Opinion by Paul Plante
By way of review, this series of disquisitions under the heading Life in a Time of Lunacy, where “lunacy” is defined as extreme folly or eccentricity, or extreme foolishness, or even unsoundness of mind sufficient to incapacitate one for civil transactions, stem from a guest essay in here entitled “On the vanishing Virginia Constitution and what that should mean to all of us” wherein reference was made to a thoughtful, well-researched, well-reasoned and scholarly essay from the University of Richmond Law Review entitled “A VANISHING VIRGINIA CONSTITUTION?” by The Honorable Stephen R. McCullough, Judge, Court of Appeals of Virginia wherein this following statement was made, to wit:
In recent decades, however, the most fundamental rights protected for Virginians by the Virginia Constitution have been, for all practical purposes, steadily vanishing.
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HO HUM, ain’t it, people?
What we never knew we had in the first place, we will never miss.
With respect to these times we now find ourselves, which make the surreal VEET NAM times look tame and pedestrian by comparison, where we are faced with further entrenched and concentrated power at the federal level from one or both major-party candidates, Judge McCullough had these words to say on the subject, as if he had prescient vision:
The notion of protecting the sovereignty of Virginia might seem highly abstract or even anachronistic in an age of robust federal power, but that is not so.
Concentrated power was one of the principal evils the Framers of the United States Constitution sought to avoid.
The horrors of the past century that were inflicted upon the world by totalitarian regimes offer ample evidence of the wisdom of avoiding concentrations of power.
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Concentration of power was considered a principal evil by the Framers of the United States Constitution, people, and why not?
When the Federalist Papers were being written in 1787, the Battle of Saratoga, where King George’s land army under General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne had been soundly defeated to the shock of the candid world, was only ten years in the past, and their recollections of a tyrant king were still quite strong.
We should give some thought to that, as we just had two more American soldiers killed in the never-ending war in Afghanistnam that has been going on for so long now, I can’t remember, with us like Brer Fox and Brer Bear, caught up in Brer Rabbit’s trap with no way back out, and as we mass boots on the ground in Iraqinam, and soon Syria, to get us further mired down in armed conflict in the Middle East, again, with no way back out, as when the Roman Crassus, who greatly resembles at least one of the major party candidates, the one who started the trouble back in 2011 as U.S. secretary of state, took on the Parthians.
And when we speak of concentrated power being was one of the principal evils the Framers of the United States Constitution sought to avoid, we are led directly to Cato, as New York State Governor George Clinton (no known relationship to either Bill or Hillary) and his Letter V from the New-York Journal, November 22, 1787, to the Citizens of the State of New York, where Governor Clinton, who would go on to serve as U.S. vice-president under two different presidents, informed us of his purpose in writing, as follows:
In my last number I endeavored to prove that the language of the article relative to the establishment of the executive of this new government was vague and inexplicit, that the great powers of the President, connected with his duration in office would lead to oppression and ruin.
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Has that happened?
Can that happen?
Something to think about, anyway, as we head into this 2016 presidential election.
Getting back to George Clinton writing as Cato on November 22, 1787, with respect to the executive, he went on to state “That he would be governed by favorites and flatterers, or that a dangerous council would be collected from the great officers of state, — that the ten miles square, if the remarks of one of the wisest men, drawn from the experience of mankind, may be credited, would be the asylum of the base, idle, avaricious and ambitious, and that the court would possess a language and manners different from yours.”
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Perhaps it is me, people, but how true that sounds.
And on he went, as follows: that if you adopt this government, you will incline to an arbitrary and odious aristocracy or monarchy that the president possessed of the power, given him by this frame of government differs but very immaterially from the establishment of monarchy in Great Britain.
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HOLY COW, people, ZOUNDS, there is a dude who is on a veritable roll right there!
“If you adopt this government, you will incline to an arbitrary and odious aristocracy or monarchy that the president possessed of the power, given him by this frame of government differs but very immaterially from the establishment of monarchy in Great Britain.”
Those, people, are strong words indeed.
And who really was he taking to there?
Could it be us in our times today, do you think?
And what of this:
Before the existence of express political compacts it was reasonably implied that the magistrate should govern with wisdom and Justice, but mere implication was too feeble to restrain the unbridled ambition of a bad man, or afford security against negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind.
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Consider this, people, as you consider how to cast your vote – mere implication was too feeble to restrain the unbridled ambition of a bad man/woman, or afford security against negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind.
That is why we are supposed to have a Constitution that is law of the land applying to everyone equally, including presidential candidates, in this country.
And the term “express political compact,” of course, refers to a written constitution, such as the one in place in New York state at that time which was said to be justly celebrated, both in Europe and America, as one of the best of the forms of government established in this country by Alexander Hamilton writing as Publius in FEDERALIST No. 26 for the Independent Journal to the People of the State of New York in 1787.
Bringing this even more forward to our times, Governor Clinton stated thusly:
It is alleged that the opinions and manners of the people of America, are capable to resist and prevent an extension of prerogative or oppression; but you must recollect that opinion and manners are mutable, and may not always be a permanent obstruction against the encroachments of government; that the progress of a commercial society begets luxury, the parent of inequality, the foe to virtue, and the enemy to restraint; and that ambition and voluptuousness aided by flattery, will teach magistrates, where limits are not explicitly fixed to have separate and distinct interests from the people, besides it will not be denied that government assimilates the manners and opinions of the community to it.
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The progress of a commercial society begets luxury, the parent of inequality, the foe to virtue, and the enemy to restraint.
Is he talking about our times, or what?
And then, George Clinton posed this vital question to the people of New York at that time:
Is it because you do not believe that an American can be a tyrant?
To which he then answered:
If this be the case you rest on a weak basis; Americans are like other men in similar situations, when the manners and opinions of the community are changed by the causes I mentioned before, and your political compact inexplicit, your posterity will find that great power connected with ambition, luxury, and flattery, will as readily produce a Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian in America, as the same causes did in the Roman empire.
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Hmmmmmmm.
Will as readily produce a Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian in America, as the same causes did in the Roman empire.
Can that really be so, people, that Americans are like other men in similar situations?
And here I was, thinking it couldn’t be so because we are so exceptional.
Silly me, ain’t it.
And does that sound the plot of a dynamite HIP-HOP rock opera along the lines of “Jesus Christ, Superstar?”
Why, if done right, I bet it will be even bigger than “Hamilton,“ and that, people, is really saying something.
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WOW!
Talking about getting your consciousness raised, alright!
I just now learned in here that George Clinton is really an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer who was the principal architect of P-Funk and the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s.
He has been cited as one of the foremost innovators of funk music, along with James Brown and Sly Stone and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, alongside 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic, so no wonder the dude is known as one of the “founding fathers” here in the United States of America.
But in actuality, I was thinking of an earlier George Clinton, who may or may not be related to this more modern Funkadelic George Clinton, perhaps on Bill Clinton’s side of the family.
The George Clinton I was thinking of, who himself could have been an innovator of funk music in his time, was the 1st Governor of the newly-created State of New York after separation from England and the 1776 Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of an English king named George III, although he was not known to be a member of the Bush family.
Prior to that, this earlier George Clinton served in the French and Indian War, and then participated in the Continental Congress.
It was General George Washington who appointed Clinton brigadier general in 1777.
Called the “Father of New York State,” this other George Clinton (1739–1812), the one who wasn’t the principal architect of P-Funk and the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, served as governor of New York for 21 years, longer than any chief executive in the state’s history.
This other George Clinton was also an ardent patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence and defended New York as a Brigadier General during the Revolutionary War.
In 1804, Governor Clinton then became the first elected vice president of the United States and served under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Which is interesting from several perspectives.
First of all, writing as Cato in his Letter V in the New York Journal, November 22, 1787, to the Citizens of the State of New York, he stated emphatically that “a vice president is as unnecessary, as he is dangerous in his influence,” and yet, there he ended up, holding that “unnecessary” position not once, but twice.
And secondly, Jemmy Madison, under whom he served as vice president, was his political opponent when Jemmy was writing the Federalist Papers to the people of New York State as Publius mocking Clinton in Federalist No. 38, the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed, from the New York Packet, Tuesday, January 15, 1788, while George Clinton was writing the Anti-Federalist Papers to the people of the State of New York as Cato, warning them of the frame of federal government being put forth by Jemmy Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.
So what is the moral of the story here, people?
Or is there a moral?
Might it end up being such a simple thing of despite having political differences, two people of differing political outlooks not only can get along, but can actually work together for the good of the nation?
If they do end up making this into a HIP-HOP rock opera with funkadelic overtones along the lines of “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” I for one sincerely hope that the librettist will delve a lot further into that question for us, so as to give us some much needed answers in our times, for which he or she should earn the eternal gratitude of the American people.
I think the opening paragraph is interesting in light of the election tomorrow and the ballot attachment of permanently amending our state’s constitution for The Right to Work State initiative. Right to Work is as about Orwellian double speak as it gets. Pass this initiative and businesses throughout the state will not only have the upper hand to their workers, but unions will become a thing of the past and the right to fire/let go with no repercussions to businesses will become a real thing. A bad law based up a threat. That threat being, business will take it elsewhere, an idle threat at best. No, they’d have to do business in Virginia to increase their profits. Thus it should be aptly named as such, The Right to Abuse our Workers Law. Welcome to the future, people.
One has to wonder, if one is perchance the wondering kind, what would have happened to American history as we know it if back in 1787 and 1788 when Jemmy Madison and Alexander Hamilton were writing the Federalist Papers as Publius, and George Clinton was writing the Anti-Federalist Papers as Cato, if the Independent Journal, the New York Packet, and the New-York Journal had all adopted a 250-word maximum policy on letters to the editor, as is too often the case with media publications today, or if they had succumbed to a policy of being insular, looking only to local affairs as told about only by local people.
I can just imagine the hue and cry among many in New York State in 1787 when Jemmy Madison, a Virginian, started “singing” what many back then were calling the “same tired alt-right refrain” that the Articles of Confederation were severely flawed to the point of where the Union was facing dissolution.
“What happened to the Independent Journal?” I can hear them saying.
“I read it for local news and related commentary, not for a sad regurgitated interminable commentary on national news,” this, of course, being a direct reference to Jemmy Madison, who was cranking out the essays that became the Federalist Papers at the rate of two a week, so that for weeks on end, the name of Jemmy Madison and his views on the national news of what had transpired in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 were constantly in the faces of the people of the State of New York back then, through the pages of the Independent Journal and the New York Packet.
People simply weren’t interested.
They didn’t want to hear about it.
But wait!
That is wrong, they did very much want to hear about it back then, which is why those 85 Federalist papers all got published.
People very much cared back then about what direction THEIR country was going in, and they wanted their newspapers to let the voice of Jemmy Madision, a non-New Yorker, tell them what he knew about it, which was considerable.
Think what it would mean to us in our times today if the Cape Charles Mirror were to cease being like the Independent Journal, the New York Packet, and the New-York Journal were in Jemmy Madison’s time, and instead were to succumb to public pressure to stifle our voices in here on issues of national importance to all of us in America in our times.
What would that do to our democracy here in the United States of America?
Any thoughts?
Yes, people, I spoke correctly above here when I said that Virginia’s Jemmy Madison was afraid of the dissolution of the Union of the United States of America in 1787 and 1787 when he was furiously cranking out essays and disquisitions to the people of New York State, writing as Publius in the pages of the Independent Journal and the New York Packet.
(Can you imagine the fate of the nation today if he had been forced to communicate the Federalist Papers to the people of New York by TWEETING on TWITTER?)
The War of Independence was over, and the thirteen independent states no longer had a common outside enemy in England, so they started looking at each other as enemies.
We forget, in this time of vanishing state constitutions, and federal government subsummation or outright control of state government functions, that in the time of Jemmy Madison and the George Clinton who was not the funkadelic dude we know of today as the principal architect of P-Funk and the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s who has been cited as one of the foremost innovators of funk music, along with James Brown and Sly Stone, the “states” were in actuality totally separate nations or countries, just as France and England and Spain were all separate nations or countries, as they remain today.
So in New York State, Jemmy Madison, as a Virginian, would have been considered a “foreigner,” just as Citizen Genet of France was a foreigner so many years later in 1793 and 1794.
As to the dissolution of the Union, beginning right in the opening sentences of FEDERALIST. No. 1, the “General Introduction” for the Independent Journal with Alexander Hamilton, the HIP-HOP star, writing as Publius, to the People of the State of New York, informs us as follows on that critical subject to the people of America in his times:
AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America.
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“Inefficacy,” for those unfamiliar with the term, as it is not in common usage in these days of TWEETING on TWITTER, means “lack of power to produce a desired effect,” while “unequivocal,” another word no longer in common usage today, means “leaving no doubt” or “unambiguous.”
The “subsisting federal government” HIP-HOP star Hamilton is referring to there in terms of “inefficacy” was the Congress of the Confederation of the United States of America that was formed with the Articles of Confederation adopted on November 15, 1777 and ratified by all thirteen states on March 1, 1781, six years before the Federalist papers began publication.
Getting back to Hamilton and Federalist No. 1, he told us as follows:
The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.
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The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION and the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.
Fate of an EMPIRE, people.
As we live in a time of EMPIRE today, that perhaps should hold some special significance for us in the United States of America today as we consider such issues as globalization versus isolationism, and immigration and our “national security.”
Continuing with Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 1, he put the future we have inherited today to the people of New York at that time, some eleven generations of Americans ago, assuming a new generation comes long every twenty years, as follows:
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
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As we watch riots and violence and acts of domestic terrorism erupting in this country today because of the recent presidential election, we are forced once again to have to ponder whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Hamilton then made this following statement:
If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
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A wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
How timely those words sound today, as if just written, as opposed to having been written 229 years ago.
By persuading the people of the State of New York in 1787 and 1788 to adopt the new federal constitution which formed the REPUBLICAN-FRAMED government we are supposed to have in this nation today, where “REPUBLICAN-FRAMED” has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the inaptly named “Republican” party of today, to avert what Alexander Hamilton called in Federalist No. 1 “the crisis at which we are arrived,” Alexander Hamilton and Jemmy Madison set in motion what has led to “the crisis at which we are arrived” in our times, where once again, we are greatly divided, as was made clear by the New York Times article “Election Exit Polls Reveal a Starkly Divided Nation” by JEREMY W. PETERS, MEGAN THEE-BRENAN and DALIA SUSSMAN, 9 NOVEMBER 2016, wherein we were informed:
The social and political fissures that have left Americans walled off from one another along lines of race, class, education, gender and geography played out in stark ways in this election, a contest that left people pessimistic about the future of their country and uninspired with their choices of who should lead it.
Eight years after the election of the first African-American president held the promise of breaking down the country’s deep and longstanding racial divisions, American society seemed as polarized as ever, according to surveys of early voters and exit polls conducted by Edison Research.
One thing most voters shared was an overriding sense of disgust, even if they were split bitterly over which candidate repelled them more.
Significant numbers of voters said the thought of either candidate in the White House frightened them.
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Doesn’t that then lead us right back to New York State Governor George Clinton (no known relationship to either Bill or Hillary) writing as Cato and his Letter V from the New-York Journal, November 22, 1787, to the Citizens of the State of New York, where Governor Clinton posed this vital question to the people of New York at that time, along with his response to the question:
Is it because you do not believe that an American can be a tyrant?
If this be the case you rest on a weak basis; Americans are like other men in similar situations, when the manners and opinions of the community are changed by the causes I mentioned before, and your political compact inexplicit, your posterity will find that great power connected with ambition, luxury, and flattery, will as readily produce a Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian in America, as the same causes did in the Roman empire.
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George, believe me, dude, I think today we have become believers.
So, interesting, isn’t it, how these things go.
Makes one wonder whether Jemmy Madison and Alexander Hamilton are rolling around in their graves while George Clinton lords it over them, telling them over and over, “I told you so!”