What Woods, a founding member of the Southern nationalist League of the South doesn't say is that Jefferson's and Madison's views changed over time. Some of the things that were done in the late 1790s, from Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts to Jefferson's call for nullification make poor precedents for later Americans: in those days the two parties were convinced that their opponents were out to establish a tyranny, so that all manner of countermeasures were permissable. Confronted with serious party divisions for the first time, the founders interpreted them in terms of the violent enmities of the Revolutionary years, and didn't always come up with what later generations considered to be the best solutions for running a two-party system.
What Woods, a founding member of the Southern nationalist League of the South doesn't say is that Jefferson's and Madison's views changed over time.
Or; -- perhaps their views were corrupted by party politics.
Some of the things that were done in the late 1790s, from Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts to Jefferson's call for nullification make poor precedents for later Americans:
Why is the concept of nullification a "poor precedent"? It could serve well to check & balance our current rush to socialism, no?
in those days the two parties were convinced that their opponents were out to establish a tyranny, so that all manner of countermeasures were permissable. Confronted with serious party divisions for the first time, the founders interpreted them in terms of the violent enmities of the Revolutionary years, and didn't always come up with what later generations considered to be the best solutions for running a two-party system.
I'd say our present day "best solutions" are losing us our Republic, wouldn't you?
very nicely put, "x".
You are correct on the chronology of the name "Republican" and most likely correct about the changing of opinion (Jefferson, Madison) as the new nation found its moorings. Just more reason not to mindlessly venerate everything the Founders did at every stage of the nation's development. Mistakes are made, inevitably, when attempting what has never existed before. The Alien and Sedition Act(s?): prime example. Perhaps the Civil War itself is another. We are STILL involved in an ongoing political experiment, with maximal individual freedom and minimal government intrusion as the goal, and mistakes will be made - indeed, MUST be made - in order to define the limits of our ability to manage others. I know it's counter-intuitive to see the various (nefarious) expansions this way, but as they fail (as is inevitable with any wrongly-constructed governmental over-reaching) we learn - and our children learn - a valuable lesson about the scope and power of government.