Conservatives, Beware of Fred Thompson

He disappointed conservatives during his eight years in the Senate. Is there any reason to think this Washington insider and veteran trial lawyer would be any better as President?

The frustration of conservatives is understandable. Faced with the prospects of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney as the next Republican presidential candidate, many are pinning their hopes on former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Could this actor-politician be the new Ronald Reagan?

This is the second time conservatives have pinned their hopes on Thompson. When he was first elected in the Republican sweep of 1994, he was seen then as the “new Reagan”—a charismatic movie star turned politician. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole quickly picked Thompson to give the five-minute GOP rebuttal to President Clinton’s economic address, and no less than The New York Times swooned with its headline the next morning, “A Star Is Born.”

He turned out to be a shooting star—a dazzling flash in the sky, soon gone, not there dependably, night after night, like the Big Dipper. Or, as The Tennessean later put it, “A year ago [Thompson] looked like a rising star. Today he looks more like a fading comet.”

Rumors circulated that Thompson was lazy, uninterested in the daily grind that comes with being a Senator—and one can understand that Capitol Hill is a lot more tedious and less glamorous than a Hollywood movie lot. More important were Thompson’s failures of will and his lack of leadership on any legislation that would promote the conservative cause. Instead what little leadership we got from Thompson advanced the liberal Establishment agenda.

Failure of will: Charged with investigating the Clinton White House’s Asia fundraising scandal (“Asiagate”), Thompson managed to draw a tiny blood sample from Bill Clinton but little more. If he’s that ineffectual against an easy target like Bill Clinton at the height of his parade of scandals, why should we expect Thompson to be any more effective against, say, the other partner in the Clintons’ 20-year plan to rule the nation?

On the wrong side of the fence: The McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, championed by Fred Thompson, is the only important piece of legislation where he played a major role. And that is not an accomplishment to be proud of as a conservative. In fact, now that he’s running for President, Thompson is trying to flip-flop on this issue. Well, he can run, but he can’t hide from his record.

Never mind that it was patently unconstitutional, as the courts are starting to declare. McCain-Feingold was also, from the beginning, a sham and a lie.

Its stated purpose—its claim to being a “reform”—was that it would take big money out of politics. Well, you can see how successful it’s been! The big corporate and union lobbies are more powerful than ever, and bored billionaires with nothing else to do are eyeing the Senate and the White House as the next trophies on their mantelpieces.

No, the real purpose of “reform” legislation like McCain-Feingold is to serve as incumbent-protection laws. Establishment politicians aren’t threatened by the K Street lobbyists: they feed off them. They are threatened by grassroots organizations that keep an eye on how they vote and pass that information on to their members.

From the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club, from Right to Left, these groups call incumbents on the carpet. So the incumbents pass laws to restrict the activities of these groups.

McCain-Feingold, the most prominent recent addition to campaign regulations, does this by prohibiting these groups from broadcasting any issue ads that refer to specific candidates for federal office in the 30 days before a primary, or 60 days before a general election.

Why were those dates chosen? Because “that’s when people are most interested in the elections,” according to Congressman Martin Meehan (D-MA), one of the law’s most ardent supporters. In other words, McCain-Feingold and similar laws are intended to silence the voices of ordinary citizens who contribute to these organizations. And they are designed to do so at exactly the times when grassroots citizens can have the greatest impact.

The real purpose of McCain-Feingold-type laws is to silence your voice in the campaign process, by placing a gag on the organizations that represent you and your views. Such measures are the gravest threat to your free speech that exist today.

And who was the only other Republican Senator to join John McCain in pushing hard for this assault on your First Amendment free speech rights? Fred Thompson. Indeed, campaign finance “reform” was the only issue on which he seemed to show any passion.

Thompson was deeply involved in writing the law, lobbied for it among his fellow Republicans, and was even inclined to call it “McCain-Feingold-Thompson.” He and McCain were able to convince only five of their fellow Republicans in the Senate—but added to the Democrats, that was enough. “You were essential to our success,” Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) told Thompson in a gushing thank-you note after passage of McCain-Feingold.

Fred Thompson viewed through the Goldwater Test and the Reagan Test for conservative leadership

The Goldwater Test: Senator Barry Goldwater became the first political spokesman for the conservative movement because, out of all the Republican politicians who claimed to be conservative in the 1950s, he and he alone was willing to confront the sitting Big Government Republican in the White House. President Eisenhower’s policies were “a dime store New Deal,” he said on the floor of the Senate. He spoke truth to power.

Well, again we have a Big Government Republican in the White House, and now it’s no longer a dime store New Deal—it’s a supersized Wal-Mart of a New Deal. The Republican welfare state is far worse than anything the Democrats achieved.

And what has been Fred Thompson’s response these past seven years as the GOP massively expanded the federal government? If he’s said anything to warn us about the direction of the Republican Party, he’s said it so quietly that nobody—not just us, nobody—has noticed. And by his silence he has become complicit.

The Reagan Test: Throughout the 1960s and 70s Ronald Reagan walked with conservatives. He was at our conservative functions, and not just at the head table—he mingled with us, listened to our concerns, and made it clear where he stood. Also, our conservative friends were all around him as he governed in California and then ran for President—people like Dick Allen, Ed Meese, Lyn Nofziger, Marty Anderson, Paul Laxalt, Judge Bill Clark…and the list goes on.

Where are the long-time conservative activists today around Fred Thompson? Not campaign consultants who sell themselves to the highest bidder at campaign auctions. No, dedicated and recognized conservative thinkers and activists who will work only for truly conservative politicians.

Go ahead, try and name one. And if conservatives were not part of his inner circle before he started running for the presidency, we cannot expect him to have conservatives in his inner circle if he gets elected. And in politics, personnel is policy.

When we look at the two politicians who are closest to Thompson—Howard Baker and Lamar Alexander—we can see very clearly why Fred will never be a conservative leader, much less a conservative hero.

Fred Thompson and Howard Baker are as intertwined as the two sides of a coin. Fred Thompson was Howard Baker’s campaign manager in his successful reelection campaign in 1972, after which the two were good ole’ Tennessee buddies. Senator Baker invited Thompson to move up north and be minority (Republican) counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of Richard Nixon.

Thompson, it is said, was the person who got Senator Baker to ask a Nixon aide: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” The reply led to the discovery of the Nixon tapes, and that led to Nixon’s resignation. Almost sounds like something scripted in Hollywood or on the set of “Law and Order.”

Thompson and Baker are still good ole’ buddies today, with Baker urging Thompson to make this run for the presidency and playing a key role in its unfolding. Officially or unofficially, we could expect Howard Baker to play a key role in a Thompson White House.

And who, you ask, is Howard Baker? You belie your age, of course, by asking that, but even old folks may be excused for a little fuzziness on this matter. Well, Howard Baker was one of the chain of leaders of the liberal (Big Government) wing of the Republican Party. The order of succession was Nelson Rockefeller-Howard Baker-George H. W. Bush-George W. Bush. Because he never got to the White House as its #1 or #2 occupant, Howard Baker has sort of faded into history, but he was important in his heyday—and on the opposite side of the ideological fence from conservatives.

As Republican leader of the Senate, Howard Baker worked with President Carter to turn the Panama Canal over to the drug-running Panamanian dictatorship. He voted to spend taxpayers’ money for abortions. As a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, he said Reagan’s proposed tax cuts were “a riverboat gamble.” You get the picture. And this guy is still Fred Thompson’s closest advisor.

As for Senator Lamar Alexander (who’s up for reelection in 2008), he’s cut from the same cloth as Baker and Thompson—talk conservative but act like a “moderate” (i.e., liberal); above all, avoid sharp ideological confrontation with the Democrats. “The conservatism he exemplifies…,” wrote Jonathan Rauch in Reason magazine, “is no longer a program. It is a style of talking.”

Like Thompson, Lamar Alexander got his first job in Washington from Howard Baker; and when Thompson dropped out of the Senate in 2002 to return to lobbying, trial lawyering, and show biz, Alexander replaced him.

But you don’t have to take my word for it, because Fred Thompson passes the Sally Quinn Test

Fred Thompson may get an F on the Goldwater Test and an F on the Reagan Test, but he gets an A on the Sally Quinn Test. And that tells us a lot.

Sally Quinn is a noted writer and the wife of Ben Bradlee, long-time editor of the Washington Post. You can’t get more to the center of the Liberal Establishment in Washington than this power-couple. And on June 26, 2007, she penned a telling bombshell in the Post on Fred Thompson.

Vice President Dick Cheney is “toxic” and “has the potential to drag down every member of the party—including the presidential nominee—in next year’s elections,” she advises, so the movers and shakers in the GOP must convince President Bush to force Cheney to resign.

“Until recently, there hasn’t been an acceptable alternative to Cheney…,” she admits. “Now there is.” (And by now you can guess who.)

“Everybody loves Fred,” gushes Sally. “He has the healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan. He is relatively moderate on social issues. He has a reputation as a peacemaker and a compromiser. And he has a good sense of humor. He could be just the partner to bring out Bush’s better nature…”

I had never known Sally Quinn to be so concerned before about the fortunes of the Republican Party, and I am shocked that she allows for even the possibility of a “better nature” in President Bush. Be that as it may, we can see what’s going on here. She rightfully sees Fred Thompson as a marshmallow—oops, I mean “peacemaker” and “compromiser.” As the sitting Vice President in 2008, he would have the inside track on getting the GOP nomination. And liberals could rest easy, knowing their power is safe whether the Democrat or the Marshmallow Republican wins in 2008.

I have examined Fred Thompson’s eight-year record as a Senator in detail, utilizing the vote ratings of the American Conservative Union (ACU) at www.acuratings.org. He emerges not as an out-and-out liberal, but not as a principled conservative either.

Fred Thompson’s record may appear to be “conservative,” but only by comparison with Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney, and a Less-of-a-Big Government Republican is still a Big Government Republican. And given his lack of conservative leadership as a Senator, it would be a grave mistake to expect conservative leadership from him as President.

For six of his eight years as a Senator, Thompson ranked in the bottom half of Republican Senators in terms of his commitment to conservatism. What makes this more remarkable is that he served as a Senator from Tennessee, winning his two elections by hefty margins. He didn’t have the excuse that his electorate was liberal, like the electorates of RINO Senators from Oregon, Maine, or Rhode Island. He had a safe seat with a conservative electorate. So when he voted liberal, we have to assume it’s because that’s what he believed.

Conservatives who look to Thompson for salvation need to pause and consider his record—a record that includes these votes:

♦ FOR restricting the rights of grassroots organizations to communicate with the public. See ACU’s vote 3, 1998.

♦ FOR allowing the IRS to require political and policy organizations to disclose their membership—a vote against the constitutional rights of free association and privacy. (The Clinton Administration used such IRS intimidation against conservative groups that opposed them.) See ACU’s vote 11, 2000.

♦ AGAINST impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, specifically the reappointment and reauthorization of managers (drawn from the Republican membership of the House Judiciary Committee) to conduct the impeachment trial in the Senate. See ACU’s vote 1, 1999.

♦ AGAINST an accelerated elimination of the “marriage penalty.” See ACU’s vote 10, 2001.

♦ FOR handouts to politicians, specifically taxpayer funding of presidential campaigns. See ACU’s vote 6, 1995.

♦ FOR handouts to politicians, specifically congressional perks such as postage and broadcast time funded by taxpayers. See ACU’s vote 13, 1996.

♦ AGAINST restraints on federal spending, specifically the Phil Gramm (R-TX) amendment to limit non-defense discretionary spending to the fiscal 1997 levels requested by President Clinton. See ACU’s vote 6, 1997.

♦ FOR the Legal Services Corporation, the perennial liberal boondoggle that provides political activism disguised as “legal services” to Democratic constituencies. See ACU’s vote 16, 1995, and vote 17, 1999.

♦ FOR an increase in the minimum wage, which, of course, increases unemployment among the young and poor. See ACU’s vote 16, 1996.

♦ FOR President Clinton’s nomination of Dr. David Satcher as U.S. Surgeon General. Among other things, Satcher opposed a full ban on partial-birth abortion. See ACU’s vote 1, 1998.

♦ FOR open-ended military commitments, specifically in regard to U.S. troops in Kosovo. See ACU’s vote 8, 2000.

♦ FOR corporate welfare, specifically the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). See ACU’s vote 23. 1999.

♦ AGAINST worker and shareholder rights, specifically the Hatch (R-UT) amendment to require unions and corporations to obtain permission from dues-paying members or shareholders before spending money on political activities. See ACU’s votes 4 and 5, 2001.

♦ AGAINST property rights and FOR unlimited presidential power, specifically by allowing President Clinton to implement the American Heritage Rivers Initiative, which he established by executive order, without congressional approval. See ACU’s vote 20, 1997.

♦ FOR restricting the First Amendment (free speech) rights of independent groups. See ACU’s vote 23, 1997.

♦ FOR the trial lawyers lobby, and specifically against a bill that would put common-sense limitations on the medical malpractice suits that increase health costs for all of us. (Of course! He’s been a trial lawyer himself for some three decades.) See ACU’s vote 18, 2002.

♦ FOR limitations on campaign freedom of speech, by limiting contributions to national political parties to $2,000 and limiting the rights of individuals and groups to participate in the political process in the two months before elections. See ACU’s vote 7, 2002.

There you have it. The actor who talks like a tough conservative has, in his real political life, voted in all these ways to increase the power of the federal government, limit the rights of taxpayers and individual citizens, and shut grassroots activists out of the political process.

There’s a lot of confusion about where Fred Thompson stands on the abortion issue.

During his Senate years, the Memphis Commercial Appeal described him as “basically pro-choice on abortion,” The Tennessean described him as “a pro-choice defender in a party with an anti-abortion tilt,” and National Review deemed him to be “pro-choice.”

Yet his voting record as a Senator was solidly pro-life, earning him high marks on pro-life voting records and bottom-of-the-barrel ratings from abortion groups like Planned Parenthood. Leaders of social conservative groups like the Family Research Council, Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, and the Eagle Forum have had praise for his social-issues record.

How can this be? How can the conservative National Review and Tennessee’s leading newspapers describe him as “pro-choice” when his voting record is the opposite? The confusion results largely because Thompson takes—to use one of Washington’s favorite words—a “nuanced” position on abortion, and then sometimes compounds the confusion with conflicting statements. In addition, his role as a Washington Insider—a Washington lobbyist—raises disturbing questions that have not been answered satisfactorily by Thompson.

One of Fred Thompson’s deepest held political convictions is his belief in federalism—that the federal government should stick to the powers granted it in the Constitution, leaving everything else to the states or the people. That’s great--if he actually voted as a federalist on the host of issues ranging from presidential power to education. The one area where he does take a pretty consistent federalist position, however, is on the abortion question.

“I’ve always thought that Roe v. Wade was a wrong decision,” Thompson says, and “that they usurped what had been the law in this country for 200 years, that it was a matter that should go back to the states. When you get back to the states, I think the states should have some leeway.”

Because he believes abortion essentially should be a state matter, not a federal matter, Thompson has voted repeatedly against federal funding of abortion in Department of Defense facilities and says he opposes public financing of abortions for low-income Medicaid recipients. The same federalist reasoning, however, is presumably what also leads him to oppose (in a Christian Coalition questionnaire) a constitutional amendment “protecting the sanctity of human life” as well as federal legislation “protecting the sanctity of human life.” I say “presumably” because Fred Thompson himself has never really explained his seemingly conflicted statements and positions on abortion in a comprehensive and logical way.

Thompson is not against abortion per se, since he says he doesn’t know whether life begins at conception. At least that was the position he took before he started running for President.

“I’m not willing to support laws that prohibit early term abortions,” he told the Conservative Spectator, a Tennessee newspaper, in 1994. “It comes down to whether life begins at conception. I don’t know in my own mind if that is the case so I don’t feel the law ought to impose that standard on other people.” “The ultimate decision on abortion should be left with the woman and not the government,” he told another newspaper. And in his Christian Coalition questionnaire, he penciled in: “I do not believe abortion should be criminalized. This matter will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”

Note that when he explained why he opposes Roe v. Wade on federalism grounds, he ended up saying: “When you get back to the states, I think the states should have some leeway.” “Leeway” obviously is code for “the states should allow some abortions.”

Thompson has, however, voted consistently against partial birth abortion. There’s no doubt that life has started in those late-term situations.

Fred Thompson the “conservative” politician vs. Fred Thompson the pro-abortion lobbyist

New information uncovered by the Los Angeles Times indicates that Thompson has lobbied on behalf of an abortion rights organization.

The official minutes of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) document that the group hired Thompson in 1991 to try to influence the George H. W. Bush Administration to loosen the restrictions that prevented federal funding from going to clinics that engage in abortion counseling.

Thompson’s support for federal funding of abortion is vividly recalled by the President of the NFPRHA, Judy DeSarno; the Director of Government Relations, Sarah Szanton; and a member of the Board of Directors, Susan Cohen.

To be fair, Bush’s Chief of Staff, John Sununu, has denied ever talking to Thompson about abortion. That may mean that Thompson either spoke to other officials in the White House or took the NFPRHA’s money and did nothing for them.

He would personally rejoice if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, at least according to some of his statements on abortion. For the sake of argument, let us grant him that sentiment. But if vacancies occur in the court during his presidency, would he have the fortitude to nominate and fight for judges who share his federalist sentiments and on that basis vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? And would he do so particularly if he faced a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives, as seems likely?

Nothing in his past suggests that he would fight. The Nelson Rockefeller/Howard Baker/Poppy Bush wing of the party, of which Thompson is an integral part by virtue of the umbilical cord between Thompson and Baker, has always believed in accommodation rather than confrontation. You accommodate the Democrats, as Thompson himself did in his “Asiagate” investigation, and you can bet your entire rainy-day fund that the Democrats won’t accommodate a Supreme Court nominee who might overturn Roe v. Wade. Accommodation on this issue is a one-way street. Any accommodation would be done by President Thompson.

As far as other abortion-related politicking is concerned, there is nothing to suggest that abortion is a key issue anywhere near the top of Fred Thompson’s “to do” list. “We need to concentrate on what brings us together and not what divides us,” was Senator Thompson excuse, as told to The Tennessean. And later, when a pro-abortion group needed a Republican Insider to represent its views at the White House, we now know—from the minutes of the group’s meetings—who they turned to: Washington lobbyist Fred Thompson.

In short, a President Thompson would give pro-life conservatives some supportive rhetoric but little action. So what else is new?

Fred Thompson was a key architect of one of the worst pieces of legislation in recent years—the speech-muzzling McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Fred Thompson cast votes in the Senate that increased the power of the federal government, limited the rights of taxpayers and individual citizens, and sought to shut grassroots activists out of the political process.

Fred Thompson fails the Goldwater Test with a grade of F: He did not speak out against the Republican Big Government rampage of the past seven years.

Fred Thompson fails the Reagan Test with a grade of F: He has never walked with us or surrounded himself with conservatives or fought our fights.

Fred Thompson has instead been a protégé of one of the icons of liberal Republicanism, Howard Baker, who continues to be his key advisor.

Fred Thompson plays a tough guy in the movies and on television, but in real life he is a marshmallow who would pose no threat to the Big Government Establishment that continues to dominate Washington.

Fred Thompson is, in fact, a Washington insider and part of that Big Government Establishment through his eight years as a go-along Senator and even more years as a trial lawyer and Washington lobbyist.

For the past year, I have been preaching to conservatives that we should not align ourselves with those who have fatal flaws from a conservative perspective. The imminent entrance of Fred Thompson in the race doesn’t change a thing, for the reasons I have demonstrated here.

Conservatives, let’s keep our powder dry. The GOP has taken us for granted in supporting their political agenda. Conservatives should make candidates come to us, and let’s make them prove that they are worthy of our support.

“Its ironic that conservative Republican’s like yourselves believe that the federal government must leave abortion up to state governments.”

That is not quite accurate. The dispute is with EV’s incorrect claim that the 14th Amendment *already requires* it.

Unlike most lawyers these days, I can read plain English, with comprehension.

To wit: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

He goes even beyond your points. This is the kind of judicial activist reading of the 14th that gave us Roe v Wade in the first place. It’s wrong, a bad reading of the Constitution that no Federal Judge, including Scalia, would go along with.

Earlier in the thread, I posted the views of the top judge on the Ninth Circuit, a Reagan appointee, who agreed with me explicitly. Even the author of Roe himself, Judge Harry Blackmun, in the text of Roe, agreed that if the child in the womb were a person, they would be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The GOP platform advocates for a Human Life Amendment to address this issue. Why would the GOP Platform have that if the 14th amendment could fix it automatically? Reality is 14th cant and it wont be fixed/addressed without additional enabling definition of human life. HLA does that.

You're neglecting to mention that it also says that unborn children are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment already. Advocates of an amendment to the Constitution do so only because of the willful ignorance demonstrated on this matter by individuals like yourself.

The Reagan pro-life plank in the GOP platform:

"We must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions."

Note that the analogy with slavery fits - Just as addressing slavery finally did require constitutional amendment to have a national solution written in Constitutional Law, this Constitutional Amendment is a possible solution to abortion as well. Pretending that the 14th can be twisted into a pretzel to serve the pro-life cause rather than the pro-abort cause is — well, that’s smoking some mighty strong crack.

The original Constitution contained compromise language that allowed for slavery, unfortunately. However, that same Constitution has always had language, contained in the Preamble and in the Fifth Amendment, that offered protection for innocent human life. That language was predicated on the Declaration of Independence. So, the only reason we would even need an amendment is to overcome the unreasoning and illogical arguments of people like Blackmun and a good chunk of our current legal establishment. Of course, it would probably take them about five minutes to misinterpret that too.

I support a Human Life Amendment but I can do the math too - it will never happen because the Democrats are as pro-abort as possible and wont ever vote in numbers to make the 2/3rds bar get met.

Well, you're just full of solutions then, aren't you...

So, IMHO, the realistic next step is to take the issue out of the courts (who wrongly decided Roe v Wade) and put it back to the people to decide. Its easier to get 2 more votes on the Supreme Court than to get an amendment passed.

To advocate that is to surrender the very intellectual, moral and legal arguments that are required to even overturn Roe, much less outlaw it in the several states.

To suggest that you cant be prolife and hold this position (repeal Roe v Wade and return abortion to the states) is absurd.

Substitute the word "slavery" for the word "abortion" in all your arguments, and the foolishness of your position quickly becomes clear. And abortion is surely a much worse scourge on humanity than the awful horrors of slavery ever were. No state, no individual, has the right to deprive any person of their life, short of conviction on a capital offense, during the commission of justifiable homicide, or during the execution of just war.

Just tell me how many unborn children have been saved by EV’s position on the 14th (answer: Zero, because what he advocates never will happen), and you’ll have your answer as to whether this is really the effective pro-life position.

ALL children would be saved under my understanding, but none will be saved under yours. That's the simple fact.

EV’s the kind of guy who will call people who merely advocate for parental consent ‘RINOs’, and yet abortion rates declined significantly in states that implemented the (widely popular) parential notification and parental consent laws.

Politicians pay lip service to the pro-life cause every day. But they do little or nothing to bring this holocaust that continues to kill 3 to 5 thousand American children EVERY DAY to an end. I won't apologize for continuing to point that out. The good is the enemy of the best, and extremism is the enemy of effective political activism.

James Madison, in Federalist 51:

...It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.

Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure....Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.

In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects...Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.

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