No Vice & No Virtue

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #14, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_14.html

Originally published November 30, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, James Madison.

So far, we’ve established that Union is better for security from foreign threats, peace at home, trade, and protection from “special interests“. The only common objection left to talk about is the size of our land area. Opponents of the Constitution are desperately trying to convince you that no single government could control a land as large as ours, but they are just grasping at straws.

I’ve debunked this thinking already. All I can say is this seems to be a product of confusing a “republic” and a “democracy” – thinking that a republic works just like a democracy. Of course, this isn’t true. A democracy is where the people directly make the decisions, a republic uses representatives of the people for this purpose. It is democracies that are limited in size, not republics.

There have been some prominent writers (themselves living under monarchy) who perpetuate this confusion in order to make monarchy seem better by comparison. By mixing the two definitions, they can make people think that republics have flaws that really only apply to democracies, and by the same reasoning that republics can only operate on a small scale.

It’s easy to fall into this trap. All the ancient governments (like Greece) were more purely democratic, and the few examples of representative government we have from Europe (like Britain) aren’t totally based on that concept – there are still monarchical elements. Here in America we have come up with something totally new – a purely representative form of government. It’s a shame that some people here don’t want to see this innovation fully come to pass.

The limit on the size of a democracy is the distance to the central place where everyone meets (and the limit on the number of people who can effectively meet in that place). In a republic, it is the maximum distance that will allow the representatives to meet often enough to conduct the government’s business. So does this Union fall within those limits? The length of the east coast is our largest distance to travel, and it hasn’t been a problem yet for representatives from all over the map to show up for meetings of the Continental Congress.

Before we go further, let’s define how large an area we’re talking about. Our borders are somewhat irregular, but on average it is about 868 miles north-and-south, by about 750 miles from the Atlantic to the Mississippi (we think). Comparing that to some European countries, a republic seems possible. We aren’t that much larger than Germany (where they assemble representatives from all across the country). Same thing in Poland until recently. Even in Great Britain (which is obviously smaller than we are) the northernmost representatives have as far to travel as our most distant ones.

As good as the evidence is so far, it gets even better.

First, we aren’t talking about a government that will control everything, but one that will only have a few limited powers that are national in scope. Most power will be left with the existing State governments. If we were talking about getting rid of the State governments entirely, then the opponents of the Constitution might have a valid argument. As it stands though, the proposed Federal government needs the States.

Second, we know that our current goal is to unite the 13 original States (and this is obviously possible, as we’re doing it already), but we also want to be able to deal with any new States that get formed from the largely uninhabited country to the west and northwest that we control.

Third, we’re constantly making fantastic improvements to our communication and transportation infrastructure and these will only get better over time. More and better roads & canals, along with increasing use of our rivers and harbors to transfer goods between the States is inevitable.

Fourth, and most importantly, practically every State has an external border right now. This will cause each State to invest resources in its own defense. The States that are farthest from the national capital may have a harder time sending representatives to meet about national issues, but without the Union, they will definitely have a worse time trying to go it alone against potentially threatening foreign nations on their borders. Sending representatives might be expensive, but war is even more so.

I’ll let you be the judge. You know how rough the path of disunion would be. Don’t let people tell you that we can’t get along as one people. Don’t let them tell you that this Union is impossible to maintain. We have shed too much blood together to part ways now. If anyone has radical ideas, it is those who suggest that we break up our Union under the guise of increasing freedom and happiness. Why should we fear the new ideas contained in the Constitution? Simply because they are new? We’ve never had a blind loyalty to tradition when we can see a better path. We can be a shining example of proper government for all the world. Think of the spot we’d be in if the Revolutionaries had been slaves to tradition! Luckily for us, they created something new – a government that had never existed before. Sure, it has some flaws – the work of creating a government from scratch is hard – but we can overcome and correct those problems. This is what the Constitution does, and that’s what you need to think about when deciding whether to ratify it.

Some people think my reading of the Constitution is flawed by my reliance on what the founders said about it, and my use of the older meanings of the words the founders used in writing it. They say that the Constitution should be a “living” document, or that I shouldn’t be so “strict” in my interpretation. This has come up as a criticism of my argument in the recent article on the Second Amendment. I’d like to explain my point of view on this.

On the charge of being “strict”: the Constitution is a set of rules for how the government is supposed to work. As such, it should absolutely be read in a strict sense. The people who claim to be in favor of a more “nuanced” approach to our rights would be the very first ones to cry foul if they were thrown in jail because of their speech, or because of an improperly conducted search. The rules should be the rules. For everyone. The Constitution doesn’t exist to only protect the rights of those who agree with the people who are currently in power. That would be a meaningless protection.

As to the charge of putting undue stock in what the founders thought the words meant: This is the more serious problem, in my eyes. When interpreting and deciding whether a written law is good, should the author’s definitions of words be used, or the definitions decided on by any random future reader? Let’s think about this with an example:

Say you just moved from the U.S. and started working as a desk clerk at a hotel in London. When reading the policy and procedure manual during your first shift, you come across the following line: “It is of vital importance that all hotel guests be knocked-up in the morning by the front desk clerk at the time specified by the guest.” You notice that there is a list at the front desk of all the hotel guests with separate “knock-up” times listed for each. What is this rule asking you to do?

To the Brit who wrote the policy, “knock-up” means that you are supposed to *wake up* each guest on the list. As an American transplant, you would probably reach a totally different conclusion. Your cultural definition of that phrase would lead you to interpret the policy to mean that you are supposed to go and *impregnate* each hotel guest (especially if you’re the type of person who is pre-disposed to want to have sex with strangers – that’s called “confirmation bias”). I mean, apparently, they asked for it when they signed-in, right?

So ask yourself: Which is the right way to interpret this language? Which is the most fair? Which do you think would stand up in court during the eventual sexual assault trial? Should the author’s definitions be followed, or the definitions of whoever happens to read it later on?

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #13, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_13.html

Originally published November 28, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, Alexander Hamilton.

We just got done talking about government revenue. A very closely-connected subject is government efficiency. If the government is more efficient, it will be able to stretch its revenues further. There will be nationwide problems – wouldn’t it be more efficient for 1 government to handle those, rather than 3 or 4 (or even 13 – although no one seems to advocate this anymore)? Even the governments of 3 confederacies would each need to be as powerful and have as many departments and officials as the 1 proposed by the Constitution – I mean, each confederacy would be larger than Britain is today! We certainly wouldn’t need a government 3-times the size to get the job done.

There’s another thing going on, too – if the system breaks down, we’re likely to fall into 2 confederacies, North (concerned with trade and shipping) and South (who couldn’t care less about those things). Pennsylvania and New Jersey are the swing States there, but they will most likely go to the North – and if New Jersey goes to the North, there’s no hope of a 3rd confederacy.

Since it’s clear that there will at least be some form of confederacy (or confederacies) if we are disunited, isn’t it better to have just one national government, supported by all the States, than to have national governments supported by a smaller number? How would that be cheaper (as opponents to the Constitution claim)?

Besides the number of departments needed, think about the huge number of people we’d have to have employed by the separate confederate governments to guard our borders against smuggling (since that activity would be a killer on tax revenue) and the massive militaries that would come up to defend against the threats we talked about in earlier papers? If we really consider it, we realize that separate confederacies will be worse not only for efficiency, but for trade, peace, revenue, and freedom.

One short, two-clause sentence. That’s all the 2nd amendment is.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Pretty simple, right? Well, apparently not. Few parts of the Constitution are as willfully misunderstood as this one. Granted, that misunderstanding is well-intentioned, but that doesn’t make it right. Let’s break it down, shall we?

First of all, the 2nd amendment is obviously one of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution – the part that is commonly referred to (even back in 1789) as “The Bill of Rights“. The whole point of The Bill of Rights – the reason the Anti-Federalists insisted on creating it – was to secure individual rights against a tyrannical government that might be possible under the Constitution. So it would be pretty nonsensical to read one of those 10 amendments in a way that doesn’t secure an individual right, doesn’t it? But this is exactly what these (admittedly well-intentioned) people do. They tell us that your right to “keep and bear arms” relies on you being part of a “militia” – you gain the right only collectively. But now, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I mentioned before that there are two clauses. These are generally referred to as the “prefatory” and the “operative” clauses. The prefatory clause sets the table and lays out the driving purpose, and the operative clause gets the actual work done. We’ll begin the analysis with the operative clause since it is the easiest to understand (and where the real work of the amendment gets done anyway):

the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

“the right” – The important word here is “the”. We aren’t talking about “a” right, but “the” right. Think about it this way: if I ask for “a” book off the shelf, that could be any of them. If I ask for “the” book, I’m talking about a specific one – one that definitely already exists. I’m not creating it out of thin air; it’s already here and pre-defined. We aren’t making a right with this amendment – we’re talking about one that is already firmly in existence.

“of the people” – So who does this right belong to? “the people”. Everywhere else in the Constitution where this phrase is used, it refers to everyone – not some nebulous subset like “the militia”. So, this right already exists, and everyone already has it. Madison himself reinforces this reading in Federalist #46, where he talks about the American people as a whole being armed. He sees this as an advantage that we have against tyranny as opposed to the people in the European countries whose governments don’t trust them with weapons. It’s also helpful to remember that Federalist #46 was published in January of 1788 – almost 4 years before the 2nd amendment was ratified. Further proof that this right was not “made” by the 2nd amendment.

“to keep and bear arms” – The right that the people have is to possess, carry, train with, and use (if needed) weapons. They don’t just have to keep them locked up in a display case.

“shall not be infringed.” – No one can take away or limit this right in any way. There is no exception given for “reasonable” restrictions or limitations. There is not a provision for “unless most people think it’s OK”. There is no distinction between hunting or defense uses. These rights shall not be infringed. Period.

Now to look at the first clause:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,

“A well regulated” – These days, people think that “regulations” is just a fancy word for whatever rules the government wants to come up with. Of course, this clause doesn’t talk about “regulations” per se, but about a thing that ends up being “well regulated” in the end. What does that mean? Think about it this way: if you put a flow regulator on a shower head, what does that do? It makes the flow regular – another way to say that would be consistent, or normalized. The whole point of having a well regulated flow of water is to make sure that that water pressure is consistent – the same every time you turn it on. The same sense of “well regulated” is used by the founders here. We need to have a militia capability that is consistently available and of reliable quality across the country, so people need to be familiar and proficient with weapons. They can’t have that level of comfort or availability for defense if they don’t have ready access to those weapons by owning them. It’s as simple as that. This reading is backed up by Hamilton’s argument in Federalist #29:

A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, nor a week nor even a month, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry and of the other classes of the citizens to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people and a serious public inconvenience and loss.

It isn’t about them being members of something, or having a bunch of rules to follow – it’s about achieving a state of proficiency in the use of weapons, especially around others.

Also, like I talked about above, the word “a” is used here, as opposed to “the“. The other place in the Constitution where “militia” is mentioned (Article 1, Section 8), refers to “the militia”, and that Congress can make rules about it. So you see, the 2nd amendment isn’t talking about a specific group, but only laying out a theoretical scenario that would apply to any “free state”, further cementing this initial clause as being prefatory in nature.

“militia” – This is the word that causes the most confusion. This word makes people think that the right discussed above isn’t held by the people, but only by members of “militia” units (what people today think of as the National Guard, though this isn’t accurate in the historical context). If you aren’t a member, then you don’t have the right to have weapons. This is of course nonsense, as most gun control advocates insist that they don’t want to take hunting rifles away and hunting has nothing to do with militia membership. Luckily, the founders left us with a definition of “militia”. Less than 6 months after the 2nd amendment was ratified, Congress passed The Militia Act of 1792, which included this definition:

…each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia…

All white males aged 18 – 45, who were healthy and not in jail. That’s what the militia was. Mind you, this is not worded as eligibility for service, but these qualifications make you an immediate member in the militia, whether you like it or not.

“being necessary to the security of a free state,” – Everyone listed above had to be a member of the militia, and that militia had to be consistently available in all the states (“well regulated”) because we didn’t have a standing army (since we were a “free state”, not a police state) to provide security in the case of an invasion or domestic uprising. We may not have time to raise an army in a crisis and we need to have enough people who are able to defend themselves until we can.

So, taken all together, the amendment means basically this:

Since we need to have a competent militia that is available nationwide to defend us in case of an immediate crisis, everyone needs to have the right to keep and train with weapons so they may join in that militia effort if needed.

That’s all there is to it.

As an addendum: Gun control advocates will say that machine guns and other “assault weapons” have no place in modern society and shouldn’t be counted as “arms” because the founders couldn’t have envisioned them. There are two responses to this argument:

1) The founders couldn’t have imagined cell phones, Internet, 24-hour worldwide cable news, satellite communications, nationwide newspapers, radio, or even telegraphs. Should the 1st amendment speech protections not apply to those forms of technologically-advanced media as a result? Should 4th amendment search protections not apply to wiretaps, or email systems? Is there ANY other part of the Constitution that we interpret as being technologically-limited to 1791?

2) Yes, the founders allowed citizens to own smoothbore, single-shot, muzzle-loading long guns, and these seem weak to us today in the context of machine guns, grenade launchers, and the like. But these were THE MOST technologically-advanced personal weapons available at the time (along with being the standard issue weapon of the military in those days). The founders certainly could have limited the people to lesser weapons (bow-and-arrow, swords, knives, clubs) but they did not. They chose to allow the people the same weapons that the military had. Why shouldn’t that principle endure?

Opponents of the 2nd amendment are clear on the 1791 definition of arms, and want that one to be used. As demonstrated above, I don’t think they would be quite so happy living with the rest of that sentence as if it were 1791, though.

Commas have a purpose in the English language, and I don’t think it is to say “read the rest of this sentence like it’s 200 years ago”.

The Constitution lays out a set of principles that should be followed. It isn’t about living in the past – it’s about figuring out what the founders were trying to accomplish and applying that same thinking about principles to today. Freedom of speech applies just as much to your blog as it applies to your quill pen – it should be a concept that is technologically-neutral. The founders didn’t literally want us to be equipped with smoothbores – they wanted us to be as well equipped as the military. They didn’t want weapons limited to the militia, but weapons to be freely available so that anyone could join and be useful in the militia.

A sentence taken out of context (“for our own good”) can be a dangerous thing for liberty.

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #12, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_12.html

Originally published November 27, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, Alexander Hamilton.

We’ve talked about trade. How about the Union’s effect on government revenue?

Obviously, trade generates a lot of money. Because of this, it is a chief concern of the government – everyone wants our commerce to continue to do well and even increase. You might think that there would be tension between the producers of goods and the exporters, but they’ve come to see that they need each other. Increased trade has other advantages, too – like higher property values. Workers, manufacturing firms, everyone benefits from better trade.

A country needs to have good-quality money, and you can only achieve that through trade. Look at Germany: they have good land for farming, and the most impressive precious metal mines in Europe, yet their economy is floundering because they have very little trade.

The best thing the Union would do for revenue would be providing a broader tax base. It is very difficult to raise a large sum of money by directly taxing the people – for one thing, they won’t allow it (and without sufficient revenue themselves, just plain don’t have the money to give), so the states end up with very little money as a result. This is no surprise to anyone who knows how other countries deal with these issues. Britain has a much richer population than we have, and even they have trouble raising money through direct taxes. They get most of their funding through indirect means: tariffs, imposts, and duties on trade. Shouldn’t we do the same thing here?

As it stands, we already have taxes on imports and these are going to be what we need to get us by in the future. This is because taxes on some goods and services produced within each state (we call them “excises”) aren’t very popular, and don’t generate much revenue anyway. Taxing personal property is too difficult, as it is easily hidden. There aren’t a lot of options.

Any system that would make tax collection easier and better must be a good thing. The Union accomplishes this goal.

Remaining as separate States, we’d have a hard time collecting taxes on imports from the other States. Since we are very well interconnected with rivers and we share a common language and culture, smuggling and black market trading would not only pop up quickly, it would be almost impossible to prevent. We’d be forced to implement elaborate border security patrols (France has these and they are huge – more than 20,000 men in all – and do we really want that many armed men wandering around?). Failing that, to compete with smugglers, the States would need to keep their import taxes low, and thus wouldn’t collect enough revenue. Since the other kinds of taxes are unworkable (as discussed above), this would leave the States in an impossible financial place.

On the other hand – think what the Union could accomplish. We’d have one border to worry about: the Atlantic coast. All foreign trade would need to come through that avenue, and there are only so many ports. A small navy could ensure that no unloading happens before coming in to dock and pay the taxes. It would be much harder to sneak through that border than it would be the borders between our States.

A single national government would therefore be able to keep import taxes higher than any state can by themselves. I don’t think any State has an import tax rate higher than 3% right now. France has theirs at 15%. Britain’s is even more than that. I’m sure we could hit at least 9%. As an example, think of the liquor we import: our whole country brings in about 4,000,000 gallons of the stuff per year. Even if we taxed it at only a shilling a gallon (which I’m certain people would be willing to pay), we’d generate £200,000 in taxes! Even if people aren’t willing to pay that much tax, wouldn’t it be just as well for our own economy (and morality) that we not have so much foreign liquor around anyway?

So what if we don’t follow the plan I’m laying out? Well we certainly can’t last long without tax revenue – that’s for sure. We might be forced to join back up with Britain! You know that’s not a realistic option. We NEED tax revenue – but from what source? Taxes on goods and services produced are unpopular (and in primarily agricultural states, insignificant). Taxes on property are hard to track, and may also make people feel hounded by the government – landowners would have to make up the slack (and we know that they alone would never be able to satisfy the government’s appetite for money). The answer is obvious: the people’s hatred of direct taxes, and our State governments’ inability to gather enough money with them, will come together and make plain the need for the higher taxes on trade that only the Union can produce.

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #11, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_11.html

Originally published November 24, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, Alexander Hamilton.

The economic benefits of the Union are the most obvious – both in domestic and international trade.

Our commercial abilities are so great, they make Europe very nervous. Many European nations have a foothold in the new world with small colonies, and they are worried about what our future economic dominance will do to their place in the world. They would LOVE to see us wasting time, fighting amongst ourselves (and consequently) not becoming a threat to them. I could even tell you which countries would like it the most!

There’s a lot that we can do to prevent these foreign desires from happening, if we stick together. We can have uniform taxes on imports – forcing foreign countries to fight with each other for the right to sell their manufactured goods here in our giant market. We can also use that power to get better terms in the foreigners’ markets, too. Sure, excluded countries (say, Great Britain) could still trade with us through a third party (say, the Dutch) but at a much greater expense than if they traded with us directly. Foreign countries would be crazy to let that happen, and in this case their gain would be our gain.

It gets even better for us if the Union can create a navy. Imagine how powerful it could be with the resources of all the States together! We have to be able to protect our trading interests – especially in this hemisphere, and particularly in the Caribbean. When a war breaks out between the European powers, it will spill over into the Caribbean. Even if we didn’t have a huge navy, we could have enough ships to tip the balance of power to one side or the other if we were to join in the fight – that threat could be enough to keep our neutrality (and thus, our profitable trade) alive.

As individual States, we’d have no chance of doing this. The warring powers would prey upon our shipping as they see fit. Who would stop them? When you’re weak, you can’t even be neutral – you become easy cannon fodder.

As a united country, Europe wouldn’t even try to mess with our trading ships. As individual States, foreign powers would dictate the terms of trade to us, and may even be able to dismantle our trade entirely, making us dependent upon their shipping. We would have snuffed out our potential to become the greatest country in the world.

If we dissolved the Union, how would we deal with the Mississippi? With the Great Lakes? Britain and Spain would like to see us flounder there, so that they could take possession of those resources for themselves.

And let’s not forget – maritime trade benefits the whole country, not just the parts with ports. A national navy will have the same benefits. While most of our experienced sailors are in the north, the south has the best shipbuilding wood available. The south also has readily available tar, pitch, and turpentine. Along with the south, the middle states produce good-quality iron needed for shipbuilding and naval guns. It will take the contributions of all the States to make a world-class navy. We simply couldn’t do it as individual States, or even as small confederacies.

Along with foreign trade, we should also keep trade free amongst ourselves. This will calm the effects of disasters like local crop failures, as replacements can be easily brought in from a neighbor, and will also ensure that this country always has something to export. We need a diversified market to make sure our economy functions well. Obviously, this is much easier with the Union than with any smaller combinations we could come up with.

Even with an assumption of “friendly” relations between the States with regard to trade, I’ve already explained in previous papers how quickly those arrangements can fall apart. Only a united government gives us hope of free interstate trade.

Like it or not, the reality is that Europe has considerable power in the world. To some extent, they control (or like to think they control) the rest of the planet. Asia, Africa and the Americas have all fallen victim to their influence. The Europeans think that they are super-human and that we lowly Americans are nowhere near as capable, powerful, or intelligent as they are. To their eyes, it’s an established fact. Let’s show them how wrong they are. We have to stay united and powerful enough to control our own destiny!

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #10, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_10.html

Originally published November 22, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, James Madison.

One of the things that a well-constructed Union will do is mitigate the effects of “special interests“. Fans of democracy find the emergence of these special interests to be the most troubling part of the system, so any efforts to control these are critical. Many democracies have been killed off by these special interests because they are one of the first things that critics bring up as a weakness. In America, we’ve made some improvements to pure democracy in an effort to fix some of these problems, but we haven’t gotten it totally perfect yet. Unfortunately, it is true that a lot of the time the weak get preyed-upon by the strong and that the government actually helps this happen.

When I’m talking about special interests what I mean is a group of citizens (whether a majority or minority) that is united by some specific passion, or temporary swell of emotion. They generally don’t care about how they affect the rights of others, or about the permanent effects of the policies they want put in place. We have a choice: we can either get rid of the causes of, or try to limit the effects of, these special interests.

The causes could be controlled by making sure that either: A) no one has any freedom; or B) everyone thinks, feels, and acts the same way. Clearly we can’t get rid of our liberty – that would defeat the whole purpose of our government. You could eliminate fires by getting rid of all the oxygen in the world, but you’d also kill all the people. What would be the point of that? The second option is just impossible to enforce. As long as there are different people, there will be different opinions. No one is perfect, and no one is all-knowing. People will continue to get things wrong. Part of the job of the government is to protect what we’ve built in our own lives, and since that will be different for everyone (and inherently un-equal as a result of that difference) there will naturally be different groups coalescing around the protection of their own interests. Simply put, the cause of these “special interests” is human nature itself.

Even when people have no real differences, they seem to make conflict out of the smallest things, but most of the time they fight about who has the most stuff (or even who is perceived to have the most stuff). The special interests duke it out, and the government spends a lot of time acting (largely unsuccessfully) as the referee.

People are naturally biased toward themselves – we wouldn’t let anyone be the judge at his own trial, right? Why should we allow anyone to make laws that can affect EVERYONE in the service of the lawmaker’s own interests? In our system, if there is a dispute between creditors and debtors for example, whichever side has the most political influence is the side that will win. Shouldn’t justice prevail rather than merely raw power? Another example: should we protect our own industries by taxing imports? The manufacturers in this country may have one answer and the people as a whole probably another. What about the distribution of taxes? If the lawmakers can make the “other guy” (whoever they perceive that to be) pay, that’s money they’ve saved “their guys”.

It is naive to think that our government officials will stay above the fray and only care about the public good. Despite our best efforts, we’re going to end up electing some shady characters. Even if all our politicians are good-natured and intelligent, they may not foresee all the consequences of the laws they make.

Clearly, we can’t get rid of the causes of special interests. So we need to try to limit the damage they can do.

If the special interest is a minority, then they can be defeated with a simple vote – dealing with every interest may waste a lot of time, but at least the damage will be prevented. But what if the majority holds such a destructive special interest – wielding it against the rights of the minority? This is the big question, and I see only two ways that we can deal with it.

We have to either A) make sure that no majorities form around the same special interest, or B) we have to put systems in place to prevent them from becoming oppressive. We can’t rely on moral codes to prevent people from oppressing each other – they do it at the individual level all the time already, and would only be worse with the backing of the entire society.

Obviously, this issue is impossible to prevent in a pure democracy. When the majority rules absolutely, there is nothing to stop them from stepping all over the minority. Because of this, democracies are inherently unstable and don’t really protect property and other rights. In practice, they don’t last for very long, and their deaths are explosive. Political scientists who favor democracy assume that if everyone has an equal vote, they’ll all end up with equal property, and a unified thought-process. This is plainly untrue.

A republic is the cure. By “republic”, I mean a system in which there is representation rather than direct votes on each issue. This delegation of authority also has the benefit that it can be applied to a larger society than a democracy could effectively be.

The representatives can help smooth things by being a buffer that the people have to pass through to get things done. Being elected by the people, they will most likely be the most patriotic, just and wise among the people. They may realize that what the public says they want, isn’t really in their best interests. Of course this could work the other way, too. If we get politicians who are in it for their own interests and those of their friends, they can easily double-cross the people. So would a large or small republic be better at preventing this scenario?

Obviously, the larger one. Regardless of how small your republic is, you need to have enough legislators to ensure that the people are well-represented, but not so many as to essentially result in a democracy. The smaller your legislative talent pool, the worse your legislators will be, so a larger republic should produce better politicians. A larger voter base should also be able to figure out which politicians are the shady ones, and keep them out. Of course, if the ratio of electors to politicians is too high, the lawmakers will be too disconnected from the people. A ratio that is too low will produce politicians who can’t get out of local issues to focus on the national ones. The proposed Constitution solves this by giving the power for local issues to the people or the States, and the national issues to the Federal government.

Returning to the size and scope of the government, a republic can cover a larger area than a democracy can hope to – this is a natural defense against special interests. Smaller societies will produce smaller interest groups that will gain (and use) majority support easier. A larger country will have a more diverse citizenry, with a larger group of people to organize and unite, so it will be less likely that majorities will form around specific special interests. For another thing, the more people who need to agree to the special interest’s plan, the more likely that people will be critical of it.

It is apparent that just as a republic is better than a democracy, a larger republic is better than a smaller one – a Union (like the one proposed in the Constitution) would be better than the individual States. And for all the reasons we’ve listed.

Special interest leaders may be able to cause trouble in one State. An overly-political religion may influence a region, but won’t get very far. Calls for paper money, for debt forgiveness, for redistribution of wealth, and other horrible things will be much less likely to spread across an entire country our size.

The proposed Constitution holds a solution to the problem of special interests. If we all can believe in the principles of a republic, we can all be Federalists and support the Constitution.

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #9, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_09.html

Originally published November 21, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, Alexander Hamilton.

It is clear that the best course of action is Union. The ancient history of the tiny states within Greece and Italy prove this. Having spent centuries squabbling with each other, expending great effort and going through a lot of pain, they finally collapsed. We should be wary of their lesson.

Since those countries also operated as republics, critics will say that it is the republican form of government which is inherently flawed – even going so far at times as to say the same about freedom itself. We are lucky to have numerous historical examples on our side of great deeds that were brought about by free people, and if we can continue on course, America will surely provide many examples itself in the future.

These critics are really looking at a caricature of a real republican government, though. I mean, if this system was really so flawed, no one would bother to defend it. We’ve also come up with a lot of improvements since the ancient times, too: separation of power between branches (and even within the legislature), independent courts, and representatives elected by the people themselves, just to name a few. All of these further refine our system of government into a more perfect one. I’d like to add one more (and the one we are concerned about when debating the new Constitution): the expansion of the scope of a republican government to a size never before tried.

The idea of allying with others to increase your security isn’t new – countless countries have done it in the past, and political scholars agree that it is a good idea. Even so, in their arguments critics of our new Constitution cherry-pick a line from Montesquieu about the need for republics to be small. They fail to really think this idea through, and of course leave out some critical points.

The countries Montesquieu was talking about were even smaller than most of our States (think Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York – all larger than what the Greeks were dealing with). So if we go with his ideas as being authoritative, we’d have to not only dissolve the Union, but break up most of our States into smaller ones – this would of course lead to more of the petty squabbling and inefficient leadership distribution that we talked about in previous papers. Or maybe we should just have a king!

Of course when you really think about it, what Montesquieu actually argued was that the size (or power) of the larger states should be decreased, not that they can’t all be formed into one Union. In fact, he argued that a confederation like ours is the solution to increasing the geographical size of a republic – even using many of the arguments we’ve already talked about in previous papers. Rather than believing one cherry-picked line, readers should consider the whole work.

Some will try to tell you that there’s a difference between a “confederacy” and a “consolidation” in that a confederate government can’t tell the states how to handle their own internal business, but only handles affairs that affect the whole. They also insist that all the states need to have an equal say in a confederacy. No confederacy has ever actually operated this way. You’ll also see that anytime people have tried to make these items the goal of the government in the past, it has caused serious problems.

In reality, there is no distinction here. The only real definition of a “confederacy” is a combination of two or more states. This definition doesn’t speak at all to specifics of how their governments should work, except to say that the states’ individual governments should also be preserved. This is exactly what our proposed Constitution does – the states even get their own branch of the legislature, the Senate.

Of course the real kicker is that the critics’ chosen authority (Montesquieu) didn’t subscribe to their ideal definition either. When he talked about a model confederacy, he pointed to Lycia. The Lycians not only gave more votes to the larger states, but allowed the confederate government to select many of the officers in the city-states. It’s clear that the critics of the Constitution have built their case on a poor reading of the history.

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #8, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_08.html

Originally published November 20, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, Alexander Hamilton.

So let’s assume that the Union breaks up. The individual States would have all the same feelings and tendencies that other nations do – they may go to war at some times, and be at peace in others. What would that situation look like?

At least initially, wars between the States would be much worse than we are used to. Most of the countries of Europe have large (and oppressive, and expensive) militaries that have been around for years. They’ve also surrounded their countries with forts. A potential invader expends an awful lot of effort to capture small forts and towns of little long-term military value.

Here, we have no such forts. We are also wary of the idea of standing armies. It wouldn’t take much preparation (and would not encounter much resistance) for the larger States to simply take over the smaller ones. Looting would be pervasive in such conflicts. Safety from this kind of lawless behavior would be a powerful political influence. It would be no time at all before the people willingly trade in some of their freedom in order to have secure borders.

Some people will tell you that the Constitution doesn’t prohibit standing armies (so it must therefore allow them). In truth, they would be very hard to keep up under the proposed government. Once we dissolve the Union though, standing armies would become commonplace and necessary – the threat of war would be too high for them not to be. The smaller States will be hit by this defensive build-up the hardest – they may even give their executives more power making them almost king-like in the process. This could even make the small States a threat to the larger ones. An arms race would inevitably begin, turning our fresh start into a carbon-copy of Europe.

This is the clear lesson of history. I’m not sitting here distorting the meaning of our new Constitution (which puts the people in charge).

The historians among us may ask why ancient Greece never developed standing armies. There are a few points here: First, the Greek people were by and large all soldiers – today we concentrate on commercial pursuits and don’t have time for that. Second, we have a lot more money now and complex financial systems that allow the growth of professional standing armies.

Realize also that if a country is not threatened with invasion frequently, even if it has an army, it doesn’t need to be very large or used often, so the citizenry has little to fear from it. A small army can put down an occasional angry mob, but can’t suppress the whole country. The opposite is also true – if security threats are constant, the military needs to be on alert at all times. The power of the army increases as the rights of the people decrease. It doesn’t take long for such a place to turn into a police state.

Think of Britain: being an island with a great navy, it doesn’t face constant threats. Since no huge standing army is needed, none exists. Their army is large enough only to delay an attack for enough time for the militia to organize. This has led to a great deal of freedom for British citizens. We are far away from Europe – only a few relatively weak British and Spanish colonies are near us. We’re in an even better situation than the British isles. If we can remain unified, we can enjoy the same liberty. If we split up, it won’t take long for us to start re-living the bloody history of continental Europe.

If any reasonable person gives this issue serious thought, he’ll surely come to the conclusion that the petty objections to the Constitution are out-weighed by the harsh reality of separation. If we let that happen, the imagined “catastrophes” some think the Constitution will cause, would be almost instantly replaced by a much scarier reality.

This is a continuation of a series of posts that are intended to be shorter, more understandable versions of the Federalist Papers. This post deals with Federalist #7, the original text of which can be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_07.html

Originally published November 15, 1787 by “Publius” – who was in this case, Alexander Hamilton.

There are people who ask, “What reason would the States ever have to go to war with each other?” Well, why do ANY countries go to war with each other? There are, of course, a number of reasons, but lets consider some that are specific to our case.

One of the biggest reasons throughout history has been disputes over territory. This cause certainly applies to us. We have a great amount of land to the west that is in dispute – some States believe it is theirs, other people believe that it is the property of all the States since it was won from Britain in the Revolution. If the Federal Union dissolves, is there any hope that this situation would be peaceably resolved? There is obviously fertile ground for conflict here. We’ve already seen a few of these disputes resolved by the Federal courts (Connecticut v. Pennsylvania, and Vermont gaining independence from New York), but what about when there are no Federal courts, as is proposed?

Another source of conflict will surely be competition in trade. The states that aren’t doing so well will become jealous of those that are. Each State or confederacy would obviously create its own economic policy that benefits it. That alone could cause trouble, especially if those new policies upset the status quo. Think of the situation of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey: New York imports goods that end up being sold in New Jersey and Connecticut. New York needs to tax those goods in order to raise money for its government. How long will New Jersey and Connecticut put up with paying extra money (that goes for the exclusive benefit of the citizens of New York) for imported goods?

For another thing, the United States already has a debt from fighting the Revolution. How will we divide that debt among the new confederacies? Some States don’t think they should have to pay it at all – what happens when they don’t make their payments? Even if we settle these questions, and all the States go in willingly, some States may fall behind in payments in the future because of various political and economic troubles within those States. We may face threats from foreign powers AND the other States that are unhappy with the deadbeats.

Yet another potential source of conflict is in private contract disputes across State lines. If the citizens of one State feel particularly cheated by one or more citizens of another, who would resolve that conflict in absence of the Federal courts? This could very easily lead to war.

We already discussed how the several States could enter into conflicting alliances and commercial arrangements with competing foreign powers. If we move to this kind of system – away from the Union – we will become more embroiled in the politics and petty conflicts of Europe. Any nation that hates or fears America will do their best to divide and subsequently conquer us.