REMEMBERING THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN POLITICAL LIFE——
A LONG TIME AGO
By
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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American
political life is in serious decline. A former president has been
indicted numerous times. The son of a president is facing criminal
charges, and his father’s role, while marginal, appears unseemly. A
candidate for the Republican presidential presidential nomination, the
governor of Florida, speaks of “slitting the throats” and “kneecapping”
those with whom he disagrees.
This
is not the American politics I remember. Shortly after I graduated
from law school, I worked in the U.S. Senate as an aide to Sen. Thomas
Dodd of Connecticut. I was his representative on the Internal Security
Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I prepared the
committee’s report on the New Left and helped organize hearings about
religious persecution in Communist countries. Sen. Dodd had been a
chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals. He was a
fierce opponent of tyranny of any kind. He was a Democrat.
Later,
I worked with Republicans. I was assistant to the research director of
the House Republican conference. On our committe were two future
presidents, Reps. George H.W.Bush and Gerald Ford. They did not view
Democrats as “enemies” but were busy seeking to form coalitions on areas
where they could agree. Working together, Republicans and Democrats
won the Cold War and advanced civil rights. Later I worked with Rep.
Phil Crane (R-IL). Together with like-minded Democrats, we succeeded in
eliminating the Civil Aeronautics Board and bringing real competition
to the airline industry and eliminating the Interstate Commerce
Commission’s anti-competitive rules for the trucking industry. President
Carter endorsed our efforts.
Our
Constitution is approaching its 250th anniversary. No other country in
the world is now living under the same form of government it did 250
years ago—-except the United States. When I worked in the Congress, I
began lecturing at the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
My subject was whether or not a free society such as ours can endure
into the future. It seems increasingly clear that the golden age of
American political life was at the beginning.
The
Founding Fathers understood very well that freedom was not man’s
natural state. Their entire political philosophy was based on a fear of
excessive government power and the need to limit and restrict that
power very strictly. It was their fear of total government which
initially caused them to rebel against the arbitrary rule of King George
lll. In the Constitution, they tried their best to construct a form of
government which, through a series of checks and balances and a clear
division of powers, would protect the individual.
There
is no doubt that in the colonial era the best men in American
society were engaged in public life, so different from today. And they
risked their lives and their property by challenging British rule. That
government should be clearly limited and that power is a corrupting
force was the essential perception of the men who made the nation. In
The Federalist Papers, James Madison declared: “It may b be a
reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to
control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the
greatest of all reflections on Human nature? If men were angels, no
government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither
external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In
framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the
great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to
control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control
itself.”
The Founding
Fathers were not utopians. They understood man’s nature. They
attempted to form a government which was consistent with, not contrary
to, that nature. Alexander Hamilton pointed out that, “Here we have
already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle
theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the
imperfections, weaknesses, and evils incident to society in every
shape. Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden
age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our
political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the
globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and
perfect virtue?”
The
powerful insights of the Founding Fathers make clear that the Golden Age
of American politics was at the very beginning. Rather than viewing
man and government in positive terms, the framers of the Constitution
had almost precisely the opposite view. John Adams declared that,
“Whoever would found a state and make proper laws for the government of
it must presume that all men are bad by nature…We may appeal to every
page of history we have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable,
that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust,
tyrannical, brutal, barbarous and cruel as any king or senate possessed
of uncontrollable power…All projects of government, formed upon a
supposition of continued vigilance, sagacity, and virtue, firmness of
the people when possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats
and delusions…The fundamental article of my political creed is that
despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a
majority of a popular assembly , an aristocratical council, an
oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally bloody, arbitrary,
cruel, and in every respect diabolical.”
The
political thinker who had the most important impact upon the thinking
of the Founding Fathers was John Locke. Locke repeatedly emphasized his
suspicion of government power. He believed that if the authorities
violate their trust, the regime should be dissolved. The written and
spoken words of the men who led the Revolution give us numerous examples
of their fear and suspicion of power and the men who held it. Samuel
Adams asserted that, “There is a degree of watchfulness over all men
possessed of power or influence upon which the liberties of mankind must
depend. It is necessary to guard against the infirmities of the best
as well as the wickedness of the worst of men.” Therefore, “Jealousy is
the best security of public liberty.”
That
indeed was a golden age. George Washington had to be persuaded to run
for a second term. When it ended, there were those who wanted to make
him “President for Life.” Washington quietly returned to his farm at
Mt.Vernon. Now politicians who retire or are defeated rarely go home.
They often remain in Washington as lobbyists, making large sums of money
to influence their former colleagues. And for the first time in our
history a defeated presidential candidate claims to be the winner.
Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Hamilton read history and the great
philosophers. They were intimately familiar with the rise and fall of
Athens and Rome and sought to learn lessons for America from this
history. If there are members of Congress today who follow that
example, they are few indeed.
As
we approach the 250th anniversary of the Constitution, the future of
American democracy remains less than clear. Perhaps reflecting upon our
Golden Age will help us to get back on a proper path. If we continue
on the path we appear to be on, our future is very much in question.
Democracy cannot endure if each party views the other as an “enemy,” and
the idea of compromise is rejected. The Constitution itself was
produced by many compromises, some of which were later corrected.
Sadly, in many of our schools the colonial period and the adoption of
the Constitution is barely studied. We are already paying a high price
for not properly transmitting our history. If ever there was a time to
change course, it is now.
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