The Federalist Papers

St. Louis -- In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, the delegates were by no means sure that they would be able to get the necessary nine states to ratify the constitution that they had drawn up.

In New York, a large and influential state, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay collaborated their efforts to write a series of 85 essays on the constitution to be published in the various newspapers of the state. Written about the constitution by men who had a hand in making it, these papers give us deep insight into what the founding fathers really thought about what they did.

Some of what they believed may be surprising to you. For instance, they did not believe that there should be a bill of rights to the constitution:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous… Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?¹

Hamilton, Jay, and Madison believed that the constitution was to tell the government what it could do, and that any power not given to it was for the states respectively, or to the people.²

They understood that they could not hope that men would be good, since power is a corrupting force.³ Rather, they sought to place checks, balances, and restraints upon power, to be certain that politicians would not abuse it.

They also understood that no government was perfect, but that they had done the best they could.

A NATION, without a NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, is, in my view, an awful spectacle.⁴

An imperfect government was better than none at all. There would, they understood, be problems along the way, the journey might at times be rough, the going wouldn’t always be easy, but that was the American way, that we would get through it with hard work, by working together, by building a new nation.

Andrew C. Abbott

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Notes:

1: Federalist 84: Hamilton.

2: The Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution.

3: Federalist 51: Madison.

4: Federalist 85: Hamilton.

Trade, Not Aid

Kentucky -- American Policy is basically one of two things, aid or war, and sometimes both, but this was not always the case:

“Prior to 1863…American foreign policy was based mostly on the Washington/Jefferson ideology of commercial relations with all nations, entangling alliances with none. It was considered to be a virtueto remain neutral in disputes between two other countries.”¹

Anti-trade embargoes are a declaration of war. We are refusing goods to another nation, thus stopping the supply. That brings war. We fight the war, we crush our enemies, and then we rebuild them-with aid.

Every year we spend billions of dollars in foreign aid, while we are in massive debt around the world, and are running it up faster every day, and yet we have billions of dollars to throw around and give to other countries just because we want to.

America is 16 trillions of dollars in debt, to fix that problem Mr. President has begun something he calls “The Cut the Waste Program," cutting things like supporting the website of a group of park rangers who have a band called the Fiddling Foresters, and also the spending of millions of dollars on ink and paper to print things no one reads because it is already on the Internet.

However, we still spend billions of dollars on aid every year. If we want to cut the waste, we could do a good job of it by cutting the aid.

The job of the American government is to make this nation great, not other nations. If this nation is strong then the world is stronger because of it.

If we trade with other nations, we will make them and ourselves stronger. Relationships of trade are vibrant, living things, with both sides benefiting from the produce of the relationship.

Like a mill, in which water comes in and grain goes out, it becomes a productive society, building things and making things. Massive amounts of money shipped there become temptations for human nature to steal. While we recognize that not everyone who receives foreign aid abuses it, the money still belongs to America, not the world, while there is one person doing poorly here, we have no business nation building there.

Our job is to make this nation great, not someone else’s. And that will build a stronger, freer world

Trade, not aid, because trade is aid.

Andrew C. Abbott

Notes:

1: From an article: American Exceptionalism: From Gettysburg to Damascus by Thomas J. DiLorenzo on May 1, 2013.

An Old Cycle

"The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more."

Alexander Fraser Tytler

 

 

America is currently apathetic, which is leading to dependency, the cycles go on, from Rome to Greece to Baghdad to America, and yet the march of mankind does not slow nor cease.

 

Andrew C. Abbott

It is Our Fault

Kentucky – Recently a young man told me “I think to fix America we need to blow up Washington D.C and kill everybody in the government.” This idea is as disgusting as it is wrong.

Washington D.C is not what is wrong with America; America is what is wrong with America. Obama cannot sign a bill unless the Senate passes it, the senate cannot hold office unless the people elect it. The judges in the Supreme Court cannot sit unless the president appoints them; the president cannot hold office unless the people elect him.

The blame does not fall on the capitol, the blame falls on us. It is our fault. We cannot say that we are blameless if the nation is collapsing, it is not because the people at the top, it takes the people at the bottom to rot out a core.

Andrew C. Abbott