Our Subversive Founders
A warning label on the Federalist Papers? It’s not such a crazy idea.
Recently my colleague Jay Nordlinger wrote about a new edition of the Federalist Papers that comes equipped with a disclaimer for unwary readers:
This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.
As the reader who tipped Jay off writes, “I will be rereading this work very carefully — it seems that the first few times through I’ve completely missed the sex!” To be sure, the Federalist Papers were written in the 1780s and embody the customs and beliefs of the times. “Man” is used generically to mean “person,” and the existence of slavery, while not endorsed, is accepted as a given (among other things, slavery was still legal in New York, whose citizens the papers were addressed to). If that bothers you, and your kids are sensitive and easily influenced, it might be a good idea to explain these points beforehand — subtly stressing the “sexuality” part if you want them to pay close attention.
Yet the warning is not as overblown as it seems, because the Federalist Papers do, in fact, contain messages that, if taken seriously by impressionable youths, could upset the very basis on which our society is founded. Consider, for example, this passage from the 23rd Federalist about the role of the federal government:
The principal purposes to be answered by union are these — the common defence 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.
Nothing in there about redistribution of wealth, insulating houses, selling insurance, running car companies, or making kids eat their vegetables. Imagine the mischief this antiquated line of thought could inspire!
Then there are these extracts, from the 32nd . . .
As the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.
. . . and the 33rd:
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. . . .
It is said that the laws of the Union are to be the supreme law of the land. . . . But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society [i.e. the Union] which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies [i.e. the states], will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.
A federal government with specified, limited powers — and a populace that treats a violation of these limits as usurpation! I need hardly explain the chaos that would result if Americans took this outdated notion to heart.
Yet another troublesome anachronism is found in the 41st:
It has been urged and echoed that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labour for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
The 18th century was a simpler time. Nowadays we live in a complicated world with many problems, and who better than the federal government to solve them all? That’s why enlightened modern judges interpret the General Welfare Clause to give Congress virtually unlimited power to do whatever it likes. Students should be cautioned in advance against swallowing Hamilton’s vigorously stated but naïve argument.
The 57th Federalist yields still more material that is distressing to modern sensibilities:
The House of Representatives . . . can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. . . . If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.
If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.
The Founders didn’t understand that Congress does very important work — work that must not be hamstrung with rules that govern hiring practices, working conditions, affirmative action, freedom of information, and various other matters. Private citizens and businesses, on the other hand, being less vital to the nation’s well-being, can be freely regulated with little or no cost. Anyone who studies American government must be made to grasp this crucial distinction.
Strangest of all to modern ears is this passage, from the 81st, which summarizes and then refutes one objection to the proposed Constitution:
“The authority [opponents say] of the proposed Supreme Court of the United States, which is to be a separate and independent body, will be superior to that of the legislature. The power of construing the laws according to the SPIRIT of the Constitution, will enable that court to mould them into whatever shape it may think proper; especially as its decisions will not be in any manner subject to the revision or correction of the legislative body. This is as unprecedented as it is dangerous. . . . the errors and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United States will be uncontrollable and remediless.” This, upon examination, will be found to be made up altogether of false reasoning upon misconceived fact. . . . there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution . . .
Okay, now they’re getting ridiculous. Judges should be restricted to following a bunch of dumb old words written hundreds of years ago, instead of simply ordering what they know is best for the country? The publisher of this edition had it right — children need to be carefully warned against such dangerous thoughts.
— Fred Schwarz is a deputy managing editor of National Review.
SOURCE
0 comments:
Post a Comment