This morning’s essay is reposted from The Yellow Times. Humans have always had three choices. They can act adverarily, neutrally or synergically. Throughout history all governments have been dominated by adversary-neutral processes.
John Brand
Majoring in accounting in undergraduate school, I nevertheless took a fair dose of liberal arts courses. I finished law school at a prestigious university, Northwestern School of Law in Evanston, Illinois. Yet at no time in my academic career was I exposed to The Federalist. I think that perchance in a course on government those papers might have been mentioned. However, I was at no time required to read or study them. I believe that the vast majority of educated Americans have little knowledge about the basic concepts underlying our heritage.
Experiencing the present decline of U.S. Constitutional government, I took it upon myself to find out what Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay had to say about the founding of our nation. I discovered that these brilliant men had a profound understanding of human nature. The bottom line is they just did not trust that men and women in power would act in a manner beneficial to the common weal of the nation.
In Number 6, Hamilton writes, “There are some [leaders of a nation] which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion—the jealousy of power. … And there are others which take their origin entirely in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which they are members. Men of this class, whether the favorites of a king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice national tranquility for personal advantage or personal gratification.”
Hamilton opines that to look for harmony among men would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To forget the aggressive nature of our species would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of the ages.
Hamilton lists a number of individuals who, for mere personal, self-centered reasons, precipitated wars which in some cases led to the downfall of their states. Pericles was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war, distinguished in the Grecian annals by the name Peloponnesian war, which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian commonwealth.
In Number 1, Hamilton avers that ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are “apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question.” In other words, Hamilton assumed that nature distributed avarice, ambition, and other not very laudable traits equally among all. Neither side in Hamilton´s understanding has a corner on virtue or truth!
He then makes a very incisive comment. That of “those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”
Did Hamilton write this in 2003? Of course, he did not. However, he had an understanding that history repeats itself. We are inundated by the present administration with demagogic sound bytes such as no more taxes, anti-abortion, God, and on and on. Such propaganda enflames emotions and stirs base feelings in the electorate. Then when intellect has been properly anesthetized, the demagogue becomes a tyrant. In a nation preoccupied with a shallow and meaningless materialism, it does not take a great deal to put a whammy on the vast masses of the people.
By the time they awaken and realize their dream is really a nightmare, it is too late to do much about it. After all, the Patriot Act is in place and anyone dissenting will be given a one-way ticket to an Ashcroft Hilton.
How then does one guard against the usurpation of the despots?
In Number 47, Madison writes, “the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.” He also quotes the Constitution of Massachusetts, “that the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them.”
The whole of the governmental purpose is to have three separate and distinct branches of government. All authors of The Federalist express grave concern over what happens when this separation of powers breaks down.
James Madison continues in Number 47, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Madison quotes Montesquieu: “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates, or if the power of the judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.”
In his own words, Madison continues, “where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted.”
Madison, Hamilton, and Jay did not fool themselves about the nature of humankind. Being familiar with the historical events of the family of man, they knew that humans could not be trusted. I surmise that sovereigns and lords professing faith in God did little to change their selfish nature. As a matter of fact, popes and priests, evangelists and crusaders are possessed of the same desire for power and authority as the common garden variety of mere mortals.
If the Fathers had a profound understanding about the self-centeredness of our species and they presented us with an ingenious form of government to curb avarice and ambition, why the present movement away from a people’s republic toward a totalitarian government?
What is the missing link? That question can be answered in one word, “honesty,” honesty about the essential rapacity of our species. Arrogance stemming from excessive pride blinds those who assume the reins of government, business, academia, and religion from accepting the reality of our nature.
We look around and everywhere we see the glorious manifestation of our works. Soaring skyscrapers are mute witnesses to our ability, like the Tower of Babel, to reach the very gates of heaven. Learned men and women provide vistas to the very edge of the universe tasting the fruits of knowledge. Clerics proclaim that by accepting Jesus we are saved and enter the Garden of Eden. Politicians and generals assure us that we have the power to blow all of our enemies to kingdom come. With that Armageddon-like supremacy, we are like the angels in heaven. Everywhere we look and everything we hear points to the grandeur of our accomplishments.
There is no room for reflection on the reality of our nature. We are God. Like God, we think of ourselves as all-knowing and all-seeing. No limit is placed on our thoughts, our plans, our actions. Failing to understand the need to curb our eventually self-destructive behavior, the Constitution becomes a bar to our depravity. So, we destroy the Constitution and the newly arising Czar assumes all powers unto himself.
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
We have just about come full-circle. Our hubris prevents our journey into the Garden of Eden. The mythological angel with a flaming sword will forever bar our entry. But our lack of honesty prevents us from understanding that ancient myth. Instead of conquering the very gates of heaven, our leaders are knocking at the gates of hell. Destroying the Constitutional mandate for three separate branches of government, we are moving towards the tyrannical rule so feared by the Fathers.
John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of Shaking the Foundations.