I’m reading a book called Founding Brothers, right now, and I have never read such a politically thought-provoking piece before. The only other thing I’ve read that actually really influenced me politically was Einstein’s essays about government, education, and religion. This book is basically six stories about the founding fathers, showing how each of them was deeply flawed, but as a team, how perfect they were in making the foundation of our country.

The more I think when I read this book, the more our country today disappoints me. For instance, there was actually a debate at the Constitutional Convention on whether to actually have a president or not, let alone give him much power at all. The Federalists wanted the Federal Government because Confederacy worked really well until the United States had to go to war, in which case, we had to stand as one. So, the federalists came and said, “Hey! We need a federal government to deal with foreign affairs so that we’re not weak in the eyes of the rest of the world!” The Anti-federalists despised the idea of a Federal Government because it was too much power in too few hands, so they made sure to get the Constitution written.

Madison, the father of the Constitution, was an Anti-Federalist- he was very skeptical about power being in the hands of few, because history has shown that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, and he knew this. So, the Constitution was kind of a shield from the Federal government. As I said in a speech I gave as my final exam in debate, the Constitution is like our sword, which should always be held against the government’s throat.

The picture I’m getting that appears to be what the Founding Fathers were thinking is that the Federal government should be as small as possible and only keep union between the states for times like war when we should stand as one, and any domestic affairs should be handled by the State governments. I’m seeing that the only thing that the Founding Fathers didn’t specify in the Constitution that could have saved our country from a whole lot of turmoil is that the only time the Federal Government should interfere with domestic affairs is when some unconstitutional is happening at home, for instance, slavery.

The debate about when to end slavery is the part I’m reading now. Slavery was brought up in Congress in 1790, but the southern states got mad because at the Constitutional Convention, there was an agreement that the abolition of slavery could not be confronted until 1808- twenty years after the Convention. This chapter is called “The Silence” because it was brought up briefly and then everyone stayed silent in Congress about it until the 1830s, even though most of them wrote about it in their journals. Jefferson talked about how the slave population was growing exponentially and that if we waited too long to confront the issue, it would be too late- too expensive to emancipate the slaves- i.e. keeping the farmers out of debt, and moving the freed slaves to somewhere peaceful. It would have completely solidified into our culture by waiting too long, but if we confronted it too soon, it would had led to an “unhealable” Civil War over States’ rights.

Some might question whether our government confronted it to early or too quickly, but, in my opinion, the bottom line is that it wasn’t a matter of when to do it, but more a matter of who to do it. We needed a president who wasn’t going to put up with crap from the rebels, who would abolish slavery with no questions, but still keep his strong arm to to keep the union together, to keep the strength. Lincoln was obviously perfect for this role.

It’s a really neat book, and it’s really helping me to see what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they were putting together our country’s foundation. It’s just scary to look at our country now, and see how much we’ve botched up what they started. The federal government’s size has expanded out of control. I guess it’s only a matter of time before Jefferson’s quote about the wolves becomes so true that a revolution starts.

We’ll see.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 10:30 am and is filed under History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.