During a telephone conversation with my sister, she mentioned that she had started reading one of the books I sent her, A Brilliant Solution Inventing the American Constitution written by Carol Berkin. We talked about the how much the beginning of the book and the issues that the new country faced were similar to issues we are dealing with now. Part of the problem we face as a country today is that many people do not have enough knowledge about our country's history to be able to distinguish between what is factual and what is mere opinion which people then believe to be factual.
A perfect example of misinformation is The Tea Party which claims to be carrying on in the tradition of the colonists who took part in the dumping tea in Boston Harbor. The present day Tea Party claims that their opposition to taxes is similar to the colonists opposition to taxes. But the colonists were not opposed to paying taxes. They were opposed to paying taxes placed on them by the British parliament because they had no direct representation, a violation of their rights as English citizens. The taxes we pay today were passed by members of Congress who represent the citizens of the United States. So whatever the present day Tea Party represents itself to be, it is certainly not carrying on in the tradition of the colonists prior to the American Revolution.
The factions that have divided and rendered both the House of Representatives and the Senate incapable of getting much passed were concerns of the citizens of the newly formed United states when the Constitution was drafted and sent to the States to be ratified by the people. Hamilton, in Federalist Number 9, used the words of the philosopher Montesquieu to demonstrate that larger governing bodies can be an effective force against factions gaining control because the other members of the governing body would act to stop that from happening. Hamilton chose to quote Montesquieu directly because the Anti-Federalists used Montesquieu's writings to oppose a central government. Montesquieu believed in very small republics.
Madison, in Federalist 10, acknowledged that factions and parties will form. He defined a faction as: "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." Madison believed that "if a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote." The faction could "clog the administration". Madison also knew that factions could gain a majority and believed that "the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens." But Both Hamilton and Madison believed that Congress would ultimately do what was right and best for the citizens. Both men were proven wrong especially by the government shutdown as well as the inability of the most recent Congress to enact much of anything substantial..
The present day Conservative Republicans and Tea Party members also share something in common with the Know Nothing Party from the 1850s: opposition to immigration. The rhetoric of the Know Nothing Party prompted Abraham Lincoln to write in a letter to Joshua Speed August 24, 1855: When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy (sic). The same opposition to immigration is still alive and well today only the ethnicity of the groups has changed and ironically is being voiced by the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those immigrants who were allowed into the United States.
The Republican Conservatives and Tea Party leaders along with conservative commentators, while attempting to represent themselves as carrying on the tradition of the 1776 have, in fact, been for several years now engaging in rhetoric similar to the dialog of the 1850s. Just as plantation owners, who were the party leaders and held positions in Federal, State and Local government, convinced poorer whites in the South that protecting a system that they would never be a part of was in their best interests, so Republican Conservatives and Tea Party leaders along with conservative commentators continue to convince many groups that any policies which would really be good for them, are in fact bad. Much of the talk has called for resistance in such a way as to be seen as a movement to destroy our American democracy.
Some of the Framers of the Constitution were deeply concerned that voters who were not well-informed might be misled or swayed by their emotions and not make the best choices when voting for elected officials. Part of the problem we face today may very well be a lack of knowledge among voters about our country's history. This lack of knowledge can make it difficult for people to understand that opinions expressed by commentators are not always factually correct. Additionally, politicians, who either deliberately or because they, too, lack historical knowledge, provide incorrect information which people all too readily take as factually correct.
Books such as Pauline Maier's American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, Jack N. Rakove's Original Meanings POLITICS AND IDEAS IN THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION., Carol Berkin's A Brilliant Solution Inventing the American Constution and James McPherson's Abraham Lincoln and The Second American Revolution are excellent sources for anyone interested in learning more about American History.
