Maura Pennington, Contributor
I write about my lost generation and our unmet expectations
+ Follow on Forbes
"It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race."
"”Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 11
While I have taken a look at my own lost generation with unmet expectations, there is another one to inspect: our Founding Fathers, especially the Framers. Many of my peers are lost in a terminal adolescence with pretensions of adulthood; the men who crafted our Constitution are lost to the ravages of time. My cohort has found that, contrary to expectations, their twenty years of schooling have put them on the dayshift, as Bob Dylan quipped. The enlightened individuals to whom we owe our prosperity and freedom have found their expectations for this nation squashed by an expanding federal government and a populace that has come to rely on those federal programs rather than local ones or their own selves. The authors of the Federalist Papers were intent on convincing the public to support the new Constitution. They were specific and thorough and their words offer wisdom to us today. They never foresaw the national government usurping power from the states and individuals; they were wary of factions and special interests; and they believed in the protection of diversity and comparative advantage inherent in our union.
"In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws."
"”James Madison, Federalist No. 14
Madison and Hamilton, like their colleagues drafting the Constitution, were rightly skeptical of a large centralized government. Madison cautioned that "enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm" and Hamilton recognized that we would be subject to the "little arts of little politicians." To protect us from this, power needed to remain with the people and local governing bodies. The Framers thought that the federal government would have no motive to usurp that power or infringe on the authority and liberty of individual states and individual citizens because possession of that power would contribute "nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national government." Yet here we are, with fifteen executive departments and, according to the White House website which itself doesn't bother to count, "hundreds" of federal agencies and commissions.
Hamilton noted that "a nation cannot long exist without revenues." Put another way, a nation cannot long exist while spending more money than it has. President Obama should have heeded this when he submitted a 2013 budget that has outlays exceeding receipts by a trillion dollars. It's not his administration's fault for following the trend of his predecessors, although Madison warned against such a "fashionable error." Spending is not the main problem, though, it's just a symptom of an over-extended federal government. Hamilton doubted that the central government would inspire "an active sense of attachment," but can some Americans imagine their lives without federal programs? Public school teachers can't imagine it, green energy companies can't imagine it, General Motors can't imagine it, people over the age of 62 can't imagine it. The Department of Agriculture tells us what a healthy balanced dinner plate looks like and the First Lady tells us how to exercise our pudgy limbs and no one bothers to inform them that such nagging is highly unnecessary. We let them do it to us. We invite the government to make decisions about our personal lives (though we may obliviously complain after the fact), allowing them even to mandate our participation in economic activity, benignly in the name of universal health coverage, and that is just the most prominent and recent intrusion. Since the New Deal and the supposed abolition of want and fear, we have asked the federal government to hold our hands, check under the bed, give us tax-funded education and no choice to enroll in a better school, prohibit us from inhaling and ingesting things even though we illegally choose to do so anyway, and convince us that there is a tiny percentage of people who live on top of diamonds as big as the Ritz and that they need to pay more, whatever that more might be. It would be a safe guess that the Framers would be as shocked at the buffet of current federally funded programs"”National Science Foundation's study of online dating, a reported Pakistani version of Sesame Street"” as they would be with the Internet and television in the first place.
"Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other."
"”James Madison, Federalist No. 10
Poor Madison did not conceive of such an expedited collectivizing mechanism as social media and so did not envision a nation disintegrating into petty factions of particular interests, each staging their demonstrations and encampments as if no other mode of thinking prevailed. The Framers knew that men had a tendency towards, at best, "frivolous and fanciful distinctions," and, at worse, "irregular and violent propensities," but they had no idea that it would develop into a war over values, with so-called minor wars on women and on family, newstreams blazing with pointless petitions, glib memes, and self-congratulating comments. Madison felt that one group "may clog the administration" and "convulse the society" but that our Constitution would limit its ability to execute its aims. However, he and his colleagues never thought the Constitution would be so stretched, finagled, and disregarded. The more we weaken it, the easier it is for those groups to impose their will on society at large. We were meant to have refuge in our states, but it is difficult for a state to see to the needs of its specific inhabitants when regulations come from above and the public is conditioned to believe it has to march on the Supreme Court or traipse around the Hill to affect any kind of change.
There is much to fear if splinter cells have their way. Hamilton warned against "the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm" and we have the Tea Party, which he would say has "zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened" and the Occupy Movement with its "spirit of ill-informed jealousy." These are just two of the most organized groups. Aside from discontent bubbling up from the people, there is also the matter of entrenched special interests, ever whispering in the ears of policymakers. They have become so adept at getting things from the federal government (there are "hundreds" of agencies, after all, to dole out boons) that they don't even have to whisper anymore. Policymakers automatically understand what they are requesting. Investigating the inbox of one congressional office, piled high with glossy brochures from microscopic companies to behemoth lobbying organizations, loaded down with resolutions on absurd and exclusive topics that need co-signing, we find with just one look that these factions are experts at navigating their own system. These special interests are often the source behind vicious partisan politics, which Madison saw as "the pestilential influence of party animosities" becoming "the disease most incident to deliberative bodies and most apt to contaminate their proceedings." The rhetoric of these interest-impelled politicians is dangerous, able to "inflame the passions of the unthinking" and "confirm the prejudices of the misthinking." Those who fought for our freedom and founded our nation knew us to be intelligent and competent, but the powers of persuasion to promote an encroaching government indifferent towards civil liberties can bring even America to its knees.
Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.
Compared to monarchies and dictatorships, democracies have their advantages–especially if the idea has never been implemented. Now that we have ‘real’ democracy, we realize the pitfalls of choosing government policy by popular acclaim the same way we choose Top 40 radio hits.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were elected. When you start a democracy, you might think it can never tear itself apart into a Civil War but after a four score and some years, you discover that isn’t true. Popularity is not a panacea.
OTOH, Representation of the Populace is a good idea. It’s what the Greeks had in their so-called democracy. The ruling councils voted on policy, but the members of the councils were not voted in, they were selected by lottery.
If the American Congress were selected by lottery, the one-percenters would be at most 2-3% of the Senate instead of making up of 95% of the Senate.
We are not a democracy, as the Founders made clear, but a republic.
Interesting idea about a lottery, though. I’m old enough to serve in the House now. I would love to have my number called up.
The difference between republicanism (small-r) and democracy is a vital distinction that has been lost in the last two centuries. We have this reflexive feeling that democracy is a good thing, but the Framers clearly understood the pitfalls of true democracy. Popular election of the Senate and what is effectively popular election of the President are not native to our charter. The Senate was meant to be a much more conservative body, in terms of providing political inertia to the very schemes that we find ourselves saddled with today. The President wasn’t meant meant to be as political an office as it is now. That office was meant only to execute the will of Congress with limited powers, not to engage in a wide range of legislation or politicking as it does today.
Maura, the definition of democracy and how pols today use it to justify expansion of the state as ‘the will of the people’ would play into your last blog post quite well.
Unfortunately, our Constitution was under attack before the ink had dried on that fabulous blueprint of checks and balances.
BTW… excellent article.
It’s the age old story, that there are always those, through greed and lust for power, will use their influence to bend the rules to their favor. That’s what the banksters of old did to control nations by lending to both sides of conflicts.
We did a fair job constitutionally, til 1913 when we let the banking jackals in the hen house to ultimately destroy our once famous dollar with the creation of that private corporation, Federal Reserve. Since then we have seen the the growth of an oligarchy of banksters and their big corporate monopoly minions, buy our government through their special interest apparatus.
We the people are now dependent on them for every facet of our existence, food, water, housing, energy as they tighten the noose of perpetual debt slavery on us and our posterity. They use our government as their hammer to beat us into submission.
That is why we need a Constitutionalist like Ron Paul to steer us back to our lost inalienable rights and freedoms. However he can’t do it alone…….we need to rid ourselves of the career politicians and get back to the business of limited government with all the Constitutional checks and balances enforced by those that will honor their oath to obey and protect it.
http://www.ratifyconstitution.com
Ms. Pennington,
You are absolutely correct, the constitution as originally compose was full of anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian features. Senators were not elected, slavery and indentured servitude were allowed, and the right vote was not only not guaranteed, the constitution assumes that most people would not be allowed to vote and was built around this assumption. Representation in the house of representatives was notably unrepresentative, whites (including women and indentured servants) were counted as one person, non-taxable Indians were counted as zero persons, and black people were counted as 3/5ths of a person.
At that time, you as a woman would not only not be allowed to serve in the House of Representatives, as you indicated you might like to, but you would not even be allowed to vote (unless you lived in New Jersey). You may also have been debarred by failing to own a sufficient amount of property. Jews and Catholics were likewise barred from voting and holding office in many states at that time. This is why the College of Electors, a patently anti-democratic institution, was so important, states with equal numbers of people might have very different numbers of eligible voters.
So the the United States was a Republic of white, Protestant, property owning men, that was the expectation of the first generation after the Revolution. That today’s generation does not meet those expectations is just fine with me.
I made no remarks on the social circumstances of our nation’s founding, I merely addressed the formation of our federal government as a union of separate states. Was there something in the article that gave the impression that I had aspirations of returning to the late 18th Century? I could have sworn I cut that sentence about time travel from the first draft.
Ms. Pennington,
The Forbes.com webpage is often unclear in how it presents responses. This is why I frequently begin my posting with a quote. I failed to do this this time. I am sorry for the confusion.
You wrote:”We are not a democracy, as the Founders made clear, but a republic.”
I was agreeing with your point (and I suppose Mr. Amrine’s point was well) that the United States began as a republic and only later evolved into a Democracy. The Founding Fathers, and the Framers of the Constitution in particular, were not in favor of the type of democracy we have now. You noted also on that the Founding Father never imagined the Federal government having the powers that is does now, which is no doubt so. This in no small way the result of the extension of suffrage and other rights far beyond the limited circle of propery owning white male Protestants that the Founding Fathers imagined, a point Mr. Amrine was making.
The point is that we who now live in the 21st century live in a world very foreign to the world 18th century east coast North America and their vision and expectations must necessarily be very different from ours. This must mean that the government functions in very different ways than the Founding Fathers would have felt comfortable with. That the constitution has been flexible enough to allow this happen is a tribute to their wisdom.
The passage of time has changed our expectations, yes. Women’s rights are secured, for instance. But I am not sure there is a correlation between women being able to vote and a federal government that tells private insurance companies that they have to let women have birth control for free.
Perhaps the Founders did not envision either scenario. I ask you to hazard a guess, though, which one would seem more outrageous to them.
Hello Ms. Pennington,
I believe that this an easy wager to win, the Founding Fathers would have been far more dismayed by the political empowerment of women.
Consider Abigail Adams now famous letter to her husband wherein she advocates for some semblance of equality between the genders: ”I long to hear that you have declared an independency "” and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation” [1]
Consider now Mr. Adams less famous response:”As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient "” that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent "” that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe [women] more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so saucy, I won’t blot it out” [1]. I would be so bold as suggest Mr. Adams’ attitude was entirely representative.
Contrast the above exchange with this that follows. During the fifth session of the fledgling Congress in July of 1798 a bill was passed called "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen" [2] which was signed into law by the same John Adams as above. This law created a government operated maritime hospital service and mandated that owners of private ships turn over to the government money from each sailors pay to operate these hospitals. This congress was dominated by Federalists an the bill was signed by a Federalist president.
Notably this law was expanded in 1802 by an act of the First Session of the Seventh Congress which on the second page (sec. 3) states"¦ "And be it further enacted, That from and after the day of ___ next, the master of every boat, raft, or flat belonging to *any citizen of the United States*, which shall go down the Mississippi, with intention to proceed to New Orleans, shall, on his arrival at Fort Adams, render to the collector or naval officer therof, a true account of the number of persons employed on board such boat, raft, or flat, and the time that each person has been so employed, and shall pay to the said collector, or naval officer, at the rate of ___ center, per month, for every person so employed; which sum he is hereby authorized to *retain out of the wages of such person*:"¦." [emphasis added] [2] This bill was passed out of a Democratically controlled congress and signed by a Democratic president, Thomas Jefferson.
Mr, Adams and Mr. Jefferson were not only of opposing parties but personally hostile to one another during these years but considered this program of mandatory health care insurance so important that they both supported it.
The program, called the Marine Hospital Service grew and expanded and eventually became the United States Public Health Service, which is still in operation to this very day. The actual Marine Hospital Service itself was a chain of privately owned and operated hospitals located all over the US and even in Hawai'i as early as 1843. Eventually, in the 1870"²s the Service was taken over by the government and run on a quasi-military basis in the Treasury Department. At that time the income was shifted from seamen's salaries to a tax on cargo. While the USPHS still exists, it ceased operating the Marine Hospitals after the Nixon administration, or after about 200 years.
Read Full Article »