“Factions get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal interests lead them astray from the general interests of their constituents;…”
I’d say he hit the nail on the head.
Probably. Jefferson was vehemently opposed to political parties, for one thing, and whether or not he was a fan of tossing out the system every 19 years on principle he’d hate to see a system in which the parties have subsumed politics entirely.
Indeed, it’s a point of pride. There is always an issue in many other democracies about whether someone is sufficiently German, or French - whether they have a creed or heritage or skin color compatible with the national identity. Even - forgive my bluntness - the Israelis have a problem with this. (Will there ever be an Arab cabinet member running one of the security-sensitive ministries?)
Whereas, in the American system, we don’t give a damn. You are an American if you were born here, or naturalized here, and are loyal to the Constitution of the Republic.* Your skin color, your religion, the language you speak or the way you dress or what have you - that’s your own affair. And if we have our attacks of xenophobic jingoism, and fail from time to time to live up to these ideals - well, we still do as fine a job of it as any other democracy, and a damn sight better than most.
*With the odd, and regretable, exception that only native-born citizens can serve as President.
If I might impose with a question; how much blame should the founding fathers take for the Civil War?
I’ve never really thought too much about it, but couldn’t it be that the compromises (slavery, 3/5th) they made, the silence on secession, and the states’ rights issues were all major causes of the Civil War. I’m not saying the Civil War was inevitable, but I do think (again I should reflect more on it) that many of the issues that led to the War should have been dealt with in 1783.
Which also leads to the question of whether it was preferrable to have the US with a Civil War, or to have no USA at all. I really don’t know myself.
Practically every country has, except Britain; and the British constitutional system now is really very different from what it was in 1789. Considering what a radical new experiment the Founders were trying – a republic the size of a major European country – one civil war in 220 years is a pretty good record of success.
Good question. Perhaps if the FF hadn’t compromised, the civil war would have been “fought” 75 years earlier, at the first constitutional convention.
Or we never would have had a union, and the South would have gone their own way for 75 years or more, perhaps much longer. Would the North have gone to war to eliminate slavery if it wasn’t a question of preserving the union?
I doubt if they (the Founding Fathers) could have predicted what actually happened. Perhaps if, ca. 1840, the spirit of compromise was still alive, it would have led to a diplomatic solution instead of a military one? I just can’t see the South bucking the long-term world trend of freedom forever.
No, but IMHO four years of war were well worth, say, an extra 50 years of slavery.
So what? Look, we know what actually happened, and we’ve got the benefit of reviewing the century-plus since; what hypothetical improvement could we have built in the Constitution back when (a) to better deal with slavery on terms (b) that Virginia and Georgia and the Carolinas and so on would’ve been willing to sign on for?
And Kenyans
Maybe 8 states create a USA without slavery and with a stronger federal government, and the Southern states create the CSA. In 60 years, the CSA goes under thanks to financial problems and slavery revolts, and the USA absorb them without a Civil War. The thing is, the Constitution was a compromise, and it compromised on one of the most repellant things in our history, slavery. It also was intended, by at least some of the founders, to be much more state rights focused than the high powered federal system we have now, which further enhanced the problems leading up the Civil War.
Sure, it ended up pretty well in the long, long run, but I’m not so sure the cost of the compromises in lives, injustice, and disharmony was the best solution.
Stripping away the thick layers of myth surrounding the makers of our Constitution still leaves even the most cynical person plenty to admire. You can question thier motives and they certainly made mistakes along the way but there is no denying that they accomplished their goal of establishing a form of government for the United States that has stood the test of time.
I think this is a pretty good argument but the opposite view also has merit. As waterj2 has pointed out, slavery and the slave trade were protected until 1808 and you could argue that otherwise the importation of slaves might have been halted before slavery was irrevocably entrenched in the South. Of course, you would have to demonstrate that the Consitution could have been ratified in the first place without the deference to slavery.
A fair question. Though the legality of the Massachusetts constitution was just as questionable. (Assuming that by “questionable” we mean in both cases “just plain illegal”.) A constitution for the state was declared ratified in 1780 despite the fact that out of the 209 towns reporting only 42 ratified unconditionally, a small minority and a far cry from the 2/3 required. See Gary B. Nash.
Merrill Jensen demolished this myth decades ago. Unfortunately the “Chaos and Patriots to the Rescue!” narrative feels so right that more realistic interpretations can’t gain any traction.
See Ravenman’s post above. Despite the hype, there was nothing special about the framework of our Constitution. It was directly in line with constitutional doctrine of the day. The genius of the Founders was in succeeding in erecting a workable government over the states themselves.
I would argue that is the major strength of the British system. We have dramatically changed our system through mainly peaceful means (some volent civil protests, no civil war) and it continues to evolve.
It was certainly an amazing achievement to forge a stable and long-lasting country out of such disparate elements, though I would actually argue that the Founding Fathers are victims of their own success. The reverence and hero worship directed in their direction is certainly counter-productive and (I think) would not have pleased them. Blind adherance to a ‘holy’ text is not an intelligent basis for policy. There is also an inbuilt and deliberate inflexibility in the US system that has been very important for long-term stability but in my view is beginning to be a hinderance to America responding to the changing state of the world.
What blind adherence? You’re aware that the U.S. and amended its constitution several times and has even reinterpreted the original 10 amendments (I almost typed commandments which means I must be very tired) in new and interesting ways over the centuries.
There is certainly a significant section of Americans who seem to view the Consititution in a very similar fashion to the Bible - infallible and unalterable. Though oddly many of the same people seem happy to interpret it however they like to match whatever they currently believe. Many Tea Partiers are obviously of this mindset, with spurious claims about ‘what the founding fathers intended’ and other bollocks.
I’m not saying everyone thinks that way, but there certainly seems (to me) to be a religion-like undertone to a lot of mainstream discussion on the topic.
I don’t know you think it’s odd - plenty of people who claim Biblical authority are actually just citing their opinion about what they think the Bible says. They’re using religion to back up their opinions not form them.
In a sense, we substitue our founding fathers into the role you have the monarchy in. They’re sort of a political ideal - the basis from which all governmental power is derived. But the price of having this ultimate authority is that it’s never actually used - George Washington, like Elizabeth II, never actually takes any political action. Instead the working politicians do things in their name and make the actual sausage.
Of course, the benefit of a living monarch is that she could tell you to shut the fuck up if you said, “this is what HM would have wanted”.
Just as a side note, I appreciate your interesting points, but those citations aren’t really helpful. A cite to a preview of the text of a book, or to a link to book that’s on sale at Amazon, really doesn’t help illustrate your argument, because there isn’t any content being linked to.
Again, I’m not disagreeing with you, in fact, I think your points are interesting. I just wish the citations were to something that were actually readable.
Hey, not his fault you weren’t willing to read all 452 pages. 
I linked them as a convenient way to show which works I was referring to. A cite is not a footnote. The point of a cite is not to illustrate your point but rather to demonstrate that you aren’t just making shit up. In this case it looks like The New Nation is available in full length form from Questia if you sign up for the free trial. But for me at least reading books online is a headache so that wouldn’t help much.