Considering the mischief caused by Tea-Party Republican representatives, and the resulting confusion about how to end the shutdown, here is Rawlins Lowndes’s realistic view of the proposed US constitution of 1787, as collected in the Anti-Federalist Papers (54):
James Madison’s social engineering view of the future governance of the USA was not so pragmatic, was more idealist, and was almost utopian:
A southern conservative, Lowndes was right about mischief and confusion being built into the constitution, and he was worried that too many checks might favour non-conservative causes, such as the abolition of slavery. However, in later years the instigators of the mischief and confusion were most often conservatives who – being conservative – had no view of the future other than the past. Tea-Party Republicans seem to have no view of the future other than the past, and because of the numerous checks in the US constitution plus checks added by Congress (such as the filibuster or the “Hastert” rule) they can try to stop, but have nowhere to go after the stop. In September 2013, Senator Ted Cruz suggested that the House could begin passing bills that fund one federal agency at a time. A nothing plan that got nowhere.
Cruz and so many other Tea Party members of congress, however, do not fear economic collapse, do not fear angry federal workers, do not fear not having establishment approval, and usually they do not fear losing elections in their safe, gerrymandered seats. Some justices on the US Supreme Court agree that it is fine to gerrymander: “Appellants’ political gerrymandering theory that mid-decade redistricting for exclusively partisan purposes violates the one-person, one-vote requirement is rejected.” [5] A strange country – as long as you can vote, things are fine, even if your vote had been made worthless.
A continuing theme in the Anti-Federalist Papers is the ability to disrupt elections and voting made possible by the proposed constitution. For example, congress could decide that the “next election to be held in one place in each state; and so as not to give the rabble needless disgust, they may appoint the most central place for that purpose. They can never be at a loss for an ostensible reason to vary and shift from place to place until they may fix it at any extremity of the state it suits.” [6] An exaggeration perhaps, but given some States’ decisions about voter ID, perhaps not.
Great stress was laid on the admirable checks which guarded us, under the new Constitution, from the encroachments of tyranny; but too many checks in a political machine must produce the same mischief as in a mechanical one – that of throwing all into confusion. [1]Lowndes was trying to protect slavery in South Carolina against those in the Northern States, those who would try to do away with that peculiar institution: affirming that “whilst there remained one acre of swampland in South Carolina, he should raise his voice against restricting the importation of Negroes.” He was a pragmatist.
James Madison’s social engineering view of the future governance of the USA was not so pragmatic, was more idealist, and was almost utopian:
Whilst all authority in it [the federal republic] will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.[2]Alexander Hamilton saw the new constitution as a grand exercise in applying lessons from history, philosophy, and the classical era to social engineering the new country; so grand, in fact, that not ratifying the constitution would “deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind” (Federalist Papers, 1) [3] Hamilton’s view was at variance with an anonymous writer who worried about the coercive power of the federal government “Read the said constitution, and consider it well before you act. I have done so, and can find that we are to receive but little good, and a great deal of evil.” [4]
A southern conservative, Lowndes was right about mischief and confusion being built into the constitution, and he was worried that too many checks might favour non-conservative causes, such as the abolition of slavery. However, in later years the instigators of the mischief and confusion were most often conservatives who – being conservative – had no view of the future other than the past. Tea-Party Republicans seem to have no view of the future other than the past, and because of the numerous checks in the US constitution plus checks added by Congress (such as the filibuster or the “Hastert” rule) they can try to stop, but have nowhere to go after the stop. In September 2013, Senator Ted Cruz suggested that the House could begin passing bills that fund one federal agency at a time. A nothing plan that got nowhere.
Cruz and so many other Tea Party members of congress, however, do not fear economic collapse, do not fear angry federal workers, do not fear not having establishment approval, and usually they do not fear losing elections in their safe, gerrymandered seats. Some justices on the US Supreme Court agree that it is fine to gerrymander: “Appellants’ political gerrymandering theory that mid-decade redistricting for exclusively partisan purposes violates the one-person, one-vote requirement is rejected.” [5] A strange country – as long as you can vote, things are fine, even if your vote had been made worthless.
A continuing theme in the Anti-Federalist Papers is the ability to disrupt elections and voting made possible by the proposed constitution. For example, congress could decide that the “next election to be held in one place in each state; and so as not to give the rabble needless disgust, they may appoint the most central place for that purpose. They can never be at a loss for an ostensible reason to vary and shift from place to place until they may fix it at any extremity of the state it suits.” [6] An exaggeration perhaps, but given some States’ decisions about voter ID, perhaps not.
[1] Rawlins Lowndes, “54: Apportionment and Slavery: Northern and Southern Views”, Anti-Federalist Papers (in a speech to the South Carolina ratifying convention, 16-18 January 1788). Available online.
[2] James Madison, “51: The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments”, Federalist Papers (Independent Journal, 8 Feb 1788). Available online.
[3] Alexander Hamilton, “1: Introduction”, Federalist Papers (Independent Journal, 27 October 1787). Available online.
[4] A FARMER AND A PLANTER, “26: The Use of Coercion By the New Government (Part 1)”, Anti-Federalist Papers (The Maryland Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, 1 April 1788). Available online.
[5] US Supreme Court, “League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry”, US Supreme Court, 2006 (Ted Cruz was a lawyer for Perry and the State of Texas). Available online.
[6] ARISTOCROTIS, “51: The Government of Nature Delineated; Or An Exact Picture of the New Federal Constitution”, Anti-Federalist Papers (pamphlet: Carlisle, PA, 1788). Available online.
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