Tag: federalist

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politics

Federalist Nos. 21 – 22

Federalist No. 21 and Federalist No. 22 close the enumeration of the deficiencies of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The argument that the federal government was impotent under the articles is well known but I did pick up two important points here. From Federalist 21:

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. . . If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. (emphasis added)

This is still true today of taxes on consumption, but especially the part I emphasized can be applied to our income tax (which is not a consumption tax for those who are not familiar with that term). When we look at the lengths that people will go to in their efforts to avoid paying their income taxes it indicates that the rate of taxation, especially at higher levels of income where more efforts are made to elude the taxes, is outside the appropriate bounds. Those who would argue that those rates are necessary (or even insufficient) tofund our government might want to consider the possibility that this truth might be an indication that our government spending itsself is also outside the bounds of moderation or necessity.

In Federalist 22 I see the arguments that lead to the Electoral College and a bicameral legislature taking shape and I also find the less common argument against the Articles of Confederation – namely that the Articles of Confederation did not provide any kind of judiciary system to interpret the laws. Today that would be inconceivable.

After reading about the necessity of forming a new government rather than simply trying to modify the existing confederation I was left to wonder if it might not be time again for us to convene a convention of people representing their fellow citizens for the purpose of examining our Constitution and determining if our government and Constitution as presently constituted are still consistent with the principles of good government and if either or both of them should be reformed. Personally, I would expect an answer from such a convention to be that the Constitution is fine, but might need to be updated for the purpose of bringing the government organization back into alignment with the law that it is designed to support.

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politics

Federalist Nos. 18 – 20

These papers offer an analysis of other governments which might be compared and contrasted with the system being outlined in the Constitution. I don’t consider myself expert enough to critique the analysis, but it is very interesting to see that advantages of this new system as perceived by Hamilton and Madison when compared to Greece (No. 18), Germany (No. 19), and the Netherlands (No. 20).

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culture politics

Federalist No. 17

Prior to Federalist No. 17 I had never completely disagreed with any of the federalist papers. Unfortunately , in discussing the possibility of a national government becoming stronger than would be desirable, Alexander Hamilton completely missed on his guess that:

It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the State authorities.

Hamilton admits his lack of vision by saying:

I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted (sic.) with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the {authority which should belong to them.}

My own assessment of where Hamilton went wrong was that he imagined an electorate that was perpetually working to stay informed. Instead today we have an electorate that has been diluted from the original – adult males who own property – to include any citizen, male or female, over the age of 18. I don’t mean to suggest that we should raise the voting age again, or make property ownership a requirement again, but I think it is fair to note that anyone who happens to be 18 does not necessarily have the same interest or inclination to become informed in their vote as someone who has property ownership which is directly affected by the actions of their representatives. Maybe we should adopt some requirement of tax payment – thus excluding those who have reached the age of 18 but who are simply living with their parents and not taking any adult responsibilities.

In truth, I think the biggest culprit is not the change in voting requirements as the rise of a society that is constantly lulled into complacency by a media culture that is predominantly experienced through passive reception. That seems to create a feeling of disconnectedness where people don’t have any real connection to government except to hear whatever the media covers – and the media naturally focuses on the larger national government more than more local government.

This disconnection would explain why the following assertion by Hamilton does not hold true today:

. . . the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the government of the Union; unless the force of that principle should be destroyed by a much better administration of the latter.

In Utah today we have a state government that is acclaimed to be among the most wisely managed and yet many of our citizens think of little beyond presidential elections and the elections of our state representatives at the federal level.

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politics

Federalist Nos. 15 – 16

Federalist Nos. 15 and 16 led me to two conclusions. First, Hamilton is accusing those who oppose the Constitution of hoping for a different result by repeating their previous actions (sounds like our modern politics of perpetual incumbency). Second, the confederacy that Hamilton describes that preceded our current (theoretically) Constitutional government sounds a lot like the United Nations – it lacked sufficient authority to effectively enforce its edicts on its members. This tells me that the U.N. is bound to be ineffective until it disintegrates or is replaced by a stronger version of world government.

I’d hate to think what would happen if the U.N. were given better enforcement powers unless it is done with a very firm limitation on what areas of life the U.N. had authority to regulate (as our federal government had at its inception).

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National politics

Federalist Nos. 13 – 14

Federalist No. 13 left me with imagining one of two conclusions based on the following statement:

Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole.

The two conclusions that I can draw from this – one of which must be true – are that Hamilton could not conceive (or did not consider) the incredible waste that could be perpetrated by a central government or else we are extremely lucky not to have the amount of waste we are paying for be multiplied by a number of regional confederacies with independent central governments.

Federalist No. 14 attempts to draw a clear distinction which many people today still do not understand. It is a distinction which is vital to having our government function properly.

The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms . . . is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.

The confusion around this issue is evidence of the fact that Americans must be made – being born in this nation is no guarantee of understanding and promoting the ideas of liberty and limited representative government that brought our nation to its greatness.

What I had never realized before was the fact that there was apparently widespread confusion back in the 18th century concerning the difference between a republic and a democracy. Today we suffer from two problems in our country regarding government. One, many people mistakenly believe that we are a democracy and try to treat government function as such. Two, some people properly recognize the republican form of our government and mistake or ignore the fact that some issues should be decided in a democratic manner by the people rather than placing more expansive powers in the hands of their elected representatives. This is especially true on issues such as congressional pay where there is an inherent conflict of interest on the part of those representatives.

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National politics

Federalist Nos. 11 – 12

Federalist Nos. 11 – 12 follow the same overarching argument that many of their predecessors followed. It can be boiled down to the truths concerning economies of scale. A larger union has great advantages over a smaller nation in many aspects of government. Number 12, which deals with government revenue, reminded me of a few issues related to taxes that I had not remembered and a few that I had never considered.

One of the things that has always been a pet peeve of mine is the incessant focus on the necessity of an ever expanding economy. I was reminded of why that would be when I read:

The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity (speed) with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury.

Money is only valuable because of the fact that it acts as a lubricant in the mechanisms of commerce. Because of our ever expanding demands for government services and intervention the government has an ever increasing need to generate more and more revenue through taxation and that is best done by faster and faster monetary circulation – although they are not above inserting more otherwise worthless paper into the system to increase their revenue when they feel it is necessary.

What I had never considered was the following:

It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation. Tax laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have remained empty. . . . No person acquainted with what happens in other countries will be surprised at this circumstance. In so opulent a nation as that of Britain, where direct taxes from superior wealth must be much more tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much more practicable, than in America, far the greatest part of the national revenue is derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts, and from excises.

It is that understanding about the difficulty of collecting direct taxes (such as income tax) that led our founders to codify in the constitution that the federal government should not have the power to levy an income tax. Indeed, reading that statement makes the FairTax proposal look all the more enticing since it rests on indirect taxation.

If anyone doubts the reality of the assertion that direct taxes are harder to collect consider the amount of money and time that Americans spend each year in tax preparation in an effort to pay as little income tax as they can and then combine that with the amount of money and time the IRS spends trying to ensure that nobody failed to pay their allotted share of income tax. Now compare that vast sum with the amount of time and money that people spend trying to avoid indirect taxes like a sales tax.

That explains why the only patriotic thing to do with our stimulus checks is to spend them the day we get them if not before.

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meta

Picking Up the Pace

I realized yesterday that I have been losing steam on my review of the Federalist papers partly because the idea of 84 posts is rather daunting. I also realize that I am not obligated to break them up exactly as they were published. I have determined that I could have covered 2 – 5 in one post 6 & 7 in another and 9 & 10 together as well. Right there I would have cut the number of posts so far in half. In the future I will combine papers as it seems appropriate to me.

Another realization was that, while I hope to generate some discussion and even awareness of the contents of these founding documents, another result of this undertaking is to solidify the foundation of my own thoughts on issues of government so that I can write more soundly as well as return to a record of my conclusions.

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politics

Federalist No. 10

Federalist No. 10 makes a statement that really rings true for me at both the federal and the state level of my government.

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.

Of course, the important thing is not the statement of the problem, but the analysis of the available solutions. The primary solution offered is that the form of government being proposed in the Constitution would be supportable over a larger republic and thus would be less susceptible to factions (as it would be harder to form a majority) and that the multi-level structure of government would allow for issues of local concern to be solved at a local level with only “the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national.”

In theory the advantages of a larger nation controlling the influence of factions is good, but that advantage breaks down when large groups of people abandon their own thinking in favor of adopting the thinking of someone else – as Frank Staheli suggested yesterday.

Likewise, the advantages of a multi-level governmental structure evaporate when the vast majority of issues are presented as falling into the category of “great and aggregate interests.” Because of our propensity to elevate everything to the level of national importance the state governments are often left in the position of simply administering programs which are not within their control.

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politics

Federalist No. 9

Federalist No. 9 can be almost completely reduced to this extended quote by Montesquieu:

a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC. . . is a convention by which several smaller STATES agree to become members of a larger ONE, which they intend to form. It is a kind of assemblage of societies that constitute a new one, capable of increasing, by means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the united body. . .

The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.

If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme authority, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in all the confederate states. Were he to have too great influence over one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation.

Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate states the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve their sovereignty. (“Spirit of Lawa,” vol. i., book ix., chap. i.)

Ever since the United States made the transition from being a plural noun (ex. “the United States are . . .”) to being a singular noun (ex. “the United States is . . .”) it seems that the individual sovereignty and identity of the states is becoming more of a formality than a reality. Contrary to the argument made in Federalist 9, I am not convinced that “So long as the separate organization of the members be not abolished; so long as it exists, by a constitutional necessity, for local purposes; though it should be in perfect subordination to the general authority of the union, it would still be, in fact and in theory, an association of states, or a confederacy.”

It seems that the last half century or more have shown that when the states become fully subordinate to the federal government the balancing of interests that are present in a confederacy are minimized and the Federal authority begins to act more like a monarchy with an ever-changing head.

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politics

Federalist No. 8

I found Federalist No. 8 to be simply prophetic about the dangers a country faces when subjected to the intersection of human nature and the constant perception of external threat.

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. . . . the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

This is exactly the danger that libertarian minded pundits have been vocally warning against since September 12, 2001. Though Alexander Hamilton is speaking about real external dangers the truth is that the public perception of external danger can be used to these ends with equal effect.

. . . weaker States or confederacies (or even nations) would first have recourse to [standing armies] . . . They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.

This is precisely the effect that we have seen throughout the Bush administration with the constant harping on the dangers posed by terrorists from around the world. To be sure, the technological advances of the last century have reduced the geographic cushion that had contributed to our national safety for the earlier part of our history. Despite the greater range available to anyone who would threaten us, we must stand vigilant against attempts to reduce our freedom in the name of safety when the safety being offered is against a threat more imaginary than real.

I don’t mean to say that the events of 9/11 were imaginary but those events, devastating as they were, did not constitute a real threat to our national survival except insofar as we respond to them by changing our society so that we become a different nation than the one which has been a beacon of liberty to the world. That idea cannot be killed by terrorist acts, and that idea is the American that is enshrined in our constitution.