See other Dead Constitution Articles
Title: Sic Sempter Tyrannis
Source:
American Conservative
URL Source: http://amconmag.com/2007/2007_04_23/print/articleprint2.html
Published: Apr 23, 2007
Author: Lew Rockwell
Post Date: 2007-04-30 05:56:08 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 314
Comments: 9
Maybe the authors of the Federalist Papers were liars. Maybe they were just engaged in political propaganda in order to shove through the Constitution. In secret, perhaps, they were plotting a leviathan state with a president who can do all that the Bush administration claims he can, which pretty much amounts to whatever Bush wants to do. If that was the case, they knew better than to advertise it. The Constitution would never have passed. Fear of a powerful president was one of the main reasons that people were fearful of abandoning the Articles of Confederation, which had no executive to speak of. Recall that the founders had long tangled with the king in England. The entire Declaration of Independence was a personal attack on him and his policies. These were the days of “personal states” in the sense that a government was still thought to be the private property of a monarch. The bad aspect of this system was that the king could become a tyrant. The good aspect was that people knew whom to target to end the tyranny or, in the case of the founders, whom to denounce in the course of a political separation. As an alternative to the personal executive state, the founders (perhaps naïvely) believed that they could create a Roman-style republic with a twist. There would be a head of state, but he would be controlled by a legislature. In fact, controlling the president would be the main job of the legislature. The founders went this one better by refusing to invest much power in the central government. Instead, the powers were decentralized and belonged to the member states. The anti-federalists were skeptical. How can you create a presidency and not expect it to become corrupt? Alexander Hamilton was absolutely reassuring in Federalist 69. He said that the president bears no resemblance at all “to the Grand Seignior, to the khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains, or to the governor of New York.” He concedes that the president has some resemblance to the king of Britain, but there are important and critical differences. He would only be president for four years, which is too little time “for establishing a dangerous influence in a single State.” He raises a point that was very much central to the minds of that generation. A king cannot be removed from office through peaceful means. In contrast, the president “would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Yes, said Hamilton, the president is commander in chief of the military. But this power is only “occasional”: when the legislature has authorized the military for actual service. He has no power to declare war or to raise and regulate armies. All these powers “appertain to the legislature.” Finally, he reminds us, if any powers are abused—such as the power of pardon—the president can be impeached immediately. One gathers from these passages a vision of the president as a temporary manager, doing only what the legislature approves, always under the relentless threat of impeachment. Presidents would come and go, and they would be in fear of the legislature. One misstep and they could be tossed out. Oh, and by the way, the president can’t get rid of the legislature except in one narrow case: he can adjourn them when they otherwise can’t agree on how or when to leave. What about his powers? He can negotiate treaties and commercial agreements. He can welcome ambassadors. Everything else can only be done with the advice and consent of the Senate. Was Hamilton a liar? He is usually presented as the advocate of presidential supremacy and certainly he went much farther than the Jeffersonians in his view of government. He was an extremist by any standard. He favored leviathan by comparison to the anti-federalists. And yet, from his own writings, the president in his vision of the Constitution is nothing more than a hired manager with few powers, and those not trivial are subject to the legislature. If he abuses power, he goes to the gallows in the republican fashion: he is impeached. How does this contrast with the view of the Bush administration? It is opposite in every respect. Consider the claim of John Yoo, author of The Powers of War and Peace, the bible of the Bush administration’s claim of totalitarian powers in war, and the reputed author of most of the Bush administration’s torture policies. Yoo’s book is a twisted mess, an attempt to justify reading the founding period in an opposite way from its historical reality. It’s like arguing that King Lear is a comedy, that Beethoven was second rate, or that the Bible endorses Satanism. There is always someone around to make any crazy claim you want, and if you are the ruling party, intellectuals will crawl out of the woodwork to say what you want them to say. In any case, this book by Yoo dismisses the whole of what Hamiliton says in Federalist 69 as “rhetorical excess.” And an article in the Boston Globe quotes him as saying that “Fed 69 should not be read for more than what it is worth.” Why? Because all presidents since FDR have used the imaginary war power to do their dirty tricks. This is an interesting argument. It says that because some tyrants have violated the Constitution, all presidents should presume the right to be tyrants in the manner in which the Constitution’s framers tried to guard against. Now if some intellectuals set out to say that the Constitution is really just a myth, that our past doesn’t matter, that the founders’ intentions are irrelevant, that the rule of law is and should be a dead letter, that would be one thing. We would be back to the fundamental debate of liberty versus despotism. Instead, keep in mind that the people arguing for executive dictatorship fashion themselves as conservatives. Contrast this with the genuine conservatism of Robert Taft, who saw the postwar period as a time to set matters right and return to first principles. He attacked Truman for his Cold War forays and stated clearly that Congress alone has authority to declare war and manage foreign policy. FDR’s attitude toward his power, Taft wrote, was inconsistent with our heritage. To return to my original question: what if the authors of the Federalist Papers were liars? This is not as crazy a theory as it might sound. Patrick Henry believed that they were, which is why he opposed the Constitution to begin with. It was too much of a risk, he said, to create any sort of president: “If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy is it for him to render himself absolute!” Patrick Henry lost the debate because enough people believed that Hamilton was sincere in his promises and that the president would be restrained. So let us be clear about what the advocates of executive rule are really saying. They are saying things that if they had been said to that founding generation of Americans would have prevented the Constitution from ever being passed. But it did pass. So until we can restore the Articles, let’s live up to the Constitution, and stop the dissembling, especially in the name of “conservatism.”
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
Was Hamilton a liar? He is usually presented as the advocate of presidential supremacy and certainly he went much farther than the Jeffersonians in his view of government. He was an extremist by any standard. He favored leviathan by comparison to the anti-federalists. And yet, from his own writings, the president in his vision of the Constitution is nothing more than a hired manager with few powers, and those not trivial are subject to the legislature. If he abuses power, he goes to the gallows in the republican fashion: he is impeached. Was Hamilton a Liar? [Was Washington a Tyrant?] Where to start....so little time.... ".....When George Washington badly needed financial help to pay his soldiers, the international bankers loaned him funds contingent upon appointing Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton was all English at heart. He was an expert in British banking methods and was trained in the inner sanctum of international banking.(9) A retired Harvard professor once told students in his Oklahoma high school class that Hamilton and Washington agreed to a central bank if the war was ended.(10) I have a Congressional Research Report that says as a fact that the first U.S. Bank was mostly foreign owned. On Yom Kippur Eve, 1779, Washington's soldiers, unpaid for months, were at a point of mutiny before a battle: "At last a desperate Washington sent a messenger on horseback through the night to Philadelphia with instructions to obtain, from Haym Salomon, a loan of $400,000, an enormous sum in those days, to pay and provision his troops. The messenger found Salomon in the synagogue, and a hasty whispered conference took place. Salomon rose and quickly moved about the synagogue, collecting certain friends. A small group left together, and that night the money was raised. Did Haym Salomon himself contribute $240,000 of the money? So the legend, perpetuated in many accounts, insists."(11) Jonathan Williams (1750-1815), a dedicated American patriot, wrote in his now rare book, Legions of Satan (1781), that Cornwallis revealed to Washington that "a holy war will now begin on America, and when it is ended America will be supposedly the citadel of freedom, but her millions will unknowingly be loyal subjects to the Crown Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador to Washington, once called George Washington the founder of the modern British Empire.(12) This is the very same Lord Lothian honored by the 1939 Pilgrims banquet! ..............." What About Those Pilgrims - The Pilgrim Society and English-Speaking UNION http://www.watch.pair.com/pilgrim.html Washington divided the states into districts [no constitutional authority to do so], in order to extend federal power into the states and for the purpose of taxing. "Washington considered the several offices created by the Judiciary Act of 1789 of premier importance to the new nation. "Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government," he wrote Randolph on September 28, four days after signing the Act into law, "I have considered the first arrangement of the Judicial department as essential to the happiness of our Country, and to the stability of its political system; hence the selection of the fittest characters to expound the laws, and dispense justice, has been an invariable object of my anxious concern." The Supreme Court Justices, the Attorney General, the district court judges and attorneys, the court clerks, and the United States Marshals would define, administer, and enforce the growing body of federal laws. By their actions, these men would determine the boundary between federal authority and local autonomy................. According to one historian, Washington's Marshals were "an able group of men. . .representing on the whole a type that was politically active." During Washington's first administration, Congress created sixteen judicial Districts. The first Marshal in each of these Districts provides a good sample from which to draw generalizations about Washington's appointees. Each state constituted one judicial District, except Massachusetts which was divided into the Districts of Massachusetts and Maine. (Maine did not become a state until 1820.) In addition, the territory of Kentucky, which did not enter the union as a state until 1792, was one of the original judicial Districts. By 1791, Washington had appointed the first Marshal for each of the original sixteen Districts. The sixteen men who composed the first generation of United States Marshals set a number of precedents that have been followed with relative consistency down to the present day. They were loyal, dedicated men who had served their country in the past and were prepared to serve it again. Most were prominent in their communities and had strong political connections. Most were members of the president's political party, loyal and sympathetic to his programs, and opposed to his political opponents.................." First Generation of US Marshalls http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/firstmarshals/marshals1.htm "Senate Bill Number One of the First Session of the First Congress became, after lengthy and heated debate, the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789. The Act provided a charter for the federal judicial system by specifying the jurisdiction and powers of the district and circuit courts, and the qualifications and authority of federal judges, district attorneys, court clerks, U.S. Marshals, and Deputy Marshals. Invited by Article 111, Section 1, of the newly ratified Constitution to "ordain and establish" a court structure for the new national government, the first Senate moved quickly to the task. But its labors were immediately embroiled in a bitter contest between the Federalists, who wanted a strong federal government, and the Anti- Federalists, who jealously guarded the rights of the states.........." Judiciary Act of 1789 http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/judiciary/judiary_act_of_1789.htm Washington and Hamilton used these unconstitutional districts to start taxing the people with memorable consequences during the outrage that followed known as the Whiskey Rebellion: "....The actions of the whiskey rebels precipitated growing fear within the emerging American ruling elite that it could face a challenge to its power. The turn against this movement was further fueled by the reaction of the wealthy against the radical turn of French revolution, a movement that enjoyed broad support among the American masses, and particularly the Irish immigrants. Thus, Washington issued a presidential proclamation, outlawing petitioning associations and public assembly..... "....Hogeland calls the Whiskey Rebellion a “guerrilla war,” involving attacks on tax collectors and the property of the rich. It culminated in 7,000 mostly landless laborers marching on Pittsburgh, threatening its upper-class residents and expelling the tax collectors. They threatened to take the arsenal at Fort Pitt and expropriate property. Violence spread to western Maryland, where in Hagerstown liberty poles were raised as citizens marched to seize the arsenal at Frederick. Sympathetic “friends of liberty” arose in western Pennsylvania and also in the remote parts of Virginia and Kentucky to oppose the debt foreclosures that threatened to force struggling poor farmers off their lands. The resistance in the west now had its own red-and-white six-striped flag, a banner that came to express the demands for access to land, fair taxation, and a redistribution of wealth. On August 7, 1794, Washington issued contradictory orders. He sent peace commissioners west, while at the same time, he called out the militia. Hamilton was eager to demonstrate the Constitution’s Militia Law Act against any combinations by the people and thought that marching on western Pennsylvania would set an example for other rebellious territories. The purpose of the peace commission was merely “political cover” for the military operation. The government could claim negotiations had failed and that the rebels were unreasonable, thus winning the nation’s sympathy for Washington. For this reason, Hamilton instructed the Pennsylvania governor to keep the militia mobilization **** secret......" In the wake of the crushing of the rebellion, together with the defeats suffered by the Indians on the frontier, Washington saw the value of his own land leap by 50 percent. Federal authority was established and national finance flourished. The whiskey tax, though, proved difficult to collect (many setters eluded it) and was repealed by Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Hogeland’s account of the Whiskey Rebellion reveals the conflicting social interests that exploded into crisis during the early stages of the American republic. There has been relatively little written about this event: Thomas Slaughter’s The Whiskey Rebellion, published in 1986, is the only academic work in print on the subject; the only other book-length account of the events is Leland D. Baldwin’s Whiskey Rebels, published in 1939 and now out of print. The reason for this relative silence is clear. Washington’s and Hamilton’s repression of the rebellion conflicts with the national myths of the benevolent Founding Fathers and a nation established on the basis of equality. It also reveals intense class conflicts that existed in American society from its origins, something that the ruling elite has always sought to deny or at least marginalize....." book review: History of an early American uprising By Jonathan Keane The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty, by William Hogeland, Scribner, 2006, 302 pages Great article, shows how we were food for the sharks from the beginning of their little experiment....unfortunately it's on a socialist website
I won't go so far as to say that the constitution is a "myth". But it is a "dead letter", not that it should be, but it is. And we are engaged in the fundamental struggle of liberty versus despotism. So far the despots have been kicking our collective asses since about 1946.
Paranoia is a survival trait in a Decidership.
Encyclopedia Britannica comment on Alexander Hamilton's First Report on the Public Credit Alexander Hamilton, as the first secretary of the treasury, was confronted with the task of establishing a stable national economy in the face of sectional interests, prejudices, and factions. His firm belief in a powerful central government went hand in hand with the financial policies he was to put into effect. On January 14, 1790, H. gave his first report to Congress on the public debt. In it he emphasized the importance for the nation of good credit, especially in times of danger, and urged specific policies that he felt would lead to this goal: First, the foreign debt should be funded; second, the wartime securities that had been issued by the old Congress should be recalled; and third, the federal government should assume $25,000 in state debts. Such action, thought Hamilton, would insure the SUPREMACY OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT OVER THE STATES. The first political conflict in the new government, which would soon lead to the formation of political parties, was precipitated by this Report....." report here: Blacks' definition of constitution, or so I have read, is CONTRACT. The Revolutionary War was contrived by the elite, and the Constitution was a CONTRACT ON AMERICA, BINDING THE PEOPLE TO THE BANKSTERS' AND WARMONGERS' DEBT. ======================================== "A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing." - Alexander Hamilton, c 1970. "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson, c. 1970.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition You may have guessed the gestapo hand of government during the Whiskey Rebellion is one of my pet peeves. I ran across a propaganda piece written by the Hamilton UNDER THE PSEUDOMYM [How many ways can one do "SECRET"?] "TULLY", condemning the struggling Americans in favor of of his pal Washington and their bankster fiends. It's a little long, but it is a gem, showing just how far we have been manipulated. Recall that many of these people he is talking about, were the "brute, dumb beasts", to use Henry Kissinger's words, they had previously UTILIZED for the cannon fodder in their contrived war. August 28, 1794. If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty, and the greatest source of security in a republic? the answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and laws—the first growing out of the last. It is by this, in a great degree, that the rich and the powerful are to be restrained from enterprises against the common liberty—operated upon by the influence of a general sentiment, by their interest in the principle, and by the obstacles which the habit it produces erects against innovation and encroachment. It is by this, in a still greater degree, that caballers, intriguers, and demagogues are prevented from climbing on the shoulders of faction to the tempting seats of usurpation and tyranny. Were it not that it might require too long a discussion, it would not be difficult to demonstrate that a large and well-organized republic can scarcely lose its liberty from any other cause than that of anarchy, to which a contempt of the laws is the high-road. But without entering into so wide a field, it is sufficient to present to your view a more simple and a more obvious truth, which is this: that a sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy, of a free government. Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions—a government of FORCE, and a government of LAWS; the first is the definition of despotism—the last, of liberty. But how can a government of laws exist when the laws are disrespected and disobeyed? Government supposes control. It is that POWER by which individuals in society are kept from doing injury to each other, and are brought to co-operate to a common end. The instruments by which it must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government, there is an end to liberty! Those, therefore, who preach doctrines, or set examples which undermine or subvert the authority of the laws, lead us from freedom to slavery; they incapacitate us for a GOVERNMENT of LAWS, and consequently prepare the way for one of FORCE, for mankind must have GOVERNMENT OF ONE SORT OR ANOTHER. There are, indeed, great and urgent cases where the bounds of the Constitution are manifestly transgressed, or its constitutional authorities so exercised as to produce unequivocal oppression on the community, and to render resistance justifiable. But such cases can give no color to the resistance by a comparatively inconsiderable part of a community, of constitutional laws distinguished by no extraordinary features of rigor or oppression, and acquiesced in by the body of the community. Such a resistance is treason against society, against liberty, against every thing that ought to be dear to a free, enlightened, and prudent people. To tolerate it, were to abandon your most precious interests. Not to subdue it, were to tolerate it. Those who openly or covertly dissuade you from exertions adequate to the occasion, are your worst enemies. They treat you either as fools or cowards, too weak to perceive your interest or your duty, or too dastardly to pursue them. They therefore merit and will, no doubt, meet your contempt. To the plausible but hollow harangue of such conspirators you cannot fail to reply, How long, ye Catilines, will ye abuse our patience? To urge the execution of that system would manifest, it is said, an intemperate spirit; and to excite your disapprobation of that course, you are threatened with the danger of a civil war, which is called the consummation of human evil. To crown the outrage upon your understandings, the insurgents are represented as men who understand the principles of freedom, and know the horrors and distresses of anarchy, and who, therefore, must have been tempted to hostility against the laws by a RADICAL DEFECT, EITHER in the government or in those intrusted with its administration. How thin the partition which divides the insinuation from the assertion, that the government is in fault, and the insurgents in the right! Fellow-citizens: A name, a sound, has too often had influence on the affairs of nations; an EXCISE has too long been the successful watchword of party. It has even sometimes led astray well-meaning men. The experiment is now to be tried whether there be any spell in it of sufficient force to unnerve the arm which may be found necessary to be raised in defence of law and order. The jugglers who endeavor to cheat us with the sound, have never dared to venture into the fair fields of argument. They are conscious that it is easier to declaim than to reason on the subject. They know it to be better to play a game with the passions and prejudices, than to engage seriously with the understanding of the auditory. You have already seen that the merits of excise laws are immaterial to the question to be decided, that you have prejudged the point by a solemn constitutional act, and that until you shall have revoked or modified that act, resistance to its operation is a criminal infraction of the social compact, an inversion of the fundamental principles of republican government, and a daring attack upon YOUR sovereignty, which you are bound, by every motive of duty and self-preservation, to withstand and defeat. The matter might safely be suffered to rest here; but I shall take a future opportunity to examine the reasonableness of the prejudice which is inculcated against excise laws, and which has become the pretext for excesses tending to dissolve the bands of society. Fellow-citizens: You are told that it will be intemperate to urge the execution of the laws which are resisted. What? Will it be indeed intemperate in your Chief Magistrate, sworn to maintain the Constitution, charged faithfully to execute the laws, and authorized to employ for that purpose force, when the ordinary means fail—will it be intemperate in him to exert that force, when the Constitution and the laws are opposed by force? Can he answer it to his conscience, to you, not to exert it? Yes, it is said; because the execution of it will produce civil war—the consummation of human evil. Fellow-citizens: Civil war is, undoubtedly, a great evil. It is one that every good man would wish to avoid, and will deplore if inevitable. But it is incomparably a less evil than the destruction of government. The first brings with it serious but temporary and partial ills; the last undermines the foundations of our security and happiness. And where should we be if it were once to grow into a maxim, that force is not to be used against the seditious combinations of parts of the community to resist the laws? This would be to give a CARTE BLANCHE to ambition, to licentiousness, to foreign intrigue, to make you the prey of the gold of other nations—the sport of the passions and vices of individuals among yourselves. The hydra Anarchy would rear its head in every quarter. The goodly fabric you have established would be rent asunder, and precipitated into the dust. You knew how to encounter civil war rather than surrender your liberty to foreign domination; you will not hesitate now to brave it rather than to surrender your sovereignty to the tyranny of a faction; you will be as deaf to the apostles of anarchy now as you were to the emissaries of despotism then. Your love of liberty will guide you now as it did then; you know that the POWER of the majority and LIBERTY are inseparable. Destroy that, and this perishes. But, in truth, that which properly can be called civil war is not to be apprehended—unless from the act of those who endeavor to fan the flame, by rendering the government odious. A civil war is a contest between two GREAT parts of the same empire. The exertion of the strength of the nation to suppress resistance to its laws, by a sixtieth part of itself, is not of that description. After endeavoring to alarm you with the horrors of civil war, an attempt is made to excite your sympathy in favor of the armed faction, by telling you that those who compose it are men who understand the principles of freedom, and know the horrors and distresses of anarchy, and must therefore have been prompted to hostility against the laws by a radical defect EITHER in the government OR in its administration. Fellow-citizens, for an answer to this you have only to consult your senses. The natural consequences of radical defect in a government, or in its administration, are national distress and suffering. Look around you—where is it? Do you feel it? Do you see it? Go in quest of it beyond the Alleghany, and instead of it you will find that there also a scene of unparalleled prosperity upbraids the ingratitude and madness of those who are endeavoring to cloud the bright face of our political horizon, and to mar the happiest lot that beneficent Heaven ever indulged to undeserving mortals. When you have turned your eyes towards that scene, examine well the men whose knowledge of the principles of freedom is so emphatically vaunted—where did they get their better knowledge of those principles than that which you possess? How is it that you have been so blind or tame as to remain quiet, while they have been goaded into hostility against the laws by a RADICAL DEFECT in the government or its administration? Are you willing to yield them the palm of discernment, of patriotism, or of courage? TULLY. IV September 2, 1794. ================================================= The jugglers who endeavor to cheat us with the sound, have never dared to venture into the fair fields of argument. They are conscious that it is easier to declaim than to reason on the subject. They know it to be better to play a game with the passions and prejudices, than to engage seriously with the understanding of the auditory. I don't know about you, but that was enough to make the STRUGGLING Christian in me to want to dig up his wretched bones, kick them, stomp them, spit on them, and scatter them to the winds.
He uses the "CONSPIRACY" word: September 2, 1794. The prediction mentioned in my first letter begins to be fulfilled. Fresh symptoms every moment appear of a dark conspiracy, hostile to your government, to your peace abroad, to your tranquillity at home. One of its orators dares to prostitute the name of FRANKLIN by annexing it to a publication as insidious as it is incendiary. Aware of the folly and the danger of a direct advocacy of the cause of the insurgents, he makes the impudent attempt to enlist your passions in their favor by false and virulent railings against those who have heretofore represented you in Congress. The foreground of the piece presented you with a bitter invective against that wise, moderate, and pacific policy, which in all probability will rescue you from the calamities of a foreign war, with an increase of new dignity and with additional lustre to the American name and character. Your representatives are delineated as corrupt, pusillanimous, and unworthy of your confidence; because they did not plunge headlong into measures which might have rendered war inevitable; because they contented themselves with preparing for it, instead of making it, leaving the path open to the Executive for one last and solemn effort of negotiation; because they did not dispay either the promptness of gladiators, or the blustering of bullies, but assumed that firm yet temperate attitude which alone is suited to the representatives of a brave but rational people; who deprecated war, though they did not fear it; and who have a great and solid interest in peace, which ought only to be abandoned when it is unequivocally ascertained that the sacrifice is absolutely due to the vindication of their honor and the preservation of their essential rights; because, in fine, your representatives wished to give an example to the world, that the boasted moderation of republican governments was not (like the patriotism of our political barkers) an empty declaration, but a precious reality..........." from your thread: Yes, said Hamilton, the president is commander in chief of the military. But this power is only “occasional”: when the legislature has authorized the military for actual service. He has no power to declare war or to raise and regulate armies. All these powers “appertain to the legislature.” Finally, he reminds us, if any powers are abused—such as the power of pardon—the president can be impeached immediately. ============================== Founding despots Hamilton and Washington take on the "INSURGENTS": HAMILTON TO WASHINGTON PHILADELPHIA, September 19, 1794. SIR:—Upon full reflection I entertain an opinion that it is advisable for me, on public grounds, considering the connection between the immediate ostensible cause of the insurrection in the western country and my department, to go out upon the expedition against the insurgents. In a government like ours it cannot but have a good effect for the person who is understood to be the adviser or proposer of a measure, which involves danger to his fellow-citizens, to partake in that danger; while not to do it might have a bad effect. I therefore request your permission for the purpose. My intention would be not to leave this till about the close of the month, so as to reach one of the columns at its ultimate point of rendezvous. In the meantime, I take it for granted General Knox will arrive, and the arrangements which will be made will leave the Treasury Department in a situation to suffer no embarrassment by my absence; which, if it be thought necessary, may terminate about or shortly after the meeting of Congress. With perfect respect and the truest attachment, I have, etc. PROCLAMATION September 25, 1794. By the President of the United States of America A PROCLAMATION Whereas, from a hope that the combinations against the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in certain of the western counties of Pennsylvania, would yield to time and reflection, I thought it sufficient, in the first instance, rather to take measures for calling forth the militia than immediately to embody them; but the moment is now come when the overtures of forgiveness, with no other condition than a submission to law, have been only partially accepted; when every form of conciliation, not inconsistent with the being of government, has been adopted without effect; when the well-disposed in those counties are unable by their influence and example to reclaim the wicked from their fury, and are compelled to associate in their own defence; when the proffered lenity has been perversely misinterpreted into an apprehension that the citizens will march with reluctance; when the opportunity of examining the serious consequences of a treasonable opposition has been employed in propagating principles of anarchy, endeavoring, through emissaries, to alienate the friends of order from its support, and inviting its enemies to perpetrate similar acts of insurrection; when it is manifest that violence would continue to be exercised upon every attempt to enforce the laws; when, therefore, government is set at defiance, the contest being whether a small portion of the United States shall dictate to the whole Union, and at the expense of those who desire peace indulge a desperate ambition. Now, therefore, I, George Washington, President of the United States, in obedience to that high and irresistible duty consigned to me by the Constitution, "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," deploring that the American name should be sullied by the outrages of citizens on their own government; commiserating such as remain obstinate from delusion; but resolved, in perfect reliance on that gracious Providence which so signally displays its goodness towards this country, to reduce the refractory to a due subordination to the law, do hereby declare and make known that, with a satisfaction which can be equalled only by the merits of the militia summoned into service from the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, I have received intelligence of their patriotic alacrity in obeying the call of the present, though painful, yet commanding necessity; that a force, which according to every reasonable expectation is adequate to the exigency, is already in motion to the scene of disaffection; that those who have confided, or shall confide in the protection of government, shall meet full succor under the standard and from the arms of the United States; that those who, having offended against the law, have since entitled themselves to indemnity, will be treated with the most liberal good faith, if they shall not have forfeited their claim by any subsequent conduct, and that instructions are given accordingly. And I do, moreover, exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men, to contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading directly or indirectly to those crimes which produce this resort to military coercion; to check, in their respective spheres, the efforts of misguided or designing men to substitute their misrepresentations in the place of truth, and their discontents in the place of stable government; and to call to mind that, as the people of the United States have been permitted, under the Divine favor, in perfect freedom, after solemn deliberation and in an enlightened age, to elect their own government, so will their gratitude for this inestimable blessing be best distinguished by firm exertions to maintain the Constitution and the laws. And, lastly, I again warn all persons whomsoever and wheresoever, not to abet, aid, or comfort ***** the insurgents aforesaid, as they will answer the contrary at their peril; and I do also require all officers and other citizens, according to their several duties, as far as may be in their power, to bring under the cognizance of the law all offenders in the premises. In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the twenty-fifth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-four, of the independence of the United States of America the nineteenth [L. S.] GEORGE WASHINGTON. By the President, EDMUND RANDOLPH. HAMILTON TO LEE BEDFORD, October 20, 1794. SIR:—I have it in special instruction from the President of the United States, now at this place, to convey to you the following instructions for the general direction of your conduct in the command of the militia army, with which you are charged. The objects for which the militia have been called forth are: 1st. To suppress the combinations which exist in some of the western counties in Pennsylvania, in opposition to the laws laying duties upon spirits distilled within the United States, and upon stills. 2d. To cause the laws to be executed. These objects are to be effected in two ways: 1. By military force. 2. By judiciary process and other civil proceedings. The objects of the military force are twofold: 1. To overcome any armed opposition which may exist. 2. To countenance and support the civil officers in the means of executing the laws. With a view to the first of these two objects, you will proceed, as speedily as may be, with the army under your command, into **** the insurgent counties, to attack and, as far as shall be in your power, subdue all persons whom you may find in arms in opposition to the laws above mentioned. You will march your army in two columns, from the places where they are now assembled, by the most convenient routes, having regard to the nature of the roads, the convenience of supply, and the facility of co-operation and union; and bearing in mind that you ought to act, till the contrary shall be fully developed, on the general principle of having to contend with the whole force of the counties of Fayette, Westmoreland, Washington, and Alleghany, and of that part of Bedford which lies west of the town of Bedford; and that you are to put as little as possible to hazard. The approximation, therefore, of your columns is to be sought, and the subdivision of them, so as to place the parts out of mutual supporting distance, to be avoided as far as local circumstances will permit. Parkinson's Ferry appears to be a proper point towards which to direct the march of the columns for the purpose of ulterior measures. When arrived within the insurgent country, if an armed opposition appear, it may be proper to publish a proclamation, inviting all good citizens, friends of the Constitution and laws, to join the standard of the United States. If no armed opposition exist, it may still be proper to publish a proclamation, exhorting to a peaceable and dutiful demeanor, and giving assurances of performing, with good faith and liberality, whatsoever may have been promised by the commissioners to those who have complied with the conditions prescribed by them, and who have not forfeited their title by subsequent misconduct. Of those persons in arms, if any, whom you may make prisoners, leaders, including all persons in command, are to be delivered up to the civil magistrate; the rest to be disarmed, admonished, and sent home (except such as may have been particularly violent, and also influential), causing their own recognizance for their good behavior to be taken, in the cases in which it may be deemed expedient. With a view to the second point, namely, "the countenance and support of the civil officers in the means of executing the laws," you will make such dispositions as shall appear proper to countenance and protect, and, if necessary, and required by them, to support and aid the civil officers in the execution of their respective duties; for bringing offenders and delinquents to justice; for seizing the stills of delinquent distillers, as far as the same shall be deemed eligible by the supervisor of the revenue, or chief officer of inspection; and also for conveying to places of safe custody such persons as may be apprehended and not admitted to bail. The objects of judiciary process, and other civil proceedings, will be: 1. To bring offenders to justice. 2. To enforce penalties on delinquent distillers by suit. 3. To enforce the penalty of forfeiture on the same persons, by the seizure of their stills and spirits. The better to effect these purposes, the judge of the district, Richard Peters, Esquire, and the attorney of the district, William Rawle, Esquire, accompany the army. You are aware that the judge cannot be controlled in his functions; but I count on his disposition to co-operate in such a general plan as shall appear to you consistent with the policy of the case. But your method of giving a direction to legal proceedings, according to your general plan, will be by instruction to the district attorney. He ought particularly to be instructed (with due regard to time and circumstances): 1st. To procure to be arrested all influential actors in riots and unlawful assemblies relating to the insurrection, and combinations to resist the laws, or having for object to abet that insurrection and those combinations, and who shall not have complied with the terms offered by the commissioners, or manifested their repentance in some other way which you may deem satisfactory. 2d. To cause process to issue for enforcing penalties on delinquent distillers. 3d. To cause offenders who may be arrested, to be conveyed to jails where there will be no danger of rescue: those for misdemeanors, to the jails of York and Lancaster; those for capital offences, to the jail of Philadelphia, as more secure than the others. 4th. To prosecute indictable offences in the courts of the United States; those for penalties on delinquents, under the laws before mentioned, in the courts of Pennsylvania. As a guide in the case, the district attorney has with him a list of the persons who have availed themselves of the offers of the commissioners on the day appointed. The seizure of stills is the province of the supervisor and other officers of inspection. It is difficult to chalk out the precise line concerning it. There are opposite considerations which will require to be nicely balanced, and which must be judged of by those officers on the spot. It may be found useful to confine the seizures to stills of the most leading and refractory distillers. It may be advisable to extend them far in the most refractory county. When the insurrection is subdued, and the requisite means have been put in execution to secure obedience to the laws, so as to render it proper for the army to retire (an event which you will accelerate as much as shall be consistent with the object), you will endeavor to make an arrangement for detaching such a force as you deem adequate, to be stationed within the disaffected country, in such a manner as best to afford protection to well-disposed citizens and to the officers of the revenue, and to repress, by their presence, the spirit of riot and opposition to the laws. But before you withdraw the army, you will promise, on behalf of the President, a general pardon to all such as shall not have been arrested, with such exceptions as you shall deem proper. The promise must be so guarded as not to affect pecuniary claims under the revenue laws. In this measure, it is advisable there should be a co-operation with the Governor of Pennsylvania. On the return of the army you will adopt some convenient and certain arrangement for restoring to the public magazines, the arms, accoutrements, military stores, tents, and other articles of camp equipage and intrenching tools, which have been furnished, and shall not have been consumed or lost. You are to exert yourselves by all possible means to preserve discipline among the troops, particularly a scrupulous regard to the rights of persons and property, and to a respect for the authority of the civil magistrate; taking especial care to inculcate and cause to be observed this principle: that the duties of the army are confined to the attacking and subduing of armed opponents of the laws, and to the supporting and aiding of the civil officers in the execution of their functions. It has been settled that the Governor of Pennsylvania will be second, the Governor of New Jersey third in command, and that the troops of the several States in line, on the march and upon detachment, are to be posted according to the rule which prevailed in the army during the late war—namely, in moving towards the sea-board, the most southern troops will take the right; in moving westward, the most northern will take the right. These general instructions, however, are to be considered as liable to such alterations and deviations in the detail, as from local and other causes may be found necessary, the better to effect the main object upon the general principles which have been indicated. With great respect, I have the honor to be, sir, Your obedient servant, ALEXANDER HAMILTON. To Major-General LEE. ======================================== from The Works of [double-agent] Alexander Hamilton http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0249.06 IMO, their constitution died before it got off the ground. Their legitimacy existed on the right of the people to throw off the shackles of a government that did not represent them. When they subsequently denied the people that right, their legitimacy ended.
maybe we should start here: [how do you interpret this?] No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President, neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. it looks to me as if "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution", acts as a qualifier for BOTH of the preceding phrases. Otherwise, there would not be a comma after "United States". seems to me the office of the presidency may have expired :)
I'm not inclined to regard George Washington as a tyrant.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
sorry it has taken so long to respond....i have been following other things whilst this sat on my computer. I have to disagree with you. George Washington was just one of the first in a long line of presidents and their ilk to promote the agenda of the one-world order. He was the FIRST to divide the States into [ FEDERAL ]districts : "Washington's brief journal for 30 Sept.-20 Oct. 1794 records his journey from Philadelphia to western Pennsylvania with the militia raised to suppress the so-called Whiskey Insurrection that erupted in the fall of 1794 in the Pennsylvania counties of Westmoreland, Fayette, Washington, and Allegheny. The Excise Act, passed by Congress 3 Mar. 1791, had imposed substantial duties on domestically distilled spirits and provided an elaborate system for efficient collection. [1] Under the law the United States was divided into fourteen districts or surveys, each under a supervisor of the revenue. Inspectors were to be appointed for each district to serve under the supervisor and an elaborate system of penalties and forfeitures was devised to deal with infractions of the law. Considered as a necessary revenue measure by the Federalists, the legislation did not have an easy passage through Congress. Such antiadministration congressmen as Josiah Parker maintained that the excise would "convulse the Government; it will let loose a swarm of harpies, who, under the denomination of revenue officers, will range through the country, prying into every man's house and affairs, and like a Macedonian phalanx bear down all before them." In Sen. William Maclay's view the measure was "the most execrable system that ever was framed against the liberty of a people. . . . War and bloodshed are the most likely consequence of all this." [2]...." http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/whiskey/index.html#n2 I had a little difficulty finding this: The Messages and Papers of the Presidents GEORGE WASHINGTON. UNITED STATES, _March 4, 1791_. _Gentlemen of the Senate_: Pursuant to the powers vested in me by the act entitled "An act repealing after the last day of June next the duties heretofore laid upon distilled spirits imported from abroad and laying others in their stead, and also upon spirits distilled within the United States, and for appropriating the same," **** I have thought fit to divide the United States into the following districts, namely: The district of New Hampshire, to consist of the State of New Hampshire; the district of Massachusetts, to consist of the State of Massachusetts; the district of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to consist of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations; the district of Connecticut, to consist of the State of Connecticut; the district of Vermont, to consist of the State of Vermont; the district of New York, to consist of the State of New York; the district of New Jersey, to consist of the State of New Jersey; the district of Pennsylvania, to consist of the State of Pennsylvania; the district of Delaware, to consist of the State of Delaware; the district of Maryland, to consist of the State of Maryland; the district of Virginia, to consist of the State of Virginia; the district of North Carolina, to consist of the State of North Carolina; the district of South Carolina, to consist of the State of South Carolina; and the district of Georgia, to consist of the State of Georgia. And I hereby nominate as supervisors of the said districts, respectively, the following persons, viz: For the district of New Hampshire, Joshua Wentworth; for the district of Massachusetts, Nathaniel Gorham; for the district of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, John S. Dexter; for the district of Connecticut, John Chester; for the district of Vermont, Noah Smith; for the district of New York, William S. Smith; for the district of New Jersey, Aaron Dunham; for the district of Pennsylvania, George Clymer; for the district of Delaware, Henry Latimer; for the district of Maryland, George Gale; for the district of Virginia, Edward Carrington; for the district of North Carolina, William Polk; for the district of South Carolina, Daniel Stevens; for the district of Georgia, John Mathews. GEORGE WASHINGTON. [Footnote 1: For proclamation convening Senate in extraordinary session see p. 587.] ============================================================= UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3, PARAGRAPH 1: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of two or more States.; or parts of States without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as the Congress." Geore Washington: "I have thought fit to divide the States into Districts...." ....not a tyrant? And they fought a war over "taxation without representation" because? The Declaration of Independence He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, ... http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/ This was the precursor to the abolishment of the States and the power of We the People and the rise of the "Regionalism" that we see today: [ Regionalism, the Implementation of the New World Order http://www.penncrier.com/penncrier/pcnwoimp.html and **** http://www.barefootsworld.net/regional.html and finally: U.S. and EU Agree to Harmonize Regulatory Standards..... part of a broader agenda to achieve global government on the installment plan. That agenda was perhaps most clearly and succinctly articulated by Richard N. Gardner decades ago in an article entitled "The Hard Road to World Order." Writing in the April 1974 issue of Foreign Affairs, the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Gardner, who has held a number of State Department posts, argued against what he called "instant world government." Instead, he wrote, "the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great 'booming, buzzing confusion,' to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault." http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=51699 ]. It should be noted as well that the tax fell harder on the small distillers. The big producers, like George Washington, got to make a much smaller proportional tax. Washington became one of the biggest distillers in the country. Didn't do him much good. He died about a year later. Incidentally, what we are seeing now in Virginia, is a REGIONAL Transportation Authority, with appointed taxmen, to tax the people to build some new roads that will most likely be then sold to the highest bidder who will charge a toll [whilst the taxpayers continue to fund its upkeep, of course]. America has gone from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, [thanks George and Alexander and all your buds], to Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Liquidation. Old propaganda/myths die hard. I know. I had a difficult time with Abe Lincoln.
#2. To: Ada (#0)
Now if some intellectuals set out to say that the Constitution is really just a myth, that our past doesn’t matter, that the founders’ intentions are irrelevant, that the rule of law is and should be a dead letter, that would be one thing. We would be back to the fundamental debate of liberty versus despotism.
#3. To: Ada (#1)
In any case, this book by Yoo dismisses the whole of what Hamiliton says in Federalist 69 as “rhetorical excess.” And an article in the Boston Globe quotes him as saying that “Fed 69 should not be read for more than what it is worth.” Why? Because all presidents since FDR have used the imaginary war power to do their dirty tricks.
#4. To: redpanther (#0)
(Edited)
CIVICS PING!
Read all the posts as well including #3. You are already aware Hamilton was not really one of the "good guys" from your studies.
#5. To: Ada (#3)
#6. To: Ada (#5)
a couple more items on this abominable creature named Alexander Hamilton
#7. To: Ada (#0)
So until we can restore the Articles, let’s live up to the Constitution, and stop the dissembling, especially in the name of “conservatism.”
#8. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#1)
#9. To: aristeides, Ada (#8)
I'm not inclined to regard George Washington as a tyrant.
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