This is too good to read in one sitting. I've read the first half and am saving the rest (your exploration of the freedom concept) for later.
I had not been aware of Jefferson's dismantling of Hamilton's bureaucracy. I now hold him (Jefferson) in even higher esteem than before. I had thought of him mainly as an intellectual rather than an effective politician.
Brad, you make the founders come alive. They saw the possibility of a better humanity and forged ahead, out of the muck of monarchy and religion, clearing a path for the rest of us. It occurs to me that the"woke left" is, perhaps, a remnant of those who did not follow but remained in the muck.
In studying the evolution of banking and money creation in 19th Century America, it's becoming clear to me that the crafters of that system (various state and Congressional legislators from about 1840 to 1880) were recipients of the spirit of Jefferson. They crafted a system of money creators (banks) that was privately owned, profit-seeking, dispersed, and mostly non-political. Brad's essays are putting the historical and philosophical color on this history. Terrific.
Totally correct about the Declaration being the founding. The Constitution was implementation after the first, failed effort to implement. Interesting stuff about Jefferson dismantling the Hamiltonian bureaucracy. He also dismantled the first iteration of the national security state, the Alien and Sedition Acts.
When you talk about the economic expansion, you should reference the Whigs, though. They were the successors of the Federalists though they preferred to work via subsidy rather than bureaucracy. An exposition of the role of their theories about economics-"internal improvements"- would be interesting. It is an issue still not settled today. Since the Whigs later morphed into the Republicans, this is important. Republicans 1.0 were the progressive party and only became conservative starting some time in the Grant administration. I personally prefer Jefferson's vision but others obviously differed.
I suppose I will have to wait until the next installment to see whether you are going to grasp the nettle of nullification and secession. For too many Americans, this is all tied up with the Confederacy but that is a huge oversimplification. The first attempt at nullification was Virginia and Kentucky trying to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts. The resolutions were drafted by Jefferson and Madison who knew a little about the Founding. The first serious secession movement was in New England in response to the economic dislocations of the War of 1812. Sanford Levinson wrote a book on the topic from the legal perspective. And of course, both left and right are currently trying to nullify Federal gun and immigration law and the left has successfully nullified drug laws.
A nice history lesson for this Canadian... but somehow Americans have lost the plot. Instead of an autocratic King you have an overbearing government that has infiltrated every aspect of life.
Unfortunately, I don't see a solution other than bankruptcy, civil war or secession. Your 2 parties are similar to ours. They exist as opposition to each other instead of alternatives. Here in Canada, if the Liberals say Yes, the Conservatives reflexively say No. The Conservatives make vague promises to cut spending but once in power all those promises are forgotten.
Brad: I so appreciate your insights and am continually impressed by your scholarship. I think I understand your current mission, which is, at least in part, to illuminate American history from the viewpoint of those who actually lived it. The big test is coming. I have every confidence that you will navigate the treacherous rapids of the mid Nineteenth Century with the same objectivity and thoughtful reflection you have displayed since the Government School rants of old. I just hope you finish before I do.
If the standard is, "to create a free government that would not succumb to the all-too-common temptation to transform itself over time into a despotism," then the Founding failed the moment Lincoln marched Federal troops into Maryland against the will of that state's legislature. Of course I am being generous. The descent into despotism began in the first Congress when the federal government assumed the states' debts for the revolution, thus punishing states who borrowed money and paid their debts while rewarding states who borrowed money and did not pay the loans back. There is a direct line from that act of the first congress and Biden's attempt to "forgive" student debt. The Congress almost immediately got itself involved corruptly in interstate commerce, eventually (Lincoln again) becoming so intertwined in the railroad industry that it rivaled and even surpassed their current involvement in the social media industry, both times to the detriment to the people and the Constitution. Lysander Spooner said, "But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."
The constitution was thus a failure in creating a nation of laws and not of men. And America is no longer ruled (or even pretended to be ruled) in accordance with that document. The oligarchy that rules the United States, and has done so since the 1930s to one extent or another, is less obvious that that which ruled the British Empire in the 19th Century, vastly more psychopathic than any non-communist oligarchy in all of history, and not particularly smart either, creating an empire in which the United States proper is drained of resources for the benefit of clients rather than (as is usual with empires) being the other way around. Jefferson, whom you quote approvingly, believed that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." There have been oceans of blood of patriots over the centuries, while the tyrants continue to feast off America's decaying corpse. My final quote is from Herb Stein, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” The US descent cannot go on forever without hitting bottom.
As an academic historian, your role should not be to prop up the failed constitution, but to analyze how and why it failed, so that when bottom is hit, there are ideas on how to reform the US system to make it more stable. Note that something like “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade," won't cut it. You should know why. Every *functional* prohibition in the constitution has been violated, while no *structural* element has been violated. So saying "Congress can't do X" hasn't ever worked. But saying "each state gets two Senators", while hated by every Marxist and Neo-Marxist, has stood the test of time. So start thinking about *structural* changes that could be made to make the constitution stand for more than six months without Congress violating it, or 71 years before an American tyrant runs an army through it.
This is too good to read in one sitting. I've read the first half and am saving the rest (your exploration of the freedom concept) for later.
I had not been aware of Jefferson's dismantling of Hamilton's bureaucracy. I now hold him (Jefferson) in even higher esteem than before. I had thought of him mainly as an intellectual rather than an effective politician.
Brad, you make the founders come alive. They saw the possibility of a better humanity and forged ahead, out of the muck of monarchy and religion, clearing a path for the rest of us. It occurs to me that the"woke left" is, perhaps, a remnant of those who did not follow but remained in the muck.
In studying the evolution of banking and money creation in 19th Century America, it's becoming clear to me that the crafters of that system (various state and Congressional legislators from about 1840 to 1880) were recipients of the spirit of Jefferson. They crafted a system of money creators (banks) that was privately owned, profit-seeking, dispersed, and mostly non-political. Brad's essays are putting the historical and philosophical color on this history. Terrific.
Totally correct about the Declaration being the founding. The Constitution was implementation after the first, failed effort to implement. Interesting stuff about Jefferson dismantling the Hamiltonian bureaucracy. He also dismantled the first iteration of the national security state, the Alien and Sedition Acts.
When you talk about the economic expansion, you should reference the Whigs, though. They were the successors of the Federalists though they preferred to work via subsidy rather than bureaucracy. An exposition of the role of their theories about economics-"internal improvements"- would be interesting. It is an issue still not settled today. Since the Whigs later morphed into the Republicans, this is important. Republicans 1.0 were the progressive party and only became conservative starting some time in the Grant administration. I personally prefer Jefferson's vision but others obviously differed.
I suppose I will have to wait until the next installment to see whether you are going to grasp the nettle of nullification and secession. For too many Americans, this is all tied up with the Confederacy but that is a huge oversimplification. The first attempt at nullification was Virginia and Kentucky trying to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts. The resolutions were drafted by Jefferson and Madison who knew a little about the Founding. The first serious secession movement was in New England in response to the economic dislocations of the War of 1812. Sanford Levinson wrote a book on the topic from the legal perspective. And of course, both left and right are currently trying to nullify Federal gun and immigration law and the left has successfully nullified drug laws.
A nice history lesson for this Canadian... but somehow Americans have lost the plot. Instead of an autocratic King you have an overbearing government that has infiltrated every aspect of life.
Unfortunately, I don't see a solution other than bankruptcy, civil war or secession. Your 2 parties are similar to ours. They exist as opposition to each other instead of alternatives. Here in Canada, if the Liberals say Yes, the Conservatives reflexively say No. The Conservatives make vague promises to cut spending but once in power all those promises are forgotten.
Brad: I so appreciate your insights and am continually impressed by your scholarship. I think I understand your current mission, which is, at least in part, to illuminate American history from the viewpoint of those who actually lived it. The big test is coming. I have every confidence that you will navigate the treacherous rapids of the mid Nineteenth Century with the same objectivity and thoughtful reflection you have displayed since the Government School rants of old. I just hope you finish before I do.
If the standard is, "to create a free government that would not succumb to the all-too-common temptation to transform itself over time into a despotism," then the Founding failed the moment Lincoln marched Federal troops into Maryland against the will of that state's legislature. Of course I am being generous. The descent into despotism began in the first Congress when the federal government assumed the states' debts for the revolution, thus punishing states who borrowed money and paid their debts while rewarding states who borrowed money and did not pay the loans back. There is a direct line from that act of the first congress and Biden's attempt to "forgive" student debt. The Congress almost immediately got itself involved corruptly in interstate commerce, eventually (Lincoln again) becoming so intertwined in the railroad industry that it rivaled and even surpassed their current involvement in the social media industry, both times to the detriment to the people and the Constitution. Lysander Spooner said, "But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."
The constitution was thus a failure in creating a nation of laws and not of men. And America is no longer ruled (or even pretended to be ruled) in accordance with that document. The oligarchy that rules the United States, and has done so since the 1930s to one extent or another, is less obvious that that which ruled the British Empire in the 19th Century, vastly more psychopathic than any non-communist oligarchy in all of history, and not particularly smart either, creating an empire in which the United States proper is drained of resources for the benefit of clients rather than (as is usual with empires) being the other way around. Jefferson, whom you quote approvingly, believed that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." There have been oceans of blood of patriots over the centuries, while the tyrants continue to feast off America's decaying corpse. My final quote is from Herb Stein, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” The US descent cannot go on forever without hitting bottom.
As an academic historian, your role should not be to prop up the failed constitution, but to analyze how and why it failed, so that when bottom is hit, there are ideas on how to reform the US system to make it more stable. Note that something like “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade," won't cut it. You should know why. Every *functional* prohibition in the constitution has been violated, while no *structural* element has been violated. So saying "Congress can't do X" hasn't ever worked. But saying "each state gets two Senators", while hated by every Marxist and Neo-Marxist, has stood the test of time. So start thinking about *structural* changes that could be made to make the constitution stand for more than six months without Congress violating it, or 71 years before an American tyrant runs an army through it.