reason conservatism remains largely ineffective--a basic misunderstanding of our own history:
“A national government ought to be able to support itself without the aid or interference of the State governments, ...therefore it was necessary to have full sovereignty. Even with corporate rights the States will be dangerous to the national government, and ought to be extinguished, new modified, or reduced to a smaller scale.”-- Alexander Hamilton
" I have well considered the subject, and am convinced that no amendment of the confederation can answer the purpose of a good government, so long as State sovereignties do, in any shape, exist.” -- Alexander Hamilton
"I apprehend the greatest danger is from the encroachment of the States on the national government”--James Madison
"Conceiving that an individual independence of the States is utterly irreconcileable with their aggregate sovereignty, and that a consolidation of the whole into one simple republic would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable, I have sought for middle ground, which may at once support a due supremacy of the national authority, and not exclude the local authorities wherever they can be subordinately useful."--James Madison
"Under the proposed Govt. the powers of the States will be much farther reduced. According to the views of every member, the Genl. Govt. will have powers far beyond those exercised by the British Parliament, when the States were part of the British Empire."-- James Madison, June 29, 1787
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Walter Williams bump!
This 56K dialup FReeper thanks you for linking to the printer friendly page.
The driving force of the 3/5 compromise should not be overlooked; this is often used to show how southerners thought of blacks as less than a person, when in fact it was the north that insisted that they not be treated as individual people because of how it would tilt representation in favor of the slave states.
Not defending slavery here, but facts are facts.
It's a laugher all right, because there were also a huge group of anti-federalists who gave us the Bill of Rights. And Hamilton, BTW, was a traitor who tried to kill the country at it's very birth with enforced permanent debt, de facto banking control of the goverment, and the virtual elimination of States Rights.
The real "framers" knew that the States were the point, but that the Articles of Confederation didn't allow for enough federal unity to deal with foreign powers - and that the BALANCE between the States and the Fed was the real problem, not choosing or favoring one or the other.
Agreed. You had the hard-core antifeds, opposed to the Constitution no matter what (that’s where I would have come down.) Then you had the squishy moderates, sort of the Gang of 14 of their day, who agreed to ratify the Constitution if they could secure a bill of rights. So it’s a mixed bag. We’re probably better off with a bill of rights. But the Constitution, as written, was a mistake, compared to what could have been.
56k??? Dude!
A BTT. It's probably a quibble for which I should apologize, but the Framers include anti-Federalists who did give us the Bill of Rights - Jefferson, for one, who wrote the first one for Virginia. George Mason, who I would certainly consider a Framer. The federalist Madison as well, who first opposed and then embraced and then penned them. I've forgotten more people than I've remembered.
No need to apologize. Quibble away!
Of course you are correct. But understand, the majority of Americans are drooling morons with no understanding at all of what you are talking about. I doubt more than 3% of Americans know what you are talking about.
feeling generous?? :) I would put the number less than 1%
TommyJeff, though, I'd have to call a Framer even if he wasn't physically at the Constitutional Convention. The constitution of the State of Virginia was deeply and obviously the model for the federal one. Well, one of them, anyway.
counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person was a dang sight better than 90% of the world was treating them at the time.
Leftists love to compare them with todays values
None less than John Hancock refused to be a part of the Constitutional Convention, famously stating that he "smelled a rat." It's important to remember, I think, that the founders worked under battle conditions. Great Britain wasn't clueless - Hamilton & Co. were sending steady reports, and the infiltration and subversion of the Convention process was being intensely pursued. That's why they sealed up their hall and sweated in the heat and humidity of a Philly summer to try to dodge the spies.
Philosophically, however, even with all the time in the world and air conditioning (rather than inventing it's practical application for the first time in the history of the world while facing down guns), how exactly does one express the concept of negative rights? Legally it's STILL difficult without adding several thousand pages of philosophy to the actual statements of law, which, by their very purpose, would be fairly concise. So while I can see why the BOR was initially left out, I can also see why real-world necessities almost forced their inclusions. YET - those very inclusions have given the impression of positive law even to this day, and caused no end of troubles as a result.
When Franklin declared, "a republic, madam, if you can keep it," he wasn't just indicating a defense by arms - but also education. For without an educated public, the philosophical underpinings of negative rights would be lost, and with it, the country. Which is EXACTLY why the Left has so massively invaded acadamia.
And look at the horrific results.
It's true the federal constitution was modelled to some degree on various state constitutions. But the "mixed sovereignty" (a total mistake, imo) of the US Constitution was novel, and is the crux of the matter.
The ways in which the national constitution resembles various state constitutions are trivial. The import of the national constitution was centralized, consolidated power at the expense of the states. I personally think it's no coincidence Jefferson was (conveniently) in Europe at the time. Had he been a VA delegate, I'm not sure he'd have stood for what was adopted.
A fascinating statement. I don't know the answer, I'll have to give it a little research.
I think you meant Patrick Henry, but I get the point. I also get the point that a Bill of Rights presents its own set of problems. I think on the whole, if we were going to be stuck with the mega-republic created by the Constitution, we were better off with a BoR and its problems, than we'd have been with the federal leviathan and no declared rights. And I trust those who advocated for it (the antifederalists) a hell of a lot more than their adversaries (the federalists.)
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