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September 17, CONSTITUTION DAY
Free Republic ^ | 9/16/2020 | Loud Mime

Posted on 09/16/2020 12:05:49 PM PDT by Loud Mime

September 17th is CONSTITUTION DAY! It celebrates the finish of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. On that day, the elder statesman of the Convention, Benjamin Franklin, weakly handed a speech to Delegate James Wilson to be read to the members assembled.

Here is part of that speech:

“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.”

Have we reached that point?

This is good food for thought. What did Mr. Franklin mean by this? Does our national debt matter in this regard? What is our Constitution’s only guarantee? What does it mean? What are the Federalist Papers? Why were they written? Which delegates didn’t sign the Constitution and why?


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: constitution
I made up a small handout from this text and will be distributing them tomorrow, as I do every year.
1 posted on 09/16/2020 12:05:49 PM PDT by Loud Mime
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To: Jacquerie; Billthedrill; Publius

Ping


2 posted on 09/16/2020 12:06:41 PM PDT by Loud Mime ("Now, go and do your duty before darkness covers the earth." Michael Uhlmann (1939 - 2019))
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To: Loud Mime

Good job

“when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

are we there yet?


3 posted on 09/16/2020 12:11:28 PM PDT by griswold3 (Democratic Socialism is Slavery by Mob Rule)
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To: Loud Mime
And the White House Siege is supposed to start tomorrow. Don't think that's coincidental but I doubt the organizers realize the date significance.
4 posted on 09/16/2020 12:28:56 PM PDT by Spirit of Liberty (It's morning in America again!)
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To: griswold3
… 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. …
We are not quite there yet, I think. But more than just Franklin foretold it approaching.

And of course, the Constitution got changed multiple times into a form that Franklin and his peers would not recognize.
5 posted on 09/16/2020 1:15:38 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Olog-hai

<>The Constitution got changed multiple times into a form that Franklin and his peers would not recognize.<>

So true, and enabled by the self-inflicted 17th Amendment which in turn guaranteed Leftist judges who make law without fear of retribution or removal.


6 posted on 09/16/2020 2:05:00 PM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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To: Loud Mime


7 posted on 09/16/2020 2:06:50 PM PDT by MacNaughton
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To: Jacquerie
What will be the course of this revolution? Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. […]

In (the United States of) America, where a democratic constitution has already been established, the communists must make the common cause with the party which will turn this constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat—that is, with the agrarian National Reformers. …

— The Principles of Communism
The subversion was already in the planning stages back in 1847, even before the Civil War.
8 posted on 09/16/2020 3:03:22 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: MacNaughton

Second one is not Franklin, nor de Tocqueville, nor Hamilton, nor Jefferson. The earliest reference has it attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler (per Elmer T. Peterson of the Daily Oklahoman back in 1951), although it’s not in his written works.


9 posted on 09/16/2020 3:07:56 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Olog-hai
Historical quotes can be a mess. Mea culpa

WikiQuote - Ben Frankline
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

There is no evidence that Franklin ever actually said or wrote this, but it's remarkably similar to a quote often attributed, without proper sourcing, to Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexander Fraser Tytler:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

WikiQuote - Alexander Fraser Tytler
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

The earliest known attribution of this quote was October 20, 1948, in what appears to be an op-ed piece in The Daily Oklahoman under the byline Elmer T. Peterson, Elmer T. Peterson (20 October 1948). "This is the Hard Core of Freedom". Daily Oklahoman: p. 19.. The quote has not been found in Tytler's work. It has also been attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.

WikiQuote - Alexis de Tocqueville
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

This is a variant expression of a sentiment which is often attributed to Tocqueville or Alexander Fraser Tytler, but the earliest known occurrence is as an unsourced attribution to Tytler in "This is the Hard Core of Freedom" by Elmer T. Peterson in The Daily Oklahoman (9 December 1951):

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

10 posted on 09/16/2020 3:51:33 PM PDT by MacNaughton
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To: Loud Mime

This is it! This is when the Deep State mass arrests will commence!


11 posted on 09/16/2020 4:01:12 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Trust the plan of the 17th letter of the English alphabet!)
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To: Olog-hai

When I was working on my book I researched every quote to its origin; I was amazed how inaccurate some were.

Now on #3.


12 posted on 09/16/2020 5:12:15 PM PDT by Loud Mime ("Now, go and do your duty before darkness covers the earth." Michael Uhlmann (1939 - 2019))
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To: Spirit of Liberty

“ And the White House Siege is supposed to start tomorrow. Don’t think that’s coincidental but I doubt the organizers realize the date significance. ”

Beat me to it.


13 posted on 09/16/2020 8:27:09 PM PDT by jdsteel (Americans are Dreamers too!!!)
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To: Olog-hai

Until recently, I didn’t think that our very freedoms could depend on an electoral outcome. It doesn’t speak well for our republic when we’re only an election away from becoming another Venezuela.


14 posted on 09/17/2020 7:47:02 AM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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