Posted on 04/08/2015 12:25:40 AM PDT by Jacquerie
There is nothing in which the generality of mankind are so much mistaken as when they talk of government. The different effects of it are obvious to everyone, but few can trace its causes.
Most men having undigested ideas of the nature of it, and attribute all public miscarriages to the corruption of mankind. They think the whole mass is infected, that it’s impossible to make any reformation, and so submit patiently to their country’s calamities, or else share in the spoil.
Whereas complaints of this kind are as old as the world, and every age has thought their own the worst, we have not only our own experience, but the example of all times, to prove that men in the same circumstances will do the same things, call them by what names of distinction you please.
A government is a mere piece of clockwork, and having such springs and wheels, must act in such a manner. And therefore the art is to constitute it so that it must move to the public advantage. It is certain that every man will act for his own interest, and all wise governments are founded upon that principle.
The whole mystery is only to make the interest of the governors and the governed the same.
This 1731 preface to a 1698 pamphlet noted the importance of assuming every man in government to be a rogue, and the utmost importance of designing a government around this threat. Nearly sixty years before our constitution, an Englishman wrote that it is silly to think any free people can trust their liberty to the virtue of elected officials.
Our framers accepted man for what he was then and is now, an imperfect and fallen creature who will look out for his personal interest long before he has a thought of serving the public interest. They designed a government to deal with man’s imperfect nature, a government that diffused legislative powers between the people and across smaller republics in the form of a congress composed of a House of Representatives and a Senate of the States.
The 17th Amendment not only upended the framers’ design, and overnight rendered a federal republic into a common democratic republic, it left behind a federal constitution without a federal government. We feel the effect of this contradiction today, as once proud states and the people in them have been reduced to pitiful supplicants in the face of executive tyranny.
Article V now.
Ditto. Big Time.
You could at least link to one of the online texts of this public domain work rather than linking to Amazon purchase pages.
I suppose in theory you could have contributed a worthwhile comment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.