Challenge of fallen men governing other fallen men

THE FOUNDERS' TYRANNY-PREVENTION PROGRAM
 Challenge of fallen men governing other fallen men



Adams wrote to his friend and fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, “Philosophy, morality, religion, reason, all concur in your conclusion that ‘Man can be governed only by accommodating laws to his nature.'” Upon giving men power, how could you prevent them from abusing it and usurping more? This is why Madison famously noted in Federalist No. 51 that “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.”

This gets to the structural aspect of the purpose of government – how does one group of fallen men (the government) maintain the liberty of other fallen men (citizens) without becoming tyrannical? While this question will be answered in more detail in the next chapter on the Constitution, the Founders articulated several fundamental principles that must be understood before we approach the Constitution itself.

In 1787 James Madison ably summarized the structural challenge of government in a letter written to his friend Thomas Jefferson: “The great desideratum [desired goal] in government is so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the society to control one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controlled itself from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire society.”

Based on their knowledge of human nature and history, the Founders knew that at the end of the day, whenever power had been delegated, given, or simply taken by anybody, it was eventually abused. Why was this? Beyond the correct, but vague answer of “human nature,” the Founders attributed it to, among other things, the existence of parties. By “parties,” they did not necessarily mean political parties as we think of them today, but rather, the existence of different interests, typically dictated by the amount or type of property one had. “In every political society, parties are unavoidable,” Madison noted. “A difference of interests, real or supposed, is the most natural and fruitful source of them.”


Giving the Gift of a Warm Meal


Jefferson explained the origin of parties in a similar fashion: “The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed thro’ all time. Whether the power of the people, or that of the ἄριςτοι [aristocrats] should prevail, were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions; as they now schismatize [sic] every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot.” He wrote elsewhere:

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties. 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes, and 2. those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them therefore liberals and serviles [sic], Jacobins and Ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object.

Thus, according to the Founders, embedded within human nature itself was the predilection to have different interests and thus form “parties.” As Tocqueville noted, “human institutions may be altered, but not man himself. Whatever the general efforts of society to keep citizens equal and similar, the personal pride of individuals will always strive to rise above the common level and will hope to achieve some inequality to their own advantage.” Such was the history of all ages, and the Founders were under no delusions that they could change this fundamental aspect of the human character.

While Jefferson’s definition of parties was rather binary on occasion, many of the Founders saw interests, or “parties,” as typically divided between the one, the few, and the many. The “one” would be the absolute ruler – a king or a dictator. The “few” were those close to the absolute ruler – nobles, aristocrats, or in more modern terms, those we would call the “connected.” The “many” comprised the majority of citizens, both the poor and what we might call the “middle class.”

The form of government each of these parties wanted to obtain was, respectively: a dictatorship or monarchy (rule by one), an aristocracy (rule by the few), and a democracy (rule by the many). Notice that a republic is not on this list. Given the unavoidable existence of such parties, the question for the Founders then became how best to manage them. They could not simply be eliminated by legislation. Since liberty and the protection of God-given rights was the end they sought, tyranny naturally became that which they sought to avoid. And how did they define tyranny? Tyranny was the accumulation of all legal power (a monopoly on force) in the hands of a single individual or party, which would inevitably lead it to dominate and subjugate the others. So strong was his belief in this truth that Adams referred to it as the “fundamental article of my political creed,” describing it this way: “Despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical [sic] council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.”