Jan 5th, 2011
Writing for The Daily Beast, Peter Beinart notes the big gap in the Tea Party's pseudo-worship of the U.S. Constitution:
“But beneath this apparent right-wing continuity lies a massive shift. For President Bush, believing in the Constitution meant believing that when it comes to national security, the federal government in general—and the president in particular—can do pretty much whatever they want. For the new Republican Congress, by contrast, believing in the Constitution means believing that when it comes to intervening in the economy, the federal government in general—and the president in particular—can do barely anything at all.
Today’s Tea Partiers generally ignore this shift because they ignore national security itself. Their “Contract from America” doesn’t even mention foreign policy. But imagine what would happen if the Tea Partiers did grapple with the foreign policy implications of their constitutional vision. They believe, after all, that the framers of the Constitution wanted federal power to be extremely limited so it wouldn’t infringe upon personal liberty. They’re fond of quoting Thomas Jefferson, the founder most associated with distrust of a powerful federal government. And they generally downplay the role of Alexander Hamilton, who believed that only a strong central state could build America into an industrial power. But Jefferson’s distrust of federal power was deeply bound up with his fear of militaries and empires. He believed that a standing army, if created, would menace individual freedom and he wanted America to be a trading nation that would steer clear of the “entangling alliances” that defined European power politics."
Indeed.
I have great respect for Thomas Jefferson. He was brilliant, highly-educated and absolutely integral to the moral, intellectual and economic strength of our emerging nation.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, we must remember that Jefferson's opposition to Federal strength must be understood as a partial by-product of his defense of the institution of slavery. Jefferson founded the "Democratic-Republican Party" in opposition to the Federalists (led by Alexander Hamilton - as you mention - as well as both George Washington and John Adams, our first and second Presidents respectively).
The Democratic Republicans were strongest in the South, among the slave-owning states. This was not simple co-incidence. Many northerners were antislavery even in 1776. Abigail Adams was a staunch abolitionist who wrote to her husband in 1774, "I wish there was not a slave in the province [of Massachusetts]. It always seemed a most iniquitous scheme to me-fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have." (Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1783.) John Jay, another northerner and Federalist (and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) wrote, "“To contend for liberty and to deny that blessing to others involves an inconsistency not to be excused.”
Anti-Federalist southerners were afraid that a strong Federal government supported by northerners and located in northern territory (first in New York and then Philadelphia) would deprive the south of their slaves. Look up the "Compromise of 1790" to learn about why our capital now sits in Washington DC on land donated by southern, slave-holding states (Virginia and Maryland). Hint: Federal assumption of the states' Revolutionary War debt = strong Federal government.
The State Rights argument was, since the founding of our nation up through the Civil War and beyond, little more than a euphemism for the "right" to deprive other people of their own rights.
If you doubt this assertion, please read Jefferson Davis' article, published in 1890, called "The Doctrine of State Rights"(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Doctrine_of_State_Rights). The argument posited by the President of the Confederacy is remarkable similar to the Tea Party chatter we hear some 120 years hence.
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ReplyDeleteoops. Sorry for the double post. I got an error message the first time and didn't think it went through...
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