Posted on 05/07/2002 11:31:24 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
"We have not sought this conflict; we have sought too long to avoid it; our forbearance has been construed into weakness, our magnanimity into fear, until the vindication of our manhood, as well as the defence of our rights, is required at our hands." - Robert Toombs, November 13, 1860
“Harvard is” what, in your opinion? A ‘hotbed’ of Southern secessionist sympathizers? (LOL!) As for “political philosophers,” perhaps you’ve never run across this:
“If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth [‘on the application of the constituted authorities of each state’] to subdue it.
”Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.
”The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on [the state] itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed...
”The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union...
William Rawle, A view of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1825
“To deny [the right of secession] would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.” There – does that help?
;>)
Perhaps you can tell us whether and why you believe that a document signed by a bunch of dead white males can make any action legitimate.
(“White males?” You’re not a racist AND a sexist, are you? ;>) You said “it's not too hard” to make the case that “secession was ILLEGITIMATE revolution.” Pardon me, but it certainly looks like you’re asking questions rather than ‘making the case.’ Have at it: quote the constitutional clause that prohibits secession. After all, the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the land,” is it not?
;>)
If you wonder why I ask this question, and what it implies, add this question to it: what, fundamentally, legitimates revolution? Can a Constitution legitimate revolution?
Find a dictionary. Look up two words: “secede” and “revolution.” Tell us what you find (not that WE really need the information – most of US already know the difference)...
;>)
Let’s update the record:
“Sirs, the Constitution is a compact. It contains all our obligations and the duties of the federal government. I am content and have ever been content to sustain it. While I doubt its perfection, while I do not believe it was a good compact, and while I never saw the day that I would have voted for it as a proposition de novo, yet I am bound to it by oath and by that common prudence which would induce men to abide by established forms rather than to rush into unknown dangers. I have given to it, and intend to give it, unfaltering support and allegiance...I say that the Constitution is the whole compact. All the obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that ‘the powers not granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people’...
Senator Robert Augustus Toombs of Georgia, upon his resignation from the United States Senate
January 7, 1861
“Southern machismo?” Not hardly – that’s the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America...
;>)
Do you have any thoughts on that? Where do you think they might have gone wrong?
Rawle is no political philosopher if he thinks that the American republic is founded on a doctrine of the right to revolutionize at pleasure, i.e., without offering to the examination of the decent opinion of mankind arguments resolving to the laws of nature and of nature's God. The text you and your allies cite is tiresomely familiar, and fails to make the distinction between the alleged legal right to secession and the genuine natural right to revolution.
The relevent distinction is between unilateral withdrawal from the compact under terms of the compact (called "secession" and absent from the Constitution and all genuine political communities), and withdrawal from the compact according to the natural right of self-government, i.e, of revolution.
The simple question is whether there was any national sovereignty at all. If there was, there existed a national political community, an act of a national people, and accordingly an arrangement that only an act of the national people could terminate legitimately. The Constitution includes a procedure for amendment, which would be a legal method to accomplish so fundamental a change as the departure of a component part.
If you deny that there was any national sovereignty, then I do not dispute the legal right to secession. I think this much the strongest ground for secessionists, albeit still completely false. At least it avoids the incoherence of the claim that it is legitimate for a portion of a compacting community to withdraw from the compact at pleasure.
But, pace Professor Rawles, the argument that a state can simply secede from a genuine national sovereignty is incoherent. It is particularly incoherent if based on the 10th Amendment -- because if a person is a citizen of both the United States and, say, Virginia, he certainly, by the 10th Amendment, retains as much right to retain his citizenship on the United States as the state of Virginia retains the power to leave the United States. If there is any genuine, even if partial, national sovereignty, then the citizens of the states retain the right to remain members of that national community and no power reserved to the States can override this power.
So there's your argument. And please notice that it depends on the premise that there is some national sovereignty. If you deny this premise, then please let's have that discussion, and not the implausible debate over whether a compact can be annulled at pleasure by any of its participants, particularly at the expense of others. If Professor Rawles has any texts to cite on this issue, beyond the ones so frequently posted already, please present them.
And, by the way, Harvard is . . . . a pit of deconstructionist, anti-intellectual, passion-driven mind-goop. And I suspect we probably agree about that. Your source may be an excellent scholar. I was just suggesting that it's a bit silly to expect respect for the anonymous credential "Harvard Professor" given that the reigning doctrine there today is that truth is a silly myth.
Do you have any thoughts on that? Where do you think they might have gone wrong?
"Any thoughts?" Most assuredly:
1) By all means, reiterate your presumed disposal of my “Tenth Amendment argument.” As I remember, you were unable to locate a constitutional prohibition of secession, so you resorted to a rather irrational argument based on the federal postal service. Which, by the way, I refuted by direct and specific comparison to an identical situation which arose as a result of the ratification of the Constitution. Shall I quote the posts in question?
2) You also previously suggested that “southern politicians” had “invented” (“constructed?” ;>) the ‘secession argument.’ When you were confronted with specific historical documentation proving that State secession was a concept that predated the War of Southern Independence by many decades, you conceded the point. Shall I quote your posts?
3) Given that the President of the United States ignored the advice of his military leaders, the advice of nearly his entire cabinet, the ongoing negotiations involving his personal emissaries, his cabinet, and his high court justices, and selected a course of action that had already resulted in gunfire only three months previously - one must question your concept of ‘competency.’
Welcome to FreeRepublic!
;>)
Everyone concedes that the southern politicians were making a constitutional claim, that they were making a constitutional argument. There isn't a day that goes by in this country without important constitutional claims being made and peacefully resolved. But by acting unilaterally (as they did), they intentionally abandoned every avenue and venue (e.g., the Congress and the Supreme Court) that might have led to some sort of a peaceful resolution of either their claim or the issue (slavery) that prompted them to make it. Armed conflict was the inevitable result.
How can leadership like that be viewed as anything but completely incompetent? How could they have possibly chosen a worse path than the "secession" path they chose? And, as I've said before, they made it all the worse by going out of their way to wrap it as tightly and as visibly as they possibly could around an issue (slavery) that they had to know was from the very darkest regions of human existence. No competent politician would make a mistake like that. This is simply not competent political leadership that we're dealing with here. These are not statesmen.
And that's what I'm looking into now. How could this have happened? I'm learning now that some of the more capable politicians were trying to stop this madness. What went so terribly wrong here?
Stop right there. I don’t believe Mr. Rawle made any mention of ‘revolution.’ We are speaking English, are we not? Do specific words have specific meanings, in your opinion – or do they not?
...without offering to the examination of the decent opinion of mankind arguments resolving to the laws of nature and of nature's God.
Tell us, my friend: shall we be governed by law, or by “decent opinion?” Shall our government be bound by written, constitutional law, or by “the laws of nature and of nature's God?” What say you?
The text you and your allies cite is tiresomely familiar, and fails to make the distinction between the alleged legal right to secession and the genuine natural right to revolution.
Once again you are conflating “secession” and “revolution.” To justify that position, you must first prove secession unconstitutional. Have at it...
The relevent distinction is between unilateral withdrawal from the compact under terms of the compact (called "secession" and absent from the Constitution and all genuine political communities)...
So, you disagree that all “powers not delegated...nor prohibited....are reserved?” By all means, assist us: show us precisely where the Constitution ‘delegates’ or ‘prohibits’ the right of secession.
...and withdrawal from the compact according to the natural right of self-government, i.e, of revolution.
And we are, by now, quite familiar with the assumption underlying your argument: ‘secession = revolution.’ Unfortunately for you, the equation is dependent upon an exclusion of secession from protection under the specific terms of the Tenth Amendment. And for secession to be excluded from such reservation, it must necessarily have been previously “delegated” or “prohibited” – which it was not.
The simple question is whether there was any national sovereignty at all. If there was, there existed a national political community, an act of a national people, and accordingly an arrangement that only an act of the national people could terminate legitimately.
“National sovereignty?” Perhaps this will help:
“Sovereignty is the highest degree of political power, and the establishment of a form of government, the highest proof which can be given of its existence. The states could not have reserved any rights by the articles of their union, if they had not been sovereign, because they could have no rights, unless they flowed from that source. In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed. Could the states have imagined, when they entered into a union, and retained the power of diminishing, extending, or destroying the powers of the federal government, that they who "created and could destroy," might have this maxim turned upon themselves, by their own creature; and that this misapplication of words was able both to deprive them of sovereignty, and bestow it upon a union subordinate to their will, even for existence? I have no idea of a sovereignty constituted upon better ground than that of each state, nor of one which can be pretended to on worse, than that claimed for the federal government, or some portion of it. Conquest or force would give a much better title to sovereignty, than a limited deputation or delegation of authority. The deputations by sovereignties, far from being considered as killing the sovereignties from which they have derived limited powers, are evidences of their existence; and leagues between states demonstrate their vitality. The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.”
John Taylor of Caroline, New Views of the Constitution of the United States, 1823
“I have no idea of a sovereignty constituted upon...worse [ground], than that claimed for the federal government.” Please note the title of Mr. Taylor’s book: views such as yours were considered “new” in 1823 – they were not the views of those who ratified the Constitution three decades earlier.
The Constitution includes a procedure for amendment, which would be a legal method to accomplish so fundamental a change as the departure of a component part.
Which clause, exactly, would you amend? Don’t be bashful: tell us which article, section, and clause specifically prohibits secession.
If you deny that there was any national sovereignty, then I do not dispute the legal right to secession. I think this much the strongest ground for secessionists, albeit still completely false. At least it avoids the incoherence of the claim that it is legitimate for a portion of a compacting community to withdraw from the compact at pleasure.
By all means, refute Mr. Taylor’s arguments. Convince us that “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are” NOT “few and defined.” Prove, in the face of the Tenth Amendment, that “those which are to remain in the State governments are” NOT “numerous and indefinite.” Quote the records of the constitutional convention, and demonstrate that a national rather than a federal government was to be established by the Constitution. It is your argument, my friend, that is “completely false.”
But, pace Professor Rawles, the argument that a state can simply secede from a genuine national sovereignty is incoherent.
“National sovereignty?” Mr. Hamilton proposed the establishment of “national sovereignty” at the constitutional convention – it was considered and rejected. Mr. Randolph also proposed a “national sovereignty” – his plan was also considered, and also rejected. In the words of John Taylor:
“Now [the States] are told that the devil, thus repeatedly exorcised, still remains in the church.”
Go to the records of the convention – show us precisely where and when a “national sovereignty” was established.
It is particularly incoherent if based on the 10th Amendment -- because if a person is a citizen of both the United States and, say, Virginia, he certainly, by the 10th Amendment, retains as much right to retain his citizenship on the United States as the state of Virginia retains the power to leave the United States. If there is any genuine, even if partial, national sovereignty, then the citizens of the states retain the right to remain members of that national community and no power reserved to the States can override this power.
“He certainly, by the 10th Amendment, retains as much right to retain his citizenship on the United States?” Not “by the 10th Amendment,” my friend: even our current high court justices won’t buy that one. The Tenth Amendment reserves powers to the people of the several States, not to “the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole:”
“...(W)here the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power-that is, where the Constitution does not speak either expressly or by necessary implication-the Federal Government lacks that power and the States enjoy it.
”These basic principles are enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, which declares that all powers neither delegated to the Federal Government nor prohibited to the States -are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.- ... the Amendment does make clear that powers reside at the state level except where the Constitution removes them from that level. All powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the Federal Government nor prohibits to the States are controlled by the people of each State.
”To be sure, when the Tenth Amendment uses the phrase -the people,- it does not specify whether it is referring to the people of each State or the people of the Nation as a whole. But the latter interpretation would make the Amendment pointless: there would have been no reason to provide that where the Constitution is silent about whether a particular power resides at the state level, it might or might not do so. In addition, it would make no sense to speak of powers as being reserved to the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole, because the Constitution does not contemplate that those people will either exercise power or delegate it. The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation.”
Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 1995
Note the language of the Tenth Amendment: powers are “reserved,” indicating that they remain exactly where they were. There was no ‘aggregate’ people of the United States at the time of the ratification – they could not, therefore, ‘reserve’ anything. Your argument is specious.
So there's your argument. And please notice that it depends on the premise that there is some national sovereignty.
You seem to be confused: it is your argument that is entirely dependent upon the destruction of State sovereignty, and the ‘construction’ of a national sovereignty.
If you deny this premise, then please let's have that discussion, and not the implausible debate over whether a compact can be annulled at pleasure by any of its participants, particularly at the expense of others.
Once again, you are confused: the exercise of a reserved power or right hardly constitutes an ‘annulment:’ your argument presupposes that the exercise of such power or right is prohibited by the compact. In other words, you are presenting a ‘circular argument:’ secession is unconstitutional because secession is unconstitutional. Congratulations.
If Professor Rawles has any texts to cite on this issue, beyond the ones so frequently posted already, please present them.
Perhaps you could begin with the ratification documents of New York, Rhode Island , and Virginia, each of which explicitly reserves the right of secession. You may also wish to review St. George Tucker’s discussion of the 12th proposed amendment (our Tenth Amendment) in his Blackstone’s Commentaries of 1803. If you are unable to locate the documents in question, I will provide quotes – as I have on numerous occasions in the past.
And, by the way, Harvard is . . . . a pit of deconstructionist, anti-intellectual, passion-driven mind-goop. And I suspect we probably agree about that.
Actually, I would suggest that ‘facts are facts.’ It matters not to me whether they are presented by a Harvard professor such as Dr. William Gienapp – or a professor of law at Yale, such as Dr. Robert Bork.
;>)
The question was how Hamilton behaved when he was in the government and in positions of responsibility. On the whole he performed admirably, taking steps to put the country's financial house in order and building a sound basis for future development.
Politics in the early days of the Republic required the balancing of centralizing and decentralizing tendencies. A statesman would recognize this. An ideologue does not. Jefferson was a statesman in office and an ideologue in opposition and retirement.
The model presented by so many here of libertarian Jeffersonians and statist Hamiltonians does ignore the repression exercised by slaveholders. To be sure, such slaveowners could be Federalists or Jeffersonians, Whigs or Democrats, but here, as in the past, the tendency has been to link Jeffersonianism with the South, with agrarianism and in the end -- rightly or wrongly -- with secession and the Confederacy. Make these associations and one saddles the Democrats with some unsavory baggage, of the sort that the party in fact became weighed down with as time went on. And it does call the libertarian Jeffersonian vs. statist Hamiltonian scheme into question.
What also gets left out of Metcalf's and Di Lorenzo's picture is an understanding of just why Lincoln found Clay's ideas so captivating. It wasn't that he wanted a larger government for its own sake or to oppress people. Rather, he wanted a system that would open the doors of opportunity to effort and talent and free people from drudgery and subservience. He saw how economic development had helped him and this way and wished the same for others. This may or may not have been a good idea, and Lincoln may or may not have found good methods to implement it. But his reasons do deserve to be mentioned and taken more seriously. The ways in which planter societies oppressed and Lincoln's plan liberated ordinary people shouldn't be glossed over.
Doubtless, agrarian societies do have charms amidst the hardships, but libertarians and capitalists fail to recognize their own fathers when they attack men like Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln. For better or for worse, it was men of this stripe who created commercial, industrial, capitalist America. Jeffersonians couldn't have done it. And Jefferson himself would be appalled not just at the size of our government, but also at the results of economic development.
“...(W)here the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power-that is, where the Constitution does not speak either expressly or by necessary implication-the Federal Government lacks that power and the States enjoy it.
What is the universe of "powers" here contemplated? For example, are there any "powers" which, although not granted to the federal government, the states cannot have? What does "power" mean here?
”These basic principles are enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, which declares that all powers neither delegated to the Federal Government nor prohibited to the States -are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.- ... the Amendment does make clear that powers reside at the state level except where the Constitution removes them from that level. All powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the Federal Government nor prohibits to the States are controlled by the people of each State.
Same question of this one. What is meant by "power," and are there any "powers" at all which are not "controlled" by the federal government, the states, or the people of the state? I ahve previously, in trying to understand what people think about this, asked if such things as the power to murder or cannabilize are included. Assuming they are not, please help me define the kind of "power" that is reserved, delegated, divided up, etc., in these texts.
”To be sure, when the Tenth Amendment uses the phrase -the people,- it does not specify whether it is referring to the people of each State or the people of the Nation as a whole. But the latter interpretation would make the Amendment pointless: there would have been no reason to provide that where the Constitution is silent about whether a particular power resides at the state level, it might or might not do so. In addition, it would make no sense to speak of powers as being reserved to the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole, because the Constitution does not contemplate that those people will either exercise power or delegate it. The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation.”
You are certainly right that Justice Thomas does not read this amendment as reserving powers to individual citizens of the nation. But this last sentence is interesting -- it denies a Constitutional "mechanism" by which the "undifferentiated people of the Nation" might act -- and by "act" I believe he means "act politically." It seems to me significant that he is apparently assuming that there is some such "undifferentiated people" of a "Nation," but that the political order established by this people does not include exercise of political power by that people directly. Wouldn't this be seen in the absence of, for example, the direct election of a president, or of any mechanism for national referendum?
By implication, then, the two other bearers of political power referred to would be the states -- meaning the constituted governments of the states, I presume -- and the united body of citizens of particular states. That is, for example, the government of California or the people of California in a referendum.
I think you are right -- although not for the reasons you have in mind, I am fairly sure -- that Justice Thomas does not see in the 10th Amendment a reservation of what are called "rights," but of political powers, and that this distinction corresponds to the distinction between individuals (the only bearers of rights) and political bodies, (apparently, the bearers, or exercisers, of these things called "powers.") Governments, or sovereign bodies of people, can exercise "powers." And he points out that the body of people (I understand that you dispute this, but I am interpreting Justice Thomas at the moment) of the "Nation" does not exercise political power.
What I was thinking of as the right of a citizen of the United States not to have his fundamental political arrangements altered by the state government or state people to which he also belongs is not properly understood as "reserved" to individuals by this Amendment, on this reading, which seems true to me.
I think this does not bear on the question of whether there is sovereignty at the national level, however -- which Justice Thomas in this very quotation implies when he speaks of the "Nation as a whole" and its "Government."
I'll repeat my simple little argument (which I think you grant, actually) on this and then go to bed. If there is any genuine sovereignty at the national level -- albeit incomplete sovereignty because of the remainder of sovereignty's natural whole being possessed by the states -- then there exists an underlying compact of the whole which is governed by that partially sovereign government. But compacts cannot be unilaterally withdrawn from by individual components, or even clumps of components. Only by something reasonably understood as the act of the compacting community can the compact be modified.
The departure of states from the Union, like the arrival of new ones, pertains the community of the whole. Additions to that whole are accomplished within the Constitution by the procedures for the admission of new states. There exists no such mechanism for the subtraction of states, which is equally necessarily an action of the whole.
I am quite happy if we can agree that on the question whether there exists in any real sense a national political community - a "Nation" or "Country" -- will depend the question whether participants in the federal organization can withdraw unilaterally.
You have cited several authorities, chiefly Taylor, who say no to this question. I think they are wrong, and that at the heart of the denial is a denial of the possibility of divided or qualified sovereignty. Hamilton, I presume, was seeking greater or complete national sovereignty, not just "some" sovereignty. I want to go back to the Federalist papers and see more clearly what they thought on this question -- but if there is one theme that leaps out of that text, it is that what is at stake in the ratification question is not whether an effective league of sovereign states is a good idea, but whether national union will receive a government adequate to it, for without such a government, the national union must be abandoned. That is not the kind of talk that league-makers use, but founders of national states.
OK, I'll comment on that.
Fundamentally, Hamilton viewed government not in the Jeffersonian mold as a necessary evil, but rather, a means to advance society. In other words, the object of government was not to protect the people's liberty, rather, the people's liberty was a tool by which to obtain desirable political ends, in this case, by securing the national economy and prosperity, from which freedom would proceed. He was not a redistributionist -- he understood that differing abilities created inequality in society. However, he thought it was the role of government to ensure equality of opportunity under the law, an aim he thought more important than "rights," abstractly defined. In other words, he took the classical conservative position that without order and responsibility, there could be no liberty. Hence, his break with the Jeffersonians, primarily over the direction of the French Revolution (which, by the way, also precipitated Edmund Burke's break with the Francophile "liberty lobby").
In contrast to your misrepresentation, Hamilton's constitutional proposal differs from the British system in two important respects. First, it negates the principle of hereditary aristocracy. In Hamilton's system, the Senate, Assembly, and Executive are all elected representatives. Moreover, they serve at the pleasure of the people, represented in assembly -- the power of impeachment and removal was much more active in Hamilton's system than it is in the constitution we ultimately adopted. Second, regardless of the propaganda, Hamilton's system was a national republic, not a union of sovereign states. He believed that national identity was more important than state and local identity. This belief followed from his observations that a) the states were incapable of governing themselves in terms of international interests; and b) he saw the creation of a strong, unified nation on this continent was the only way we were likely to survive, given the rapacious nature of European colonial powers.
Hamilton's proposal was never seriously considered at the Convention, but it had much to commend it. It was a work of startling originality and genius, unique among the other proposals, which were largely national outgrowths of existing colonial and individual state structures. In any event, Hamilton strongly supported the adopted final constitution, being in fact the only signer of it from the state of New York. Moreover, do I have to remind you that Hamilton was the principal author of The Federalist and much of our current understanding of the "original intent" of the Founders derives from Hamilton’s propaganda efforts on behalf of ratification?
As for Lind, I care not a whit for him or his misunderstanding of history -- I was only pointing out that your use of him to characterize Hamiltonianism was dishonest, since Lind clearly does not fully understand what that term entails. But then, I'm not sure that you do either.
Excepting his own personal debt, of course.
“Jeffersonian?” Others were not silent on the subject. What was it that Mr. Washington said regarding the “necessary evil?” “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
In contrast to your misrepresentation, Hamilton's constitutional proposal differs from the British system in two important respects. First, it negates the principle of hereditary aristocracy. In Hamilton's system, the Senate, Assembly, and Executive are all elected representatives. Moreover, they serve at the pleasure of the people, represented in assembly -- the power of impeachment and removal was much more active in Hamilton's system than it is in the constitution we ultimately adopted. Second, regardless of the propaganda, Hamilton's system was a national republic, not a union of sovereign states...Hamilton's proposal was never seriously considered at the Convention, but it had much to commend it. It was a work of startling originality and genius, unique among the other proposals, which were largely national outgrowths of existing colonial and individual state structures.
A few pints. First, “in contrast to your misrepresentation,” I have never suggested that Mr. Hamilton’s “system” represented anything but “a national republic” – that was one of its major faults. Second, you suggest that Mr. Hamilton’s plan would have ‘negated the principle of hereditary aristocracy.” With what would he have replaced it? A government which was empowered, like Britain’s, "to pass all laws whatsoever.” “In contrast to your misrepresentation,” such a suggestion was hardly “a work of startling originality and genius,” nor did it have “much to commend it.” The people of the American States can hardly be said to have respected the concept:
“But why should we enumerate our injuries in detail? By one [British] statute it is declared, that parliament can "of right make laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever." What is to defend us against so enormous, so unlimited a power?”
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of taking up Arms, 1775
Nor did those Englishmen who valued liberty think very highly of it:
“That act, it is well known, declares, ‘That this kingdom has power, and of right ought to have power to make laws and statutes to bind the colonies, and the people of America, in all cases whatever.’ Dreadful power indeed! I defy anyone to express slavery in stronger language...”
Richard Price, Observations on the nature of Civil Liberty, 1776
But at the constitutional convention we would have found Mr. Hamilton proposing to place the same type of "enormous," "unlimited," and "dreadful" power in the hands of the new government. But “it negates the principle of hereditary aristocracy,” you tell us. Guess what? So did “the French Revolution.”
You are certainly free to daydream regarding the supposed benefits of Mr. Hamilton’s plan of government. I would suggest that others, however, consider what FDR’s ‘New Deal’ or LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ might have looked like, if our government had been constitutionally empowered "to pass all laws whatsoever”...
As for Lind, I care not a whit for him or his misunderstanding of history -- I was only pointing out that your use of him to characterize Hamiltonianism was dishonest, since Lind clearly does not fully understand what that term entails. But then, I'm not sure that you do either.
The greatest part of Mr. Lind’s book consists of the writings of others: Hamilton, Lincoln, Washington, Marshall, Webster, Jay, Adams, and Wilson, for example. He presents historical documentation that supports his views – a concept you ‘clearly do not fully understand’...
;>)
Clearly. That explains much of the prolixity of your posts.
you suggest that Mr. Hamilton’s plan would have ‘negated the principle of hereditary aristocracy.” With what would he have replaced it?
Elections.
A government which was empowered, like Britain’s, "to pass all laws whatsoever.”
In the British constitutional system limits the powers of Parliament by common law, custom, and 1689 Bill of Rights. They cannot pass whatever they want to. I see your understanding of their system is as thorough and detailed as your understanding of American government.
But at the constitutional convention we would have found Mr. Hamilton proposing to place the same type of "enormous," "unlimited," and "dreadful" power in the hands of the new government.
You haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about. Hamilton's legislative and executive branch would have functioned as a national republic, in the same manner as the one we ended up with. Those bodies were all elected and answerable to the people. Impeachment was always available as a remedy for those who abused their authority.
But “it negates the principle of hereditary aristocracy,” you tell us. Guess what? So did “the French Revolution.”
That one didn't work out that way -- it gave France the Napoleonic imperial system. But only after hundreds were murdered in the Terror.
I would suggest that others, however, consider what FDR’s ‘New Deal’ or LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ might have looked like, if our government had been constitutionally empowered "to pass all laws whatsoever”...
More irrelevancy. You've mastered this art form.
The greatest part of Mr. Lind’s book consists of the writings of others: Hamilton, Lincoln, Washington, Marshall, Webster, Jay, Adams, and Wilson, for example. He presents historical documentation that supports his views – a concept you ‘clearly do not fully understand’...
He does not do this -- Lind's book is a series of essays, selected by him, that he supposes illustrates Hamiltonian nationalism. Lind included FDR and LBJ because of their fondness for activist federal government, but Hamilton neither supported a federal welfare state nor the socialist dictum of equality of results. And if you knew anything about Hamilton at all, you would know this.
That is the most gross oversimplification of the founding I have ever read.
Actually, my posts tend to be much longer than yours simply because I post historical documentation. You apparently prefer unsubstantiated opinion. In the British constitutional system limits the powers of Parliament by common law, custom, and 1689 Bill of Rights. They cannot pass whatever they want to. I see your understanding of their system is as thorough and detailed as your understanding of American government.
Were we discussing the government of America, or were we not? The powers of parliament with regard to the American colonies were painfully similar to those that Mr. Hamilton proposed for the government of the American States – or shall we refer to them as “provinces?” As John Taylor noted:
“By Colonel Hamilton's project, the states were fairly and openly to be restored to the rank of provinces, and to be made as dependent upon a supreme national government, as they had been upon a supreme British government. Their governors were to be appointed by the national government, and invested with a negative upon all state laws; and all their laws, contrary to the laws of the supreme government, were to be void.”
Rather hard to argue with – which is no doubt why you substitute opinion for documentation.
You haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about. Hamilton's legislative and executive branch would have functioned as a national republic, in the same manner as the one we ended up with.
I’m sorry – I had assumed that you were aware of the differences between a national government, such as Mr. Hamilton proposed, and a federal government - “the one we ended up with.” Perhaps this will help – we will refer once again to John Taylor, since you have proven yourself completely incapable of refuting his arguments:
“[Mr. Hamilton’s] project for a national government, gave a supremacy over the articles of the constitution it advocated, to the [federal] legislative, judiciary, and executive, and did not propose that the constitution should be supreme over these departments, because it would have involved a contradiction. As they were to have had a supreme power of construing its articles, these articles could not possess a supreme power over their constructions. But a federal system required that the articles of union should be invested with supremacy, over the [federal] instruments created to obey and execute them. Hence they are declared to be so in reference to all these instruments, without excepting the federal court. And hence the right of altering these articles is retained by [the States as] parties.”
Perhaps you should read Article V of the United States Constitution:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress...”
Mr. Hamilton’s proposed national government would have been ‘supreme over the articles of the constitution it advocated,’ and quite obviously “supreme” over the States, which would have been reduced to the status of provinces. Under the terms of the United States Constitution - “the one we ended up with” - the federal government has no power over those articles: the amendment process is entirely dependent upon the States. As Mr. Taylor noted:
“In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation.”
The States are “supreme” over the federal government, as shown by the simple fact that they may, at their discretion, dispose of it via amendment. If other words, my friend, “you haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about.”
Those bodies were all elected and answerable to the people. Impeachment was always available as a remedy for those who abused their authority.
“Answerable to the people?” Any government (including apparently Mr. Hamilton’s national government) that may determine the extent of its own powers is “answerable” to no one.
That one didn't work out that way -- it gave France the Napoleonic imperial system. But only after hundreds were murdered in the Terror.
So “that one didn't work out that way” – how nice. But we apparently have your personal assurance that Mr. Hamilton’s “supreme” national government would have done better. Guess what - your unsubstantiated opinions qualify as “irrelevancy...you've mastered [the] art form.”
... Lind's book is a series of essays, selected by him, that he supposes illustrates Hamiltonian nationalism. Lind included FDR and LBJ because of their fondness for activist federal government, but Hamilton neither supported a federal welfare state nor the socialist dictum of equality of results. And if you knew anything about Hamilton at all, you would know this.
How droll. Review the posts we’ve exchanged – interestingly enough, I’ve provided more of Mr. Hamilton’s words (his specific plan for a national government, quoted by John Taylor of Caroline) than have you. And Mr. Hamilton’s words speak for themselves, which is no doubt why you post nothing but your own bombastic opinions. Guess what, sport? That puts even Mr. Lind several steps ahead of you.
;>)
Actually, the question posed by our pompous friend was this:
I repeat my previous question to you:
Please list for me:
a) the "big bureaucracy" that Alexander Hamilton advocated and established...
I presented an excerpt from John Taylor’s New Views of the Constitution of the United States (1823), quoting Mr. Hamilton’s plan for a national government based upon the British model. Would you suggest that an American national government as proposed by Mr. Hamilton would NOT be a “big bureaucracy,” as compared to the specifically-limited federal government actually adopted?
On the whole he performed admirably, taking steps to put the country's financial house in order and building a sound basis for future development.
I would not suggest otherwise. And as Mr. Taylor observed:
“The frankness of [Mr. Hamilton’s] undisguised proposition was honourable, and illustrates the character of an attempt to obtain a power for the federal government, substantially the same, not by plain and candid language, like Colonel Hamilton's, but by equivocal and abstruse inferences from language as plain, used with the intention of excluding his plan of government entirely...”
I quoted this entire statement in Post #77, with the comments complimentary to Mr. Hamilton highlighted - something else our egotistical friend chose to ignore.
Politics in the early days of the Republic required the balancing of centralizing and decentralizing tendencies. A statesman would recognize this. An ideologue does not. Jefferson was a statesman in office and an ideologue in opposition and retirement.
Perhaps I can change your opinion:
“Whether we remain in one confederacy or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederations, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1804
Note the date - perhaps you will eventually come to view Mr. Jefferson as an ‘ideologue in office.’ Obviously, many Americans preferred (and continue to prefer ;>) Mr. Jefferson the “ideologue” to the nationalist alternatives...
The model presented by so many here of libertarian Jeffersonians and statist Hamiltonians does ignore the repression exercised by slaveholders. To be sure, such slaveowners could be Federalists or Jeffersonians, Whigs or Democrats...
And many here ignore the elitist tendencies of certain Federalists: allow me to post a few of Chancellor Kent’s comments in that regard, dated 1835:
“There never was such misrule. Our Tory rich men are becoming startled and alarmed at our downhill course. My opinion is that the admission of universal suffrage and a licentious press are incompatible with government and security to property...”
Apparently not all Federalists thought “universal suffrage” and freedom of the press a good idea.
;>)
...libertarians and capitalists fail to recognize their own fathers when they attack men like Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln.
Actually, what I recognize is something akin to ‘emperor worship,’ when self-described ‘freedom loving’ Americans ‘gloss over’ the unconstitutional excesses of any President – whether it be Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Clinton. Personally, I would suggest that ‘zero tolerance’ is an appropriate standard...
;>)
Actually, my posts tend to be much longer than yours simply because I post historical documentation. You apparently prefer unsubstantiated opinion. In the British constitutional system limits the powers of Parliament by common law, custom, and 1689 Bill of Rights. They cannot pass whatever they want to. I see your understanding of their system is as thorough and detailed as your understanding of American government.
...should be this:
Actually, my posts tend to be much longer than yours simply because I post historical documentation. You apparently prefer unsubstantiated opinion.
In the British constitutional system limits the powers of Parliament by common law, custom, and 1689 Bill of Rights. They cannot pass whatever they want to. I see your understanding of their system is as thorough and detailed as your understanding of American government.
;>)
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