Posted on 10/25/2002 7:00:46 AM PDT by William McKinley
I am in the process of reading The Conservative Mind, and think that as I find particular passages of interest or relevance I will take a moment to type them in and share them. I posted last week the following excerpt:
The Conservative Mind: Burke & The Politics of Prescription (An Excerpt)
One precedent at a time, the statists are over-writing the Constitution, and changing the US into a "parliamentary democracy" in all but name.
I believe it is Ben Franklin who has been proven right:
Mr. President I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right-Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administred.
On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Franklin, one of the few Americans of the time with international repute, rose to give a speech to the Convention prior to the signing of the final draft of the Constitution. Too weak to actually give the speech himself, he had fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson deliver the speech. It is considered a masterpiece.
It appears here as reported in Madison's notes on the Convention for September 17, 1787.
His arguments for a proper division of powers have become so familiar to Americans that they may appear wearisome truisms. But it is Adams who made them truisms: his learning and his candor, almost unaided, obstructed in the United States a flooding intellectual sympathy with French theories of idyllic benevolence, omnicompetent single assemblies, and unitary states. He sacrificed his popularity in order to oppose these revolutionary opinions, but in the long run he and his friends prevailed; and modern American government, however disfigured in his eyes by haphazard introduction of the instruments of "direct democracy," nevertheless probably would seem to him sufficient vindication of his political struggle. He was the truest Federalist of them all; for where Hamilton accepted the federal system merely as a tolerable substitute for central government, and where Pickering and Dwight and the other Hartford Convention men adhered to the federal idea only when it suited New England's interest, Adams believed in the federal principle as the best possible government for America. More than any other nation in the world, the United States cling affectionately to the idea of political balance; and in large measure, this is the harvest of Adams' practical conservatism.I subscribe to this point of view. I believe that by and large, our system is as Adams envisioned and is, as Franklin hoped, possibly the best that can be hoped. I believe that whatever distortions exist in it are a result, not of any failings of the federalists, but rather in the fault of those who subsequently tinkered with the balances crafted by men like Adams and Madison; that when we introduced direct democratic elections to the Senate we altered the balance of power between away from the states in ways that have had negative reprecussions. But for the most part, a strong federal government is a necessity, lest the union be divided by secession or overtaken by a conquering rival nation. It just needs to be checked, and the liberties we enjoy every day suggest that it is being checked, although I freely admit that the regulations and the taxes suggest we should reign it in more.
The "liberties we enjoy" are decreasing day by day. The Federalists got their way, and we are screwed. Sure, the Anti-Federalists bitched until they got the Bill of Rights included in the Constitution, but the "strong central government" types have been chipping and chopping away at them since that time, and succeeding on almost all fronts. Soon they will exist only on paper, and so warped by "legal precedent" as to be meaningless.
The "liberties we enjoy" are decreasing day by dayI don't agree with this perspective. I believe that in aggregate, our liberties are plentiful and in many ways more prevalent than earlier in our history. Go to any state and examine some of the older "blue" laws. Compare a black man of today with one of 200 years ago, or even 100 years ago. Compare the freedoms women have today, as compared to the past.
And not all of these advancements of "liberty" have been positive; we have now a freedom to abort, which is a destructive and corrosive moral failing.
Are there things where liberties are constricted more now than in the past? Certainly. Are there things where liberties are more expansive now than in the past? Just as certainly.
For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?..."perfect production" -- ?
That's my problem with Franklin. He was too much the theorist or rationalist.
What he characterizes as "prejudices", "passions", "opinion" and "local interest" was their disparagment of theory and reliance on history and practical common sense. (See Forrest MacDonald) Both Franklin, who was there but elderly and sleeping some of the time, and Jefferson who was abroad, looked down on the Constitution for the same reason they favored the abstract rationalism, a priori reasoning and metaphysics that led to the French Revolution and all the Terror: They were men of the mind and not the world.
No, my friend, Franklin was an admirable animator, but a poor craftsman.
It is easy for complainers to say the Anti-Federalists were "right", because they never got the second convention they wanted, and so there is no way of knowing what might have come out of a second convention. Why should anyone think the result would have been better? Everyone was represented. They debated. They deliberated. Then they submitted it to the public. What the heck else could any of them have done?
In that practical sense, it seems to me, Franklin was right to say this was the best they were going to do, regardless of whatever criticisms he might have had with it, or upon what basis those criticisms were formed. But hey, what do I know?
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