Cold Valentine

Sunday, September 13, 2020

good morning justin

King Louis XVI of France was an unlikely hero of the American Revolution but his fleet's blockade of Yorktown enabled Washington to checkmate the British troops trapped there and win independence for the colonies. Payback was the French monarch's reward in engineering England's defeat in 1781. Not twenty years prior it was the British expelling France from North America in the French and Indian War. Now with both nations removed from the domain there was little to resist colonial expansion west and the birth of a new republic.

As for the young French monarch, he was a man out of time.

Thomas Jefferson viewed French reformers as kindred spirits in republicanism - power residing with the people. John Adams saw these same revolutionaries as dreamy, ill-informed novices ill-prepared to hold power. Both men while serving as diplomats to France saw the nation as a powder keg ready to blow. War, debt and stagnant economics had people already simmering when the affairs of state were handed off to nineteen year old Louis XVI in 1774. Aristocracy was ill-suited for the times. Louis knew it. Attempts were made for a peaceful transition to constitutional monarchy but storming the Bastille in 1789 turned the French Revolution into carnage and confusion, overseen with cruelty and oppression.

A black-eye for republicanism, fears Adams. Does this mean you won't be honoring your alliance with the United States?

As author of the Declaration of Independence how could Thomas Jefferson not meddle in French reform under the monarch's nose while Minister to France? Jefferson sees a French constitutional system ahead. They are "awakened by our revolution." About the time of the Bastille, Washington calls Jefferson home to be his Secretary of State. Jefferson had hoped to be part of the unfurling of a new French republic. Instead he was to return to a Federalist Philadelphia and serve people having a fundamentally different vision for America than his.

Upon leaving the army George Washington pledges to never again hold public office. Not with this government, anyway. To its last the war had been verging on defeat. Congress had no money to supply the army. Yorktown was the hail Mary that worked.

In September, 1788 a new Constitution had been ratified and a government was being formed in Philadelphia. Alexander Hamilton writes Washington a letter requesting him to be their president. His selection was the unanimous choice of the Electoral College. Refusing to serve would leave everyone with a sense of desertion.

Washington's consent meant Hamilton would play an important role as Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton's policies on money and power were controversial but were also shared by Washington. His stature insured unpopular measures would go largely unchallenged. Political criticisms voiced against Washington's administration were directed at Hamilton - not Washington. At least through the first term the president remained largely an untouchable.

Son of a Scottish drifter, Alexander Hamilton spent his short boyhood on St. Croix, an island where more than ninety percent of the population was enslaved. An orphan by twelve Hamilton begins work as a clerk for a mercantile firm having connections in New York. Four years later his employer sends him off to what is now Columbia University. In 1775 he quits school and joins the Revolution, soldiering with Washington's ragtag army. Within two years he is one of Washington's aide-de-camp. Hamilton has the daring needed to dazzle powerful men with his brilliance. His rise is meteoric.

The moneyed interests of the Northern states endorsed Hamilton's efforts to transform a collection of agrarian states into a nation running on economic capitalism. He believed government should promote the building of mills and factories as manufacturing was the true source of national power. With no money of its own, Hamilton wanted America to mend its ties with England so the United States could attract British investment. Commerce needed to think big - continental, all the Atlantic was their market.

Thomas Jefferson's vision of a republic was one populated mostly with small farms. The government would be local, exercising only enough authority to do minimal harm to its citizens. Freedom was a plot of land and the right to think what you please without the intrusions of powerful interests. For Jefferson Hamilton's priority for generating wealth was an appeal to greed and a corruption of revolutionary values.

Hamilton was on a Congressional win streak without any organized opposition. Those hoping to preserve the current order would naturally rally round Thomas Jefferson, champion of individual rights. These were people one irate Virginia planter described as neighbors who "conceived himself, in every respect, my equal."

Here was the egalitarian spirit Jefferson needed to harvest as votes against Hamilton's Federal agenda for financial empire. Prior to the 1792 election Jefferson, along with his friend James Madison, toured the backcountry in an effort at grass roots organization under a banner Madison suggested calling the Republican party. This was not the party of Lincoln. Jefferson was a Democrat before the word had a polite meaning.

Thomas Jefferson's political foil would turn out to be his good friend John Adams, Washington's vice president and heir to the presidency in 1796 because of the continued Federalist dominance of the Electoral College. Adams would make a worthy adversary for Jefferson. His fearless nature was evident as early as 1770 when he successfully defended the British Troops accused of murder in the Boston Massacre. Adams made lifelong friendships despite the fact he "regarded an argument as the ideal form of conversation."

The presidential contest of 1800 pitting John Adams against Thomas Jefferson was a raw, bare knuckled partisan brawl. With Washington retired from the scene the Founding Fathers freed their passions attacking the other's vision of what it was the Revolution meant. Twenty-five years earlier these revolutionaries were willing to die for what they believed. Here now, though, was the first real test as to whether the clash of convictions could be resolved in a peaceful, democratic fashion. It would take faith in rule governed foremost by the law of the new and, as yet, untested Constitution.

love

dad

coldValentine

Sunday, September 6, 2020

good morning jacob

p a r t y p o i n t o f v i e w

Hugh Brackenridge graduates from Princeton, son of a humble Scot farmer. About the time Lord Cornwallis surrenders to Washington's troops at Yorktown, Brackenridge heads west, over the mountains and into the wilds around Pittsburgh, seeking opportunity. He makes money, starts a newspaper, wins election for a seat in the state legislature by promising his backers he would make buying land easier for the small farmer. Once in Philadelphia, the state capitol, Brackenridge falls in with wealthy financier Robert Morris and his powerful friend, the attorney James Wilson. He is easily seduced by their flattery. How cosmopolitan he is, they marvel. He's definitely not like the usual Huns and Vandals they normally deal with coming out of those hills.

Brackenridge votes against the farmers back home, favoring instead the interests of a large bank. He is quoted in the newspaper as calling voters back home "fools" for not realizing only educated people could understand these matters. Brackenridge loses the next election and moves on with his life, deciding politics is not his calling.

William Findley defeated Brackenridge for office in 1788, the year the new Constitution was ratified. Until now the politicians fashioning this new nation were the top tier, society's notables like Washington, Hamilton and Franklin, people knowing great success. William Findley was different. He spoke for the man guiding a plow - rough, individualistic people. Voters.

Make no bones about it William Findley speaks for you. We're talking the price of grain, not classic Greek principles. Cut out land speculators and powerful banks, enabling regular people to be land owners. While we're at it make education free to all. Outlaw slavery. These are the interests Findley supports, promised in advance.

Until now Founding Father politicos preferred the lawgiver image being that of Solomon rendering his wisdom. But here we have Findley openly exchanging promises for votes. Once Washington retired to private life the widespread posturing of lawmakers as personally disinterested citizens was quickly exposed as hypocrisy, now obsolete. Like-minded individuals organized into groups identified as parties. Strength in numbers. Democracy in action. Possibly mob rule.

Federalist John Adams sat out the campaign for president in 1796 on the front porch of his home in Quincy, Massachusetts. His opponent, Republican Thomas Jefferson, did much the same by hanging around Monticello, his home in Virginia. It was considered unseemly to want a job bad enough to fight for it. Let your supporters do the politicking on your behalf. You graciously accept the burden of office if victorious.

Both candidates believed in the representative form of democracy - a republic with built-in checks dispersing the concentration of power. However Adams saw government as a force for good while Jefferson believed energetic government the source of tyranny. The leading Federalists - Washington, Hamilton and Adams all pushed one nation, indivisible rule. Jefferson advocated a democracy that is best kept local, close to home - states' rights. Around these divergent views coalesced the interests making up the beginnings of two great political parties.

An admirer of Thomas Jefferson, William Findley of Pennsylvania became a Republican. Federalist opponents defamed these Republicans by calling them democrats - demagogues inciting mob rule. Findley proudly accepted the label Democrat. For him it meant man of the people - someone fighting for their interests with conviction, passion. This is what you do when you ply your trade in representative democracy. Your challenge is to draw together divergent interests under your lone banner. No small talent - especially when your reach extends over large populations with their own centers of power.

Is total transparency a good idea when bringing competing interests together? The Constitution of 1787 was fashioned in a shroud of complete secrecy.

Transparency comes with the popularity of something on the order of World Peace. Politicians looking for compromise on difficult issues don't want a controversy focused on every thought considered. Common good calls for satisfactory resolution of the problem under legal means. All else is a corruption of the process involving human nature. Since all our enterprise is human this fact needs keeping always in mind.

love

dad

coldValentine

Sunday, August 30, 2020

good morning jack

Why would South Carolina

make common cause

with New York?

Except in war

and then only as a matter

of self preservation.

The first stab at government between the newly independent thirteen states was the Articles of Confederation. Each state jealously guarded their own independent sovereignty so consequently the new Confederation Congress sat around with little to do. It was difficult getting a quorum to vote on anything because there wasn't much reason for showing up.

Meanwhile Revolutionary War veterans were near revolt because they had yet to be paid. And Yankee Doodle wasn't the only one being stiffed by government. War debts to merchants and creditors were routinely ignored. Congress could not honor the $150 million run up by the United States to date because they had no authority to raise money. The power of the purse belonged to states.

Then there was a lawless energy about the land regarding most any authority but especially that of the tax collector. Shays' Rebellion was spirited by the same breed of patriots who threw tea into the harbor. What was good for George III applied equally well to Boston's aristocratic elites. The State's puny militia had no effect on the hoard's advance on Boston. Only a last minute intervention from the Continental Army saved the governor's bacon, sending farmers and back woods distillers fleeing for the hills. Point noted.

Each state was a nation unto itself with their own laws, currencies and ideas of democracy. When Virginia's Thomas Jefferson tried to adopt legislation protecting religious freedom it was demagogued to death by "Give me liberty or give me death" orator Patrick Henry. Indians were often swindled in treaties made by states to the benefit of land developers. Nothing of great consequence was being achieved. Roads, canals, real infrastructure enabling interstate commerce waited to be built. We weren't a real nation, yet.

The Founding Father's vision of an American Empire spanning the continent required a truly United States, with one government having overriding authority to pass laws, collect taxes and provide for the common defense. Trouble was few believed something democratic could rein in a sprawling hodgepodge as were these thirteen states. Distance corrupts democracy, according to Montesquieu, a philosopher cited by those opposed to having strong, central government ruling the land. Let your representative stray beyond the reach of people putting him there and you provide fertile opportunity for tyranny - laws made by legislators unanswerable to voters, as they pursue their own grandiose dreams, wasting citizens' money.

James Madison held views considered radical by those having allegiance only to those of their own state. For him states existed to serve the Federal will and had little authority of their own. Madison envisioned a legislature with two chambers, both bodies representative of populations - Congress would give no direct representation to the states. The Executive overseeing it all would have power to veto both Federal and State laws. Here was an unpopular plan in need of a champion.

There would be no convening of America's most illustrious political notables without the attendance of George Washington in Philadelphia during this summer of 1787. Many delegates arrived thinking they came to repair a government - not make a new one as Madison, the convention's promoter, had in mind. The Republic Madison envisioned, required handing power to a distant authority, reminding some of George III and the tyranny patriots fought so they would be free. Here was a proposal appearing to oppose the Spirit of 76. What chance had Madison of succeeding?

Who would suspect shy, soft-spoken James Madison as not only being principle architect of the Constitution but also a shrewd politician capable of engineering the improbable result at Independence Hall. In the age of sailing ship and horse-drawn carriage Madison knew the political landscape of voter thinking. As delegates drifted into Philadelphia Madison had already identified those inclined to his new Federalist approach while knowing also those wanting no new big deals. Conservatives adamantly opposed to any change did Madison the favor of staying home in boycott.

There would be no Constitution, and all that followed, were there not a hefty price to pay. The Federalists - Madison, Washington and Hamilton ultimately gave into the small states' demand for direct representation in the Congress through the Senate. Thus Wyoming and California each has two senators while Wyoming has one congressman in the House with California's voters represented by around fifty. Both the Electoral College and Senate representation recognize a legal authority outside the popular vote.

Then there is Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution itself.

"The Migration or Importation of such Persons [slaves]

as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit,

shall not be prohibited by the Congress

prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight,

but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importations,

not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."

How important was Union? Important enough to ignore slavery for at least the next twenty years. The alternative would be to risk these United States dissolving into warring regions as has happened time and again in Europe. The promise of a great nation foreseen by Washington among others - lost. Preserve the Union. Lincoln oversees Civil War to keep this vision alive. All the while he is building the Transcontinental Railroad in order to link a future nation, spanning the continent.

Faith in a belief.

Enough to bear any burden.

love

dad

coldValentine

Sunday, August 23, 2020

good morning jessicca

We have here a contract

giving the power of rule

to those who are governed.

We are all equals in nature before there is government - free from legal constraints to pursue our desires and, when needed, to act against others to further our own preservation. There is no property you call your own, no justice beyond eye for an eye. Life is a series of on-going wars with others so long as you exist. Your biography will be "nasty, brutish, and short" according to Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan. For these reasons we combine into communities and give up personal freedoms in exchange for the stability provided by a central authority. Our supreme ruler has unlimited power to insure there is peace about the realm. Easing the iron-grip of His Grace's authority will only lead to civil unrest and anarchy, chaos.

Tyranny is not limited to monarchy. Any democratic majority can target an unpopular faction of the population with discrimination or violent action. The capacity for mayhem resides in all human nature. The question before this convention may have best been expressed at the time by a New England clergyman, Jeremy Belknap:

"Let it stand as a principle that government originates from the people; but let the people be taught ... that they are not able to govern themselves."

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it.

James Madison - The Federalist. No. 10

Convention delegate James Wilson of Pennsylvania believed the principles to which he was attached were those of extending liberty to a people and not just a nation. The architects of this new government were its elite, successful and wealthy, viewing themselves society's natural aristocracy. The toiling populace about them were often viewed as rude, unruly and potentially dangerous. Yet it was to these people where the legitimacy of rule was to be placed ...if cause for fighting the American Revolution was to be honored.

"The mob begin to think and reason. Poor reptiles! ... They bask in the sun, and ere noon they will bite, depend upon it." Gouverneur Morris voiced a sentiment shared by many giving their name to a document guaranteeing the handing over of power to those they held with low regard. This leap of faith made by signers of the Constitution was do in large part to the leadership of George Washington, the man bringing independence to the colonies and now presiding over the birth of a nation, one testing the proposition "whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure" as Abraham Lincoln famously said one summer day in Gettysburg.

love

dad

coldValentine

Sunday, August 16, 2020

good morning jeremy

Ordinary citizens are governing themselves in towns across the landscape of eighteenth century colonial America. This is the most politically creative time in this country's history with writing of the Declaration of Independence and the development in 1787 of the enduring U.S. Constitution. Government sovereignty is placed in the collective 'We the people.'

Yet political inspiration wasn't enough to remedy the practice of slavery; legally providing for owning people as property - buying, selling and farming them as you please. Even founding fathers of this time realized noble sentiments like Jefferson's "all men are created equal" are turned into farce as a result of this failure.

"Great as the evil is, a dismemberment of the union would be worse" - James Madison

Your monarch is your master because he represents God's authority on Earth. Your life is at the pleasure of his bidding. He may chose favoring you with his patronage or, possibly, bring his army down upon your land to sow fear.

As a citizen you are among equals. Deference is not paid to those with inherited titles. Respect is earned by your actions. There is a sense of responsibility toward the public good.

Along with George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, James Madison was an avid proponent of a strong central government. Until the Constitution of 1887 was ratified by nine states the thirteen former colonies had operated as thirteen separate republics bound by a loose treaty under the Articles of Confederation. States each having their own currency and legal system would now be united as one sovereign nation, indivisible. The resulting growth to interstate commerce was seen as an enormous benefit.

George Washington was the only man considered among electors choosing the nation's first president. He alone had the stature to guarantee unified leadership. This was an infant country, a new democracy amidst a world of rapacious monarchies. In Washington's view this was no time for political parties and the divisions they promote. The natural order of a democratic society is the airing of competing ideas with arguments then settled peaceably by counting votes at the ballot box. This dynamic was quickly apparent once Washington left the presidency for Mount Vernon following his two terms.

Thomas Jefferson the enlightened author of the Declaration of Independence seemed comfortable as a slave holder till the end of his days. John Adams was irritated by the extent his contemporaries had already been mythologized by the population. Yet the world took note of this young nation's accomplishments - defeating the army of the world's greatest colonial power, then establishing a democracy on a scale never imagined, one that rules within the constraints of a single document. It was all extraordinarily ambitious, wildly successful and also tragic. There was to be no democratically arrived at peaceful ending of slavery. The nation would suffer a cataclysmic war to end the dispute fourscore and five years following its founding.