So it was 50 years ago tomorrow that man first walked on the moon. The day before that the Apollo 11 Command Module, along with the Lunar Module and the Service Module, were picking up speed as the moon’s gravity started to have an effect. By the end of the day they would be orbiting the moon.
I had been watching the Apollo missions closely. Well, that is once they got off the ground. Apollo 7 had stayed in earth orbit, checking out all the systems. Apollo 8 flew to the moon and orbited it. Apollo 9 stayed in earth orbit, deploying the LM with two astronauts, testing its systems. Apollo 10, in May 1969, flew to the moon and orbited. This was a full dress rehearsal for the landing. They deployed the LM, flew it to within 10 miles of the moon’s surface, successfully docked back with the CM, and returned. All that was left was actually landing.
Word had it that the USSR was going to launch an unmanned probe to make a soft landing on the moon, and that they were going to get it there before we landed. This was a little drama as Apollo 11launched. Would we make our manned, soft landing before the Soviet’s did their soft, unmanned? At some point, possibly during our flight, we learned that the Soviet craft crashed on the moon, 5 minutes early. That was exactly the amount of time their retro-rockets should have fired to slow it to the soft landing. The cause of that failure was thus obvious (though some think it may have crashed into one of the taller mountains on the moon). The result was we had the moon to ourselves at that time.
I remember July 20, 1969. ‘Twas a Sunday. The moon walk was originally scheduled to take place late. My memory, which may not be correct, was that it was to happen after midnight, maybe around 1 a.m. on the 21st. NASA decided to move it forward, to around 11 p.m. on the 20th, after a four hour rest for Armstrong and Aldrin. But that was moved forward even more so that the moon walk would happen during East Coast prime time. [Note: I can find documentation of only one change in time for the moon walk.]
I remember the transmission, the first words, the astronauts walking on the surface, taking note of their bouncy steps in low gravity. It was all mesmerizing. I consider this one of the high points of my life. It was a privilege to watch this on TV. Oh, and I thank NASA for moving the walk forward, allowing me to watch it in prime time.
The United States Constitution. What a great system of government.
As I mentioned in a previous post, as I’m going through the source documents for Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition, much good material gets edited out. It winds up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, using the movie industry term. Some of this is good material. I’d love to use it in my book, but, alas, I need to keep the book a reasonable size.
The thought came to me to use it for blog post material. So, instead of just dumping it, I’ve been saving it for use when it’s time to write a blog post and I have nothing else in mind. It could also be newsletter material, I suppose, if I ever take the plunge to writing a newsletter.
But, again alas, something I put into a file last week, from one of the Federalist Papers, is now nowhere to be found. What did I do with it? Did I save it to my Documenting America Vol 3 folder? It’s not there. Did I save it to my Blog folder? It’s not there either. Maybe, without paying attention, I saved it to the root folder of my Documents. Nope, not there either. Did I fail to save it and let it go drifting off into the ether?
Whatever, the excellent item I was going to use for today is not on my computer. I could spend an hour looking for it, but think, instead, I’ll find something else. I saved other stuff.
Here’s one from an anonymous writing from someone from Pennsylvania who didn’t like the proposed constitution.
The wealthy and ambitious, who in every community think they have a right to lord it over their fellow creatures, have availed themselves, very successfully, of this favorable disposition; for the people thus unsettled in their sentiments, have been prepared to accede to any extreme of government; all the distresses and difficulties they experience, proceeding from various causes, have been ascribed to the impotency of the present confederation, and thence they have been led to expect full relief from the adoption of the proposed system of government, and in the other event, immediately ruin and annihilation as a nation. These characters flatter themselves that they have lulled all distrust and jealousy of their new plan, by gaining the concurrence of the two men in whom America has the highest confidence, and now triumphantly exult in the completion of their long meditated schemes of power and aggrandisement.
Whoever wrote this, a small part of a much longer article, was, I think, spot on concerning what happens when power is obtained and then applied to government. Wealthy and ambitious people do tend to lord it over their fellow citizens. They are successful, often from their own work, and they see this as a reason why they should 1) be held in high esteem by others, and 2) have positions of political power.
The writer of the original document seems to have been wrong, however, about the motives of those who wrote the Constitution and about how the government would function under it. Things turned out much better than his dire predictions. He knew things weren’t going well under the Articles of Confederation, and saw this new document as setting up a government of the rich and powerful. I believe most of our 232 year experience with it shows us that this isn’t so.
My Documenting America series focuses on our historical documents, and tries to inspire people to seek the documents out and read them.
Or is it? As I look on Congress today, I see lots of multi-millionaires. I see people who make laws that apply to others but not themselves. I see the rich and powerful say the government should take over your health care while they keep a very nice plan for themselves. Same with pensions and Social Security.
I could go on and on. Can you tell I’m not a big fan of Congress? I think most of the ills in the nation that are often attributed to the president—every president, no matter who it is—are often the fault of Congress, either due to their action or inaction.
So why didn’t this particular passage make it into my book? Simply a matter of space. This document, like all of them I’m using in the book, is chock full of good phrases and arguments. Some turned out to be wrong arguments, some right. It’s all worth reading. If someone reads Documenting America and then digs into the source documents, they’ll see this. All the better. If they don’t, this will remain obscure and unread.
Perhaps my book and this blog will help others to find and read it.
I haven’t said much about this recently, but our son is Dean of Students at the Law School at the University of Chicago. He’s been slowly working his way up through university administration since he earned his PhD in 2011, a degree he worked long and hard for.
In past positions (not at the Law School) he’s had a lot of interesting things come up, such as a student who presented letters saying he was a C.I.A. operative and therefore needed some type of special treatment. Or such as the student who forged her admission papers, showed up at registration, and tried to force her way into enrollment and housing. Some things weren’t so benign, such as student deaths to deal with when Dean on Call.
How may the right of free speech be abridged, if at all?
An interesting situation came up on April 9, 2019, when pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a talk by a pro-Israel speaker. The talk concerned the boycott of Israel wanted by Palestinians. The talk was by a visiting professor. The Palestinians entered the room and began shouting, preventing the speaker from continuing. Someone called the campus police. Charles was close by in the law school, and so came down and tried to restore calm and allow the talk to continue. You can read about it in this article in The Chicago Maroon, the university newspaper.
Embedded in the article, in tiny print, is an e-mail Charles sent to the students later in the day, explaining what had happened, what his actions were, and how all this applied to University policy, especially the policy of free speech. I particularly liked this from his e-mail:
The heckler’s veto is contrary to our principles. Protests that prevent a speaker from being heard limit the freedoms of other students to listen, engage, and learn.”
This brings me to something concerning free speech that I’ve been thinking of for quite some time. It’s relevant to me now as I work on my next book, Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition, especially in relation to the discussions on the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech is covered in the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble….
As has been pointed out many times, the Constitution was written in a way to restrict the government, not the people. Laws of Congress restrict the people, but not the Constitution. Over time this has been re-interpreted as applying to the people as well. In certain areas, people must restrict their behavior based on the provisions of the Constitution.
Well done, Dean Todd!
What about in this case? The professor who was speaking has a right to free speech. The protestors who were preventing others from hearing him have a right to free speech. Do those in the audience have a right to hear the speaker? Is there any free speech when hearing is prevented?
Which brings me to something I’ve thought of for a long time. The right of free speech doesn’t guarantee the one speaking or publishing will have an audience. This, I think, is sometimes a problem with the press, especially the broadcast press, who decry alternate voices that crowd them out when they consider themselves to be “legitimate” news outlets and the others not. Sorry, but no one executing their right of free speech or free press has the right to an audience. No one.
But what about those who came to hear the speaker? Do they have a right to hear? I’m not sure. Certainly civility would say that they ought to be allowed to hear the speaker they came to hear, and that the protesters should find a different way to protest. Silently holding signs, confronting the speaker before and after speaking, establishing an alternative talk in another place. These would all be ways for the protesters to be heard and seek to gain their own audience.
This brings me down to what I’ve been thinking about: when rights clash. I have freedom of speech, but not where that right clashes with someone else’s right. I have freedom to practice my religion, but not where that right clashes with someone else’s right.
In a clash of rights, whose right should come out on top? Maybe before I ask that I should say, when rights clash, find a way to accommodate both people’s rights. Then, if you somehow can’t do that, whose right should come out on top? In the USA we have always said it should be the right of the weaker person.
I hope our nation always takes that position. The government was established to protect our God-given rights. When the rights of two people clash, and when no reasonable accommodation of both can be found, then the right of the weaker person should prevail. I can think of one huge area where, in a clash of rights, the Supreme Court and some of the States have come down on the side of the stronger party, but that will be a subject for a different post and perhaps a different blog.
Richard Henry Lee, while a true patriot, wasn’t happy with the proposed Constitution. [Photo by Billy Hathorn, used under creative commons license]As I work on Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition, my main problem is having too many sources or sources of too great a length with too many inspiring words. If I put in everything I want to, the book would be 200,000 words. In comparison, the first volume in the series was a mere 45, 000 words and the third only 70,000.
Clearly, I have much editing to do. A good example of this are some letters written by Richard Henry Lee right after the Convention. Published in a newspaper with a pseudonym, they were anti the proposed Constitution.
Since in the book I want to present both sides of the argument, Lee’s letters interested me. I pulled two of the five letters into my manuscript, and discovered they were over 9,000 words. Heavens! How in the world would I ever get them down to a reasonable length, which is between 1,000 and 2,000 words without throwing away valuable words?
I decided I had two different things I could do with the excess words. One is to take some excerpts from the letters and build blog posts around them. In furtherance of that, Here is a quote from Letter 3.
This, by a part of Art. 1, Sect. 4, the general legislature may do, it may evidently so regulate elections as to secure the choice of any particular description of men. It may make the whole state one district—make the capital, or any places in the state, the place or places of election—it may declare that the five men (or whatever the number)…the state may chuse who shall have the most votes shall be considered as chosen. In this case it is easy to perceive how the people who live scattered in the inland towns will bestow their votes on different men, and how a few men in a city, in any order or profession, may unite and place any five men they please highest among those that may be voted for and all this may be done constitutionally, and by those silent operations, which are not immediately perceived by the people in general. I know it is urged, that the general legislature will be disposed to regulate elections on fair and just principles: This may be true. Good men will generally govern well with almost any constitution: but why in laying the foundation of the social system, need we unnecessarily leave a door open to improper regulations? This is a very general and unguarded clause, and many evils may flow from that part which authorises the congress to regulate elections.
In the book I would make commentary on this excerpt. I would focus on how Lee’s fears were not met—except where gerrymandering occurs, but this is done by the States, not the Federal government. I would make reference to his statement that “Good men will generally govern well with almost any constitution” and quote it in my commentary, as I did here. While Lee’s letter is negative relative to the Constitution, I would present his side but find a way to make it positive.
And, perhaps, a fourth to this one? Yes: Making The Constitution Edition, hopefully in 2019. Update: It will come in 2019!
So why didn’t I? Why did so much of Lee’s words end up on the cutting room floor (my final excerpt being only 1450 of Lee’s 9200 words)? Chalk it up to editor’s license, and the fact that I have a surfeit of material, and that I judged other of Lee’s words to be better for my chapter.
It has occurred to me that I have a second way to use some of these deleted words or other sources that I have cast aside in my editorial duties. For years I’ve thought about starting a writer’s newsletter, to be shared via e-mail; something to “market my wares”, so to speak. I’ve hesitated doing this because of the work involved. For a while I thought I would wait until retirement to start it. I’m there now, and still hesitate due to the work.
I wanted to title the newsletter Citizen and Patriot, after the words of James Otis in his argument against the Writs of Assistance in 1761: “These manly sentiments in private life make the good citizen, in public life, the patriot and the hero.” That didn’t seem appropriate for a writer’s newsletter, however.
Then I thought, perhaps it could be a column in my newsletter. Since I hope to be forever working on books in my Documenting America series, this could be the column where I promote them.
Still another thought came to me. Perhaps I could make this a stand-alone newsletter, one that, through using the words from America’s historical documents, to urge good citizenship and patriotism. I could even make it a paid newsletter and maybe make a little money from my research.
Well, of necessity I’m going slowly with that. I would need a design, a simple masthead, and a few sample newsletters prepared to see what it looked like and how much time each would take. I’d need to establish a frequency, and utilize some time of e-mail marketing service to make it happen. All much work, it seems to me.
So, for now I’ll accumulate sources. I’ll relegate many unused sources, and large parts of used ones, to my editor’s waste pile—but I won’t discard them, not just yet. Perhaps I’ll have more blog posts about them, and maybe a newsletter somewhere in my future.
John Locke significantly influenced key leaders of the American Revolution.
Last week I posted my book review on John Locke’s first treatise on government, promising to come back “soon” for a review of the second treatise. Here I am for that purpose. I made a slight digression, as I obtained Filmer’s Patriarcha and have allowed myself the distraction of reading it some.
In his second treatise, Locke is trying to say why government is established, and how, and how it is changed. I found his descriptions tedious. Again, how much of this was the archaic language and structure, how much my distracted reading, how much my small-screen device I don’t know. A future, second reading is on the unwritten to-do list.
Detected and overthrown? Locke was certainly confident about the success of his arguments. Photo reference: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=399928
Locke started by saying his first discourse had proven that Adam had no special authority to rule over all the earth, nor did his immediate or later heirs, that there was no right of succession, and that even if there had been a right of succession we have lost the line of succession; hence, what do we do? Did he prove that? I’ll have to re-read the first treatise to decide.
His conclusion, however, I can agree with: “…it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that [Adam and the right of succession]” and thus “all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion….” Therefore, mankind “just of necessity found out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.”
Locke then sets out to describe and prove this process in 219 pages (in my copy). In chapter 2 he describes the State of Nature. In chapter 3 it’s the State of War. He discusses Slavery in chapter 4. This interested me. On the slavery-freedom continuum, where Filmer came down on the end that is slavery, Locke comes down on the end of freedom.
“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.” Locke’s Second Treatise, Chapter 4, section 22
I like Locke’s position. Given opposite ends of the continuum, all men are slaves (except for the king) or all men are free, I agree that all men are free. This seems more natural than that all men are born slaves, subject to the one man who has dominion over all.
I could go on and on. Locke talks of Property in chapter 5 and the right to defend it. His discussion of Paternal Power in chapter 6 is a blur to me. Moving to Political or Civil Society in chapter 7, Locke held my interest a little more. This phrase, “man in society”, shows up in the writings of our Founding Fathers. It’s the buzz word of the day for mankind not living alone, but with other men, and thus having to modify behavior so as to live at peace.
The latter is part of Locke’s system of government that I need to know better. I’m sure I’ll re-read this book. I may, perhaps, read Filmer all the way through first, and maybe Hobbes, now that I have both in my possession.
The American Founding Fathers liked Locke. I need to too. I’m not really there yet. As I re-read some of the second treatise in preparation for this review, it seemed clearer to me. I was able to focus on Locke’s premises and arguments, rather than just read the words. Maybe there’s hope for me yet in understanding these books.
Do I recommend anyone else read these books? I don’t, at least not yet. Perhaps in a few months, or maybe a year, I’ll have finished a second read and will revisit this in a post.
I had a different post planned for today, but think I’ll go this way instead.
There’s a reason The Independent Man is atop our statehouse: We are independent minded. Or, are we just stubborn?
Yesterday, I thought I was done with my research in Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition. I had all my chapters lined-out, all my source text found and entered in a Word document. Well, almost all, as the source text for one chapter eluded me. Yesterday I found an alternative (actually, two) and that’s now in the document. I even wrote my commentary on a chapter yesterday. Now up to nine chapters complete out of a probably thirty-one.
I started work on the next chapter, editing the source text. It’s a letter from Thomas Jefferson, while he was in Paris in 1787, to Edward Carrington. TJ made some very good points and I’m happy to have that in my book. I figured writing the chapter around it would be somewhat easy.
But, I wanted to see what Carrington had written to TJ to prompt this letter. I went to the Library of Congress website, which has been my source for so much. It didn’t take too long to learn Carrington hadn’t written to TJ in six years. TJ had re-initiated the correspondence. I decided then to see how Carrington responded.
That was easy to find with the tools on the LOC site. Jefferson wrote Jan 16, 1787; Carrington responded April 24, 1787, a reasonable lag given the time for a letter to sail across the ocean. So last night I began reading the April 24 letter, and enjoyed it until I came to this sentence.
Rhode Island is at all points so anti-federal, and contemptible, that her neglecting the invitation, will probably occasion no demur whatever in the proceedings.
I kept reading, however, as a good researcher should do. I next went to Carrington’s June 9, 1787 letter to TJ, written before Jefferson had responded. It this letter I found the following.
All the States have elected representatives except Rhode Island, whose apostasy from every moral, as well as political, obligation, has placed her perfectly without the views of her confederates; nor will her absence, or nonconcurrence, occasion the least impediment in any stage of the intended business.
And I though, them’s fightin’ word mister! How dare you bash my home state like that. I suppose, however, he’s correct. He’s talking about choosing and sending delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. This followed the failed Annapolis convention in 1786. Rhode Island didn’t attend that one, though they did appoint delegates who simply didn’t arrive on time.
Now, however, as the Constitutional Convention drew near, Little Rhody was the only State to boycott it. They liked the ineffective Articles of Confederation just fine, thank, and didn’t want them changed. They liked doing things their way, even if they wound up being a tiny, independent nation.
I think it was the word “contemptible” that rankled me. Yes, Rhode Island is a different kind of state. The top of our statehouse has a statue titled the Independent Man. We have our quirks and love having our quirks.
Then the word “apostasy” also rankled. Carrington didn’t mean this in the religious sense, but rather in terms of politics, that we had fallen away from the sense of cooperation that pervaded during the Revolutionary War. We had ceased looking at ourselves as part of a larger union. Still, the word hurt.
It also hurt that he said it didn’t matter if Rhode Island showed up or not. He said that twice, once in each letter. Was that because of our size and relatively small population? Most likely.
I’ve been away from Rhode Island now for 45 years. I still visit from time to time, and keep in touch with relatives and friends there. I may live in Arkansas, but I still feel like a Rhode Islander.
And I love this research I’m doing for the book. I need to be careful, however. I could research for days and days, enjoying it so much that I’d never get the book written. I need to cut it off and just stick with the writing.
And I will, just as soon as I absorb these Carrington letters.
As I’m working on Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition, I find that certain topics come back into current American life that have been discussed and, supposedly, settled before. Religious freedom seems to be one of them.
My research suggests that the Founding Fathers did indeed want to keep some degree of separation between religion and government. Their primary focus was preventing the government from regulating religion or restricting who/how/why people could worship.
The latest infringement on the free exercise of religion is US senators asking candidates nominated to various government positions about their religion and how it would affect their performance in office. I first noticed this almost 20 years ago when Chuck Shumer, then a relatively new senator from New York, asked Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft how he could turn off his evangelical Christianity so he could do a proper job as A.G.
I was shocked then and am shocked now when people like Senator Feinstein says to a candidate, “The dogma is strong in this one.” The U.S. Constitution says:
but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
When Shumer asks “How do you turn it off” and Feinstein says “the dogma is strong in this one,” what is that if not a religious test. Shumer is saying you can’t be Attorney General if you’re a practicing evangelical. Feinstein is saying you can’t be a Federal judge if you are a devout Catholic. Shame on these senators!
This was all settled in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson led the way in his writing the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was later put into law in that state. Religious freedom came in this form.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
Note that religion should not affect their “civil capacities.” In other words, the law shouldn’t punish someone because of their religion. By the time the Constitution was written, this was applied to Federal officials through the religious test clause.
So here we are, 232 years later, fighting the same battles we did years ago. What will it take for this to end, for us to win the battle again that a person’s religion cannot disqualify them from holding a Federal office? Maybe it will take one nominee to refuse to answer a question about their religion, to tell the senator who asks, politely, where to shove the question, to show that the Constitution means something.
I’m hopeful that will happen next time the situation comes up.
Some time ago I made a reviewabout Fletcher Prouty’s book on the JFK assassination. In that I wrote that I was somewhat surprised how Prouty went back in time and spent much of his book talking about events from 1943 up to 1959, before Kennedy was in the presidency. After reading that, I wanted to read some other book that dealt with some of this time period.
The dust jacket kind of crumbled as I read. Oh, well, back to the garage sale box with it.
And I remembered that, out in my book boxes ready to sell at our next garage sale was the just the book I wanted. Modern Arms and Free Men, by Vannevar Bush, was published in 1949, so was likely written 1947-48. It is subtitled A Discussion of the Role of Science in Preserving Democracy. It is a book I found in my dad’s house after he died. I couldn’t tell if he ever read it.
Dr. Bush was an engineer, inventor, and science administrator. During World War 2 he was head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. For a while this included administering the Manhattan Project. Here’s a link for his profile on Wikipedia.
I found the book to be somewhat strange. Bush certainly knew military weaponry. He knew how our scientific advances helped us to win the war. He also credited advances by the British, and was quite critical of Germany’s failure to make scientific advances. This he attributed to the fact that Germany was a dictatorship, all things flowed from Hitler, and if Hitler didn’t want to put resources into weaponry advances (other than the V1 and V2 rockets—and jet planes, though too little too late) then it didn’t happen.
This isn’t true in a democracy, or in a republican government based on self-determination Bush says. Here, where many people are involved in innovation, changes do occur. Are those changes improvements? Bush seems to think so.
The book covers weapons development during the war, in the period immediately after the war, and looks ahead to what might be coming. For each type of weapon, he talked about the defense that could be developed to oppose it. In all situations except for biological weapons, the defense always seemed to win in Bush’s mind.
He spent time on nuclear weapons. At the time of writing, America was the only nuclear power. The USSR hadn’t yet developed a nuclear warhead. They exploded one in 1949, about when the book was published. The next nuclear power was the UK in 1952. Bush looked ahead to when our enemies would have “the bomb”, and how we might defend against it, and they against ours.
One thing that surprised me about the book was Bush spent almost no time on aircraft carriers. This, despite the fact they played such a pivotal role in the naval war. He did, however, spend a lot of time on submarines. He saw subs as playing a critical role going forward.
And Bush’s book is mainly a forward-looking book. Yes, he spent time on WW2 developments, then so fresh on everyone’s minds, but he tried to project ahead, into the weapons that might be developed in the near future. In that regard, the book seems almost to be a sales pitch for the military-industrial complex that Ike would warn us about a decade after Bush’s book.
So the question should be asked, how well did this book suit my purpose, of following up on Prouty’s book to learn more about the Cold War period? Not a whole lot, honestly. I’m glad I read Bush’s book. It gives me some new perspectives on the immediate post-war world. He made a good case of how we must keep innovating our armaments to remain free men. But, it was written so early in the Cold War that there was little in it to mesh with Prouty’s book.
Should you find this 72 year old book and read it? You could. It’s cheap on used book site. But, if anyone really wants it, let me know and I’ll mail you mine for the cost of postage. I don’t plan on keeping it. Later today it will go back in the yard sale box. More likely, it will go to a thrift store in a month or so.
And, perhaps, a fourth to this one? Yes: Making The Constitution Edition, hopefully in 2019.
As I continue my research for the next volume in my Documenting America series, tentatively titled Making The Constitution Edition, I’m finding tons of material, much more than I will ever be able to read, let alone use. I found one such piece this week, from the 1788 pen of Oliver Ellsworth
Those who wish to enjoy the blessings of society must be willing to suffer some restraint on personal liberty, and devote some part of their property to the public that the remainder may be secured and protected. The cheapest form of government is not always best, for parsimony, though it spends little, generally gains nothing. Neither is that the best government which imposes the least restraint on its subjects; for the benefit of having others restrained may be greater than the disadvantage of being restrained ourselves. That is the best form of government which returns the greatest number of advantages in proportion to the disadvantages with which it is attended.
Constitutional convention delegate, US senator, chief justice of the Supreme Court
I must confess to knowing next to nothing about Oliver Ellsworth, except that which I can glean from reading this piece and a brief introductory paragraph in the book I’m reading from. He was from Connecticut, and said to be a constant champion of the Constitution then being debated in the thirteen states. After reading this piece, I assure you I’ll do some study on him.
In March 1788, six states had ratified the Constitution; others were debating. Nine states were needed for it to become the new government of the land. New Hampshire was one of the states still debating, Ellsworth wrote an open letter to the citizens of NH, using an economic argument in favor of the Constitution: it would be advantageous economically for New Hampshire.
Laying that argument aside, I find his opening paragraph (quoted above) to be inspiring, and dead on, though something I don’t know that I’ve thought of. To have a government that protects your rights and property, you have to give up some of your rights and property that the remainder of each would be defended. I’ve found the same argument in John Locke’s Treatise On Government, which I’m also reading as background understanding of the pre-constitutional era. Man in a state of nature is freer than man in society.
And, perhaps, a fourth to this one? Yes: Making The Constitution Edition, hopefully in 2019.Locke I find difficult to understand. Ellsworth makes sense. Give up some rights enjoy the blessings of society. Devote some of your property to this endeavor. Thank you, Mr. Ellsworth, for saying this clearly. Clearly, you are no Libertarian.
But he goes on. For the government to do this, it needs that money (i.e. some of your property/income/wealth) to function. You can do this on the cheap or on the extravagant. Don’t do it on the cheap, he says. Cheap expenditures gain little. So cheap government will result in little benefit. As I say, makes sense.
What do we do today with Ellsworth’s words? The national debate rages on how much government we should have, how much individual liberty we should cede, and what this should cost us. Republicans lean one way, Democrats another. Both seem at times to be caricatures of their general position. Republicans will have us believe you restrict excessive benefits by reducing the money you collect. Less money results in less spending results in less benefits.
Democrats go the other way, believing more and more restrictions on individual liberty are needed to provide benefits. The restrictions are most often in the form of collecting more revenue (i.e. taxes).
Except neither party wants to collect enough taxes to pay for the benefits, so each keeps borrowing, passing the bill for today’s benefits on to their children and grandchildren.
I think Ellsworth would say to them Enough! You Republicans, stop being so parsimonious that you squeak. You Democrats, stop being so profligate that you steal. Everybody sit down, take a good hard look at each and every government program/benefit. Decide if it’s really needed. If so, how much money is needed to pay for it? Where will you get that money without resorting to stealing it from your grandchildren?
Then do that to the next and the next. At some point you find you can’t fund everything the U.S. government is now doing without taking so much money that it results in stealing someone’s property. At that point, go back and start cutting things until you come to a point of balance.
Kind of what a typical family does at the grocery store. You pick up the premium bacon, realize you can’t buy it and milk, so put it back and take the store brand, or maybe even do without bacon this week.
I think we have a lot to learn from Oliver Ellsworth. Once I get this book put to bed, I’ll do a lot more study of him. Meanwhile, maybe this post will convince a few people (i.e. politicians) to be more fiscally responsible.
Proud to have had a dad who served his country in a war.
I just got home from going to the nearby assisted living facility where my mother-in-law now lives. With the wife out of town, I’d be the only visitor she would have. They had a Memorial Day “picnic”: inside the dining room, but with picnic fare of either hot dogs or hamburger, baked beans, potato salad, past salad, Fritos, and simple desserts. A tasty meal and I felt satisfied when done.
The company at the table was the best part, however. Across from my mother-in-law was Harriet. I didn’t catch her last name. I asked her where she was from, and where she’d lived, and she replied “all over the world.” She and her husband were farmers, but took assignments on the mission field for the Reformed Church of America. He did maintenance work at mission stations. When I mentioned we had a couple in our church who did the same thing in Papua New Guinea, she said they also had been in PNG.
Across from me, and arriving late, was a woman who introduced herself as Rosemary Mondale. A hundred years old, but looking much younger, I asked if she was related to the former vice president. She said her husband was Walter Mondale’s brother. She then told us about the inauguration in 1977, how they were on the platform with the Supreme Court justices. I didn’t ask Rosemary which of Mondale’s three brothers she was married to, but I suspect it was Lester Mondale. I’ll ask her if I see her on my next trip there.
To my right, arriving a little later, was Rich, wearing his Vietnam Veteran hat. After thanking him for his service, we had a good conversation about his time in Vietnam and his life. He said he was glad he went. He was one of the early USA personnel in Vietnam. He said he was in Saigon on a three-day pass when the overthrow of Diem happened. That event was November 1, 1963. Rich and his companions barely made it to the hotel in downtown Saigon being used for military staging. A 50 mm shell came through the wall near where he was. Otherwise, they were safe, and from there made it back to base with no problem.
I told Rich my dad’s story of service in WW2. This was a point of connection between us. When we first introduced and I noted his Vietnam service, he asked me if I was in the military, Vietnam era. I told him how I was just a little too young to have served.
I was back home about two hours after I’d left, adequately fed (but not overfed), and feeling blessed to have eaten with these three interesting people—and with my mother-in-law, of course.
Word had it that the USSR was going to launch an unmanned probe to make a soft landing on the moon, and that they were going to get it there before we landed. This was a little drama as Apollo 11 launched. Would we make our manned, soft landing before the Soviet’s did their soft, unmanned? At some point, possibly during our flight, we learned that the Soviet craft crashed on the moon, 5 minutes early. That was exactly the amount of time their retro-rockets should have fired to slow it to the soft landing. The cause of that failure was thus obvious (though some think it may have crashed into one of the taller mountains on the moon). The result was we had the moon to ourselves at that time.
