May 2009
A Share in the Patria
God likes farmers. Not gigantic corporate agribusiness, but farmers. He made man from the dirt and for the dirt, to cultivate His Garden. Adam means “of the red” or “of the soil.
The United States, In Congress Assembled
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . ” Thus run the first words of Article I, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, clearly laying out the Framers’ understanding of the nature and the role of Congress. Everything else enumerated in Article I—the various powers of Congress to raise an army and to make a declaration of war, to mint currency, to establish uniform regulations for naturalization and interstate commerce, and so on—are all, in the thinking of the Framers of the Constitution, legislative functions to be performed by the representatives of the several states, in Congress assembled. This corporate nature of Congress is something that we often forget—and something which helps point the way toward a restoration of a government that is truly federal, rather than national.
The Classless Republic
I cannot see the least possibility of recreating either an elite republican class (if, by “elite,” one means an untitled aristocracy) or the American Republic itself. The notion of a republic is a product of classical political thinking, which is now virtually dead in the Western world, and never appeared elsewhere. Not only has the classical political tradition become virtually extinct, the ability to think in classical terms seems to have been lost as well.
Just One More Thing
Alexander Hamilton said debt is a blessing: It oils the wheels of business and enhances national power. Jefferson said debt is a curse: It binds future generations without their consent, striking at the very heart of the Republic—the consent of the governed. Bloomberg News reports (February 9) that the so-called financial crisis has added $9.7 trillion in borrowing and guarantees to the national debt. In one swoop, the national debt jumped from $10 trillion to $19.7 trillion. Hamilton has won. The country is burdened with a perpetual debt—a debt that cannot be repaid.
Adams’ Federalism
In 1786, John Adams wrote in his diary that a friend, “lamenting the differences of character between Virginia and New England,” welcomed from Adams a recipe for a Chesapeake makeover: “I recommended to him town meetings, training days, town schools, and ministers”; these “are the scenes where New England men were formed.” Because Adams started with what was so good at the base of a federal polity, he knew what the top should look like. Anything he might have to offer our current national chaos starts with that conviction.
Is America a “Republic”?
I entirely agree with the spirit of this roundtable but not with the language of restoring “the Republic.” The United States is not now and has never been a republic. It is a federation of states, each of which, in Article IV of the Constitution, is guaranteed a republican form of government. But a federation of republics is not itself a republic any more than the federation of nations in the United Nations, or in the European Union, is a nation. A federation is a service agency of the political units that compose it. Whatever else a republic might be, it is not a service agency of something else. So instead of talking about “restoring the old Republic,” we should talk of restoring republicanism in a federation of states. And this can only mean recalling the vast domain of unenumerated powers that the Constitution reserves to the states and which have been usurped by that artificial corporation, known as the United States, created by the states for their welfare.
A Limited Presidency
The American president began as Cincinnatus, a patriot called to the temporary service of his country (a republican confederation). The president ends as Caesar, a despot of almost unlimited power, presiding over a global empire. Like the Caesars, in some quarters the president is even worshiped as a god. Cincinnatus was called because of his proved ability and patriotism. Caesar achieves power by fraud, bribery, convenient wars, and manipulation of the mob. As with Rome, candidates for the American emperor are sometimes selected by heredity, from the decayed descendants of powerful families: Roosevelts, Bushes, Rockefellers, Kennedys, Romneys, Gores.
Reviewing Judicial Review
In the most famous defense of the U.S. Supreme Court’s power to declare acts of the federal and state legislatures unconstitutional, Alexander Hamilton argued that it was the Court’s job only to implement the will of the people as expressed in the Constitution. If the Court went beyond that—interpreting the document to include things that did not reflect the people’s original understanding—then the justices would be infringing on liberty itself. Quoting Montesquieu on this point, Hamilton stressed that judges should not be legislators and implied that they should leave the creation of new law to other branches of government, or to the people themselves.
A Republic, If You Can Restore It
PERSPECTIVE
Free Men of a Republic
by Thomas Fleming
ROUND TABLE
Can the Republic Be Restored?
“A Limited Presidency” by Clyde Wilson
“Adams’ Federalism” by John Willson
“Just One More Thing” by William J. Quirk
“Is America a Republic?” by Donald Livingston
“Reviewing Judicial Review” by Stephen B. Presser
“The Classless Republic” by Chilton Williamson, Jr.
“The United States, In Congress Assembled” by Scott P. Richert
“A Share in the Patria” by Aaron D. Wolf
The Ponderous and the Fleet
A review of Watchmen (produced and distributed by Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures; directed by Zack Snyder; screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse) and Duplicity (produced and distributed by Universal Pictures; directed and written by Tony Gilroy)
The title of Alan Moore’s 1986 comic-book series Watchmen alludes to the Roman satirist Juvenal, who asked, “Who watches the watchmen?” He was cynically warning that there was no way to control an inconstant wife since she would easily beguile any guard put in charge of her. Juvenal’s question has often been invoked in purely political discussions ever since. How does a society protect itself against its supposed protectors? In the aftermath of the Bush administration’s expansion of executive powers following September 11, the query’s contemporary relevance is quite patent. But as I watched Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Moore’s comic book, it occurred to me that the question might be leveled with yet a different purpose. Just who is watching this film? And how is it affecting them?
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