Tag: history

Federalist No. 29

Warning: Undefined array key "adf" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 69

Warning: Undefined array key "sim_pages" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 70

Federalist No. 29 is really a continuation of Nos. 26 – 28. My favorite line from this one is:

To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.

This expresses a truth that applies to any “necessary evil” as a standing army is treated to be in many of these papers.

I also have come to appreciate how great and vibrant the debate regarding our form of government was during this period of creating and ratifying the constitution. It makes me all the more respectful of the government that resulted from this document (and all the more desirous to adhere to the original document as much as is reasonable).

Tags documents, federalist, history

General

Federalist Nos. 26 – 28

These papers encapsulate the central issue being tackled win the constitution – namely the balance of powers between branches of government. Of course these are concerned specifically with the authority to raise a standing army, but the central point is important even today. An insightful question from Federalist No. 26 illustrates how times have changed from then until now.

Is it probable that {collusion between the legislative and executive branches} would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses?

At the time the answer would have been no, but today, with little variation coming from one election to the next the answer is that there is a much higher probability of that happening.

Federalist No. 27 and Federalist No. 28 continue to show that the dangers of centralized control of a standing army are hardly greater than the dangers of individual state control of militias.

Tags documents, federalist, history

National

Federalist Nos. 24 – 25

Federalist No. 24 shows the lack of logic behind the arguments to prohibit the government from having a standing army. It is relatively unremarkable except that I was surprised to discover that the writing style differed so greatly from other papers by the same author. I was amused by the reference to advanced communication coming from the perspective of our information age.

The improvements in the art of navigation have, as to the facility of communication, rendered distant nations, in a great measure, neighbors.

Federalist No. 25 shows the wisdom of having a military under the control of the central government and the necessity of allowing for standing armies even in times of peace. More importantly, it illustrated the dangers that come form burdening a system of law and government with unnecessary or illogical regulations.

It was a fundamental maxim of the Lacedaemonian commonwealth, that the post of admiral should not be conferred twice on the same person. The Peloponnesian confederates, having suffered a severe defeat at sea from the Athenians, demanded Lysander, who had before served with success in that capacity, to command the combined fleets. The Lacedaemonians, to gratify their allies, and yet preserve the semblance of an adherence to their ancient institutions, had recourse to the flimsy subterfuge of investing Lysander with the real power of admiral, under the nominal title of vice-admiral.

Sadly, our government today has become a system that is almost defined as a burden of unnecessary or illogical regulations – just look at the tax codes.

Tags Constitution, documents, federalist, history

National

Federalist No. 23

Federalist No. 23 uses the experience of the Articles of Confederation – specifically the experience related to the arrangement whereby the central government could request men and arms for the defense of the nation but did not have the power to enforce those requests on the citizens of the states – to argue that a stronger central government than that provided by the Articles of Confederation was necessary. That experience should prove the necessity of granting sufficient authority to enforce the edicts of the government relating to those tasks which have been delegated to each level of government.

The tasks listed as belonging properly to the central government are "the common defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace as well against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries." In other words

national defense
public peace
interstate commerce
international relations

The principle of having powers sufficient to the duties allotted to each government is illustrated by the following:

Shall the Union be constituted the guardian of the common safety? Are fleets and armies and revenues necessary to this purpose? The government of the Union must be empowered to pass all laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to them. The same must be the case in respect to commerce, and to every other matter to which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend. Is the administration of justice between the citizens of the same State the proper department of the local governments? These must possess all the authorities which are connected with this object, and with every other that may be allotted to their particular cognizance and direction.

Where the federal government enacts laws that are the province of the state governments, the state governments become unable to perform their proper functions in society. That is a problem that has been growing in our nation for decades. As citizens we must come to a consensus again of what the role of the Federal government is and then insist that our representatives at the federal level do not overstep those bounds. We need to allow that the citizens of other states may make choices that we do not agree with, but so long as those choices are not the responsibility of the Federal Government we should not attempt to use the federal powers to force the views of one state on another. The same principle holds true of using state governments to unduly enforce the desires of one county or city on another in those areas that are the proper responsibility of local governments.

Tags Articles of Confederation, defense, documents, federalism, federalist, history

culture

Vietnam

Post author By David
Post date November 21, 2008
8 Comments on Vietnam

This morning I was surprised to read the assertion (written in 1994) that many students who were too young to remember Vietnam are confused by the protests against that war. I am among those too young to remember Vietnam but I’ve never felt confused about the protests – it was a war we were fighting poorly and without decent justification.

As I learned some more details about the war my perspective changed. In 2004 I was unimpressed to learn that John Kerry would volunteer to serve in Vietnam and then be a vocal activist against the war after returning home. As I learned a few more details about what was happening in that war I am no longer surprised. (Not that it changes my opinion of his presidential potential.) In fact, I wonder that anyone could serve there and not protest the war when they got home.

My conclusion here is that while I did not feel confused about the protests before I did not really understand them. Considering how recent this history is it is a sad statement that students would have such a poor understanding of what took place at a time when half of our current voting population was already old enough to recognize what was happening all around them.

Tags history, Vietnam, war

culture National

We Can Do Better

It seems that both parties have been parroting this message all through the 2008 campaign. While they are absolutely right that we can do better, I am not talking about 2008, the Bush administration, or any other recent phenomenon. As I have been reading Lies My Teacher Told Me I am seeing a glaringly obvious pattern to our nations history. Despite the fact that we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world (and we have been for two centuries even with our myriad faults) our history seems to consist more of opportunities lost and blundered chances for real greatness than it does of human excellence. It feels like this greatest of nations has been pushed to the pinnacle of world achievement against our underlying efforts to sink to the depths of human mistakes.

Our biggest blunders are universally centered on the human elements of our interactions with other nations and within our society. Since Europe first laid claim to this continent the Europeans refused to interact with other nations on equal terms. History books continue to perpetuate that crime by minimizing all non-dominant cultures. Thus we approach our endeavors from the perspective of dominance. I believe that mindset of superiority or cultural hierarchy encourages us to pursue homogenization.

The pursuit of homogenization causes equality to trump liberty. Instead of valuing the right of people to make choices and receive the consequences for those choices we begin to devalue all choice by attempting to make the consequences of all choice lead to the same outcome. The only possible result for that type of system would be to destroy everything of value. Trying to enforce an equality of outcome takes the shine off of anything with real intrinsic value. Without that shine illuminating things with real value we lose the incentive to choose that which has value because, whether the outcomes are the same or different, it is always easier to chose the lower road. If the easy way and the hard way end in the same destination many more people will always choose the easy way.

We have all heard the adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What we need to realize that those who fail to teach history – to whitewash it and pretend that it consists of a natural progression – are steadily preventing the real progress that could be made.

If this seems like an underformed idea – that’s because it is. I am trying to synthesize a lot of information and I am still putting it into words and putting it into context. What I know is that, similar to the issue of the cost of health care and how to reduce it, most of the problems we face as a nation are larger, more complex, and more deeply rooted than we care to believe. As long as we do not see the whole problem we are at least as likely to make the problem worse with our solutions as we are to make it better.

Tags history, liberty, thoughts

culture National

Patriot Day

I appreciate the idea of Patriot Day as a way to mark our modern “day of infamy.” It is unfortunate that the event has been used so effectively to manipulate our politics. Once upon a time, America represented more to the world than simply a big bully who was allowed, because of might and wealth, to impose his will on others. Our only hope of regaining that once-deserved prominence is to fix our own government and stop worrying about the rest of the world. We need to ensure our own security as a nation wiht a government that adheres to sound financial principles rather than relying on smoke, mirrors, and the boundless faith of the rest of the world to prop up our economic place in the world.

Some will accuse me of being isolationist. They would be wrong. There is no reason that we cannot lend a hand to other nations and participate in the international community, but our foreign policy must focus on our own actions. In other words, we should be policing ourselves more than policing everyone else.

Being a patriot means doing what is best, rather than what is easiest or most popular. We need more patriots in the nation who are willing to talk together, identify the real serious problems we face, and find solutions rather than politically expedient (popular) patches. I still believe this is possible, but not if we run our nation in reaction to the events of the past. Let’s fix America and let the other nations ask for our help if they want it.

Tags connections, history, holidays, international, patriotism

National

Original Intent

While I fully agree that the Electoral College was not an arbitrary decision and should not be abolished, I also think that we need to articulate the arguments in favor of the Electoral College better than simply stating:

Our Forefathers specifically wanted the STATES to elect the President and Vice President, not the general public.

That argument is about as compelling as the argument often used by those who want to abolish the Electoral College that we have the means to count every vote today (as if addition had not been invented back in 1789). Our Founding Fathers did want the states to elect the President and Vice President, but they also wanted the states to elect Senators. We passed the 17th Amendment to change that for Senators so reading history books may tell us that the Electoral College was a conscious choice by the founders, but those same history books also remind us that we have ignored the founders in the past and we could do so again in the 28th Amendment.

Tags connections, Constitution, electoral college, history

General

Articles of Confederation

Post author By David
Post date June 6, 2008
No Comments on Articles of Confederation

In the midst of my efforts to evaluate all the Federalist Papers, I realized that I had never read the Articles of Confederation which was the basis against which the Constitution was written and against which the Federalist Papers were generally basing their arguments.

The Articles of Confederation were the first attempt by the states at an independent and unified central government. As I have watched the rise of the European Union I have often thought that Europe was trying to recreate the structure of the United States government among their member states. As I read the Articles of Confederation I realize that what they have built looks much more like the Unites States from 1777 to 1788 under those articles than the United States after 1788 under the Constitution.

I will probably do more evaluation in a comparative fashion while reviewing the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, but a few points of interest that struck me as I read include:

- Article 5 – The states determine the size of their congressional delegation (from 2 to 7) but each state has a single vote. Even more interesting were the term limits placed on each delegate – they could serve no more than 3 years out of any 6.
- Article 9 – The congress of the united states, besides being the legislative body of the nation, served as the executive power for the nation (insofar as there was any executive power), and was charged with adjudicating, or establishing a temporary court to adjudicate, any dispute between two states – thus serving as (or controlling) the judicial branch of government.
- Article 11 – Canada was explicitly invited to join the united states if it desired to but no other colony could join without the consent of 9 of the states.

Tags Articles of Confederation, Constitution, documents, European Union, government, history

General

The Declaration of Independence

Post author By David
Post date March 8, 2008
No Comments on The Declaration of Independence

I doubt that I could add any new commentary on The Declaration of Independence but in reading it again I was reminded of why there are only three paragraphs with which most people have any familiarity (the first two and the last one) – all the rest of the declaration is filled with statements that are specific to the situations of that time. The one thing that really struck me as I read was that as we talk about revolution or change in government we should apply the same standards that are outlined in this declaration. First, we must recognize the purpose of government:

. . . all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .

Second, as we work to effect a change of government we should remember how and when that should be undertaken:

. . . whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes . . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

In case anyone is not clear on the point – I don’t think our situation warrants abolishing our government as currently established – partially because we have have established methods for regular transitions of power. What I do believe is that because of our system of citizen involvement and established and regular transfers of power it is our never-ending duty to pay attention to the way that government is altered and to revoke previous alterations in cases where they prove to be either destructive or ineffective for their desired purpose. Always in our efforts to make or unmake alterations we should be looking back to the original statement of the purpose of government.

One final observation – the rights listed as examples of the unalienable rights of all men are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is not the responsibility of government to secure happiness for each but to ensure their right to pursue happiness as they define it.

Tags documents, history, liberty