Founding Wisdom—Part II: George Washington and Others

I heard someone mention this week that the way to get people—mainly young people—to love this country is for them to learn its history. They might have been talking about learning to love the Constitution and Declaration of Independence by studying them. I’m not sure whom to credit now, but it may have been David Barton of Wallbuilders—check out their extraordinary Signers of the Declaration resource page. 

Anyway, with the intention of increasing love for the ideals of this country, I’m continuing the celebration of Independence Day with words from our founders.

I had so many quotes from Thomas Jefferson that I gave him his own day, in the last post. Today will be a few others of the 56 men who signed the Declaration back in 1776, risking their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, plus others who weren’t among those signers, but who nevertheless took those risks for our freedom.

 

George Washington

Washington Praying painting by Arnold Friberg
image from Wikipedia

"I have often expressed my sentiments that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."—George Washington (To the General Committee of the United Baptist Churches in Virginia)

 

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.—George Washington (First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)

 

Washington's inauguration by Howard Pyle
image found here

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."—George Washington (First Inaugural Address)

 

Your love of liberty, your respect for the laws, your habits of industry, and your practice of moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.—George Washington

 

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington

 

 

James Madison

James Madison portrait by John Vanderlyn
image from Wikipedia

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."—James Madison

 

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.”—James Madison (Federalist 45)

 

“I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse.”

—James Madison

 

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”—James Madison

James Madison engraving by David Edwin
image from Wikipedia

 

“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.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)

 

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that 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.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)

 

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."—James Madison.

 

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."—James Madison (Federalist 62)

 

 

John Adams

John Adams portrait by Gilbert Stuart
image from Wikipedia

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”—John Adams (A Defense of the Constitutions of Governments of the United States of America, 1787)

 

I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration [of Independence], and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not."—John Adams, July 3, 1776

 

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.—John Adams (1770, closing argument in defense of a British soldier)

John Adams portrait by John Trumbull
image from Wikipedia

 

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."—John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

 

“All are subject by nature to equal laws of morality, and in society have a right to equal laws for their government, yet no two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity, and virtue, or ever can be made so by any power less than that which created them.”—John Adams (Discourses on Davila—XV, 1776)

 

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."—John Adams

 

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.—John Adams

 

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations... this radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.—John Adams (John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, Feb. 13, 1818. Cited in The Works of John Adams, vol. 10, p. 282)

 

 

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams portrait by John Singleton Copley
image from Wikipedia

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."—Samuel Adams

 

"Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man."—Samuel Adams

 

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"—Samuel Adams

 

“All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.”―Samuel Adams

 

Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.—Samuel Adams

 

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.—Samuel Adams

 

 

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin portrait by Joseph Duplessis
image from Wikipedia

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."—Benjamin Franklin

 

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."—Benjamin Franklin

 

It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.—Benjamin Franklin

 

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."—Benjamin Franklin

 

 

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton miniature attributed
to Charles Shirreff, image from Wikipedia

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."—Alexander Hamilton

 

“Here, sir, the people govern.”—Alexander Hamilton

 

"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the last.... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government."—Alexander Hamilton (Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, Aug 28, 1794)

 

 

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine portrait by Laurent Dabos
image from Wikipedia

"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue."—Thomas Paine

 

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”—Thomas Paine (American Crisis)

 

Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.—Thomas Paine (The America Crisis)

 

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.—Thomas Paine (Common Sense)

 

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”—Thomas Paine

 

All the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.—Thomas Paine

 

 

Benjamin Rush

Dr. Benjamin Rush
image found here

“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty.”—Benjamin Rush

 

"Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."—Benjamin Rush (1788)

 

“Unless we see medical freedom put into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitution the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush, MD (this is a paraphrase of his sentiments, developed after his death in 1813, not an actual quote)

 

When describing 24 “causes which have retarded the progress of our science,” this was number 24:

“Conferring exclusive privileges upon bodies of physicians, and forbidding men of equal talents and knowledge, under severe penalties from practicing medicine within certain districts of cities and countries.

"Such institutions, however sanctioned by ancient charters and names, are the Bastilles of our science.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush

 

 

Patrick Henry portrait by
George Bagby Matthews
image from Wikipedia

Patrick Henry

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." — Patrick Henry

Economics on the Sphere

The Spherical Model gives us a way to look at government economic policies and know whether they’ll work or not—or even whether they should be tried.

The Economic Zone

There’s this basic principle:

Whenever government attempts something beyond the proper role of government (protection of life, liberty, and property), it causes unintended consequences—usually exactly opposite to the stated goals of the interference.

While this is a statement related to the Political Sphere, the principle is probably easiest to see on the economic sphere. For that, we’re going to review a couple of segments of the Spherical Model website on the Economic Sphere. If you’re not yet familiar with the Spherical Model concepts, you can get a quick refresher by reading “The Political World Is Round” or by watching the (very low-budget) video, here. Below, the indented parts are quoted from the website, interspersed with my comments today.

Just as with the political Freedom Zone, there’s a 45th parallel to stay above for optimum economic prosperity. In this zone, government is limited to its proper economic role: protect property rights, safeguard society from attack, and, if called upon, mint the monetary units while safeguarding the wealth. The US Constitution does limit the federal government. When government attempts to interfere, for whatever well-intentioned purpose, to stimulate the economy, manage unemployment, control interest rates, redistribute wealth, or tax for any purpose outside the proper role of government—it will always cause damage to the economy.

All that government needs to do is follow the Constitution, and we would have the most prosperous economy in world history in perpetuity. But following the Constitution has always been the challenge.

Davy Crockett
by William Henry Huddle, 1989
image from Wikipedia

There’s a Davy Crockett story[i] I’ve used at this point. You can re-read it on the website. It tells how Davy Crockett learned from a constituent that government had no business using tax money on charity. He was able to persuade Congress, but only on that one piece of legislation.

Let’s add to that a story of James Madison—the principal writer of the Constitution, who ought to know, who was against a 1792 Congressional appropriation of $15,000 for French refugees. Madison said, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”[ii]

Here’s what happens:

It is a pattern of people in power to exert more power than they have been granted, ostensibly to do good, thus usurping power they had not been granted but setting precedence for future exertion of that power. The founders knew this, had seen it and experienced it, and read and studied so that they would word the Constitution in a way that would purposely restrict government from usurping this power. But it takes constant vigilance in order to prevent the usurpation. And after decades, even centuries now, of lawmakers overstepping “for the general welfare,” we are far distant from the Freedom Zone.

We know what the Free-Enterprise [Prosperity] Zone would look like: healthy, prosperous economy, with each worker benefiting from his own labors, and having the opportunities to meet his financial needs and build up wealth. There would be no guarantees of the success of every single person, but there would be better opportunities than in any other system in any country at any time in history.

We haven’t spent nearly enough time actually following the Constitution, and thereby staying in the Freedom Zone of the Political Sphere or the Prosperity Zone of the Economic Sphere.

We seriously lowered ourselves on the sphere shortly after the turn of the last century. Income taxes were instituted, and the Federal Reserve Bank was formed. Woodrow Wilson set the standard for Italian and German fascism in his efforts at government control. He interfered in the economy and encouraged his followers to do so. It was the interfering policies put in place early in the century that led to the Great Depression; these policies followed by Hoover and then Roosevelt lengthened and deepened the Depression.

Remember, any government act meant to do other than to protect the people’s wealth is economically unsound—it will cause harm, either in the short term or eventually.

We ought to know better. Out country has had enough experiences with extra-constitutional experimentation: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Obama—for example. This piece, from the website, was written in 2010, when we’d suffered just about a year and a half of Obama interference, which malaise continued through his entire presidency:

Friedrich Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom and others of his writings, details why central planning (another term for government interference) in decision making wreaks havoc. He wrote in the 1940s, with the clarity of having been there and observing as things happened, how and why Wilson, Hoover, and Roosevelt policies failed—and continued to fail and will always fail.

There is such a stark difference between the failure of the controlled economy and free enterprise that even a relatively mild step from control toward freedom leads to remarkable increases in prosperity. The Ronald Reagan era is such an example. The years from Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter showed a continual rise in the misery index (unemployment rate added to the rate of inflation), until an average high of 20.27 during Carter’s administration. In relatively short time, Reagan was able to drop the rate down to 11.19—not low enough, but a huge improvement. He lowered taxes and deregulated previously controlled business sectors. Even without the liberal Congress lowering spending as much as Reagan had intended, there was marked improvement. The index continued to go down through George W. Bush’s presidency, and only headed back up when the liberal Congress (during Bush’s last two years) started imposing economic controls. Obama, during his first year, imposed more controls than any president since FDR, socializing industries, controlling banks, redistributing wealth, attempting to socialize the health care system—and the misery index responded, rising from an average 8.1% under Bush to 12.33% after a single year.

And note that the misery could be higher if unemployment were more accurately calculated; those unemployed more than six months, or those no longer seeking employment or who have taken low-pay temporary jobs, are not included. This means that, if unemployment is really closer to 17%, then Obama in a single year has “controlled” the economy into depression-feeling Carteresque misery. Right now the inflation rate is being held artificially low with far below market interest rates, which will at some point need correction. So by some objective measures, Obama’s economic errors have already exceeded Carter’s.

Reagan didn’t get us all the way up to the Free-Enterprise Zone; he got us generally above the equator with an upward direction—more remarkable because it was reached without the assistance of a like-minded legislature. And the result was huge. Unemployment and interest rates dropped, and GDP started a growth spurt lasting two decades.

We look now, a couple of years into the Trump presidency, and there’s been an effect on the economy very similar to Reagan’s improvement over Carter’s malaise. That ought to tell us something:

If we could make that much progress by going upward just above the equator on the Spherical Model, how much more prosperous would we be as a country if we followed the Constitution and moved up to the Free-Enterprise Zone [Prosperity Zone] and stayed there?

Here’s another really radical idea: If America could make that much upward, perpetual progress by abiding by the Constitution, wouldn’t that work for any other country that tried it? Yes. Yes, it would. They would have to adopt a constitution essentially like ours—one that protects life, liberty, and property while limiting government to just its essential role—like the list in the Preamble of our Constitution:

 in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

And then, of course, people doing well would need to voluntarily fill the philanthropic role that is needed to help those who cannot help themselves. These countries could keep their culture: their language, their history, their clothing, their music, their art and architecture.

Would we worry if competing countries started doing as phenomenally well as we were doing? No need. Because we’d be plenty prosperous. It isn’t a zero-sum game. When more wealth is created, there’s more wealth to go around.

If only we could make use of our founders’ ideas, and then export those ideas.

But they can’t be imposed on an unwilling people; people have to choose freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Lack of choosing them is the trouble we mainly have here in America. We need people to come to appreciate what actually leads to the blessed outcomes that are our potential, and then choose those ultimate good outcomes.

I’m willing to give it a try. Who’s with me?

---

[i] I first heard this Davy Crockett story from Nina Hendee, who told Texas history stories to school groups at the family restaurant Taste of Texas. I later found the full story: “Not Yours to Give,” originally published in The Life of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward Sylvester Ellis, republished at http://juntosociety.com, © 2002 The Junto Society.

[ii] This incident and quote came to my attention in “Healthcare—If Government Doesn’t Do It, Who Will?” by Larry Elder, online column August 27, 2009, on Townhall.com.

Words to Inspire Wise Voting

Here it is the day before Voting Day in America. There’s a great deal of interest for a midterm election. Other than 2010, when there was a backlash against the underhanded, unilateral imposition of Obamacare on us, I don’t remember interest being so high for such an election. It could be that I’m just paying more attention, but I think a lot of us recognize there’s a lot at stake.

There has been record amounts of early voting in many states, including my own. We don’t actually know the results of those early votes, but when those particular voters have voted in a primary, we have their party affiliation as an indicator. Right now, that data tells us there’s more Republican interest than Democrat, and more rural and suburban interest in most places—with my state as an exception, where urban voting has surged. I don’t know how they measure that, because Houston is definitely urban, but it’s also huge and made up more of suburban areas than urban. So we'll see.

chart from NBC News

There’s a lot at stake. After a very long near decade of economic malaise and social decay, we’ve been getting our hopes up that improving freedom and prosperity are more than just temporary. But that’s at risk.

A lot of our future depends on how we and the people around us vote.

So, maybe this is a day for inspiring words, pulled from my ever growing Spherical Model quote file, about this experiment in self-rule called the United States of America. Remind yourself how vital it is to vote wisely. Then go forth and do your duty tomorrow.

Samuel Adams
painting by J. S. Copley

Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.—Samuel Adams (The Life of Samuel Adams, 1:22)

What country can preserve its liberty if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? —Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787

I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom.—James Madison, Federalist Paper 11:163, June 20, 1788

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.—George Washington

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.—Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis”

Benjamin Franklin
painting by Joseph Duplessis, 1778

In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in this struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men; and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in sacred writings, that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.—Benjamin Franklin, Debates in the Congress of the Confederation, from February 19, 1787, to April 25, 1787, p. 984

[T]he framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral and corrupt legislation. All churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues, but they have the solemn obligation to do so.—M. Russell Ballard, Ensign, October 1992

Men can exercise freedom only if they possess the following:

(1) life, (2) liberty (the absence of restraint), (3) property, and (4) knowledge.

When men become wicked, they act to destroy these necessary elements rather than preserve them, and freedom becomes impossible to maintain no matter what the form of government. There is an inexorable law of nature in operation which decrees that no man can act with the purpose of destroying another’s freedom without losing his own. The operation of this divine law of retribution is easily observed in a society of self-governing people.

Selfish, needful man is restrained from forcibly taking the life, liberty or property of his neighbor by these considerations:

(1) conscience, (2) fear of retaliation (3) fear of condemnation of others.

When men act through government, they do so without fear of retaliation or condemnation, and conscience alone remains to curb the propensity to abuse power.

Therefore, when a nation of people who have had the power of government placed in their hands become evil and without conscience, they will use that power to plunder and enslave one another until freedom is destroyed. It is a truism taught by the sages and prophets and proved repeatedly in the history of nations that wickedness and liberty cannot exist side by side.

Equally fatal to freedom is the ignorance or indifference of the voting majority. Unless they perceive with clarity that line which divides right from wrong in government action, and resist with firmness any attempt to cross it, the natural tendency of men to abuse power will cause those in office to enlarge their functions until liberty is crushed under the weight of bureaucratic despotism.

Therefore a nation must not only remain moral to remain free, but it must also be alert and informed. Furthermore the people must have a standard by which to distinguish with precision those functions which preserve freedom from those which destroy it. The standard which is used must be widely known, universally acceptable to moral people, and easily applied.—H. Verlan Andersen, Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen, Ezra Taft Benson Society, special re-printing: 2017, ch. 1

Take Social Justice. Justice means getting what you deserve without favor. Social justice means getting what you don’t deserve because you are favored.

—Michael Knowles, “Control the Words, Control the Culture,” PragerU

We need to become more tolerant of the imperfections that come with freedom, and we need to give up the illusion that somehow putting government in charge of anything is going to improve its workings, much less bring on utopia.—Ron Paul

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.—George Washington, First Inaugural Address

The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world!—Samuel Adams, speech at Philadelphia state house, August 1, 1776

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

—Thomas Paine

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.

—James Madison, Federalist Paper 45

Albert Einstein
image from here

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

—Abraham Lincoln

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it.—Albert Einstein

Good Words

Sometimes when I look at what I’ve been randomly collecting in the Spherical Model quote file, I find a theme. That’s been happening lately. There’s something connecting what our Founders thought about government, and why it should be limited—and about the people, and why they must be virtuous.

I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom.”—James Madison (The Papers of James Madison, 11:163, June 20, 1788)

James Madison
portrait by John Vanderlyn
image from Wikipedia

“We must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.”—Ezra Taft Benson

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.—James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 45

[N]o bureaucratic judgment condemning a sincerely held religious belief as “irrational” or “offensive” will ever survive strict scrutiny under the First Amendment. In this country, the place of secular officials isn’t to sit in judgment of religious beliefs, but only to protect their free exercise.—Justice Neal Gorsuch, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. CADA opinion, 6-4-2018

[T]he framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral and corrupt legislation. All churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues, but they have the solemn obligation to do so.—M. Russell Ballard, Ensign, October 1992

Sometimes the dues we pay to maintain integrity are pretty high, but

the ultimate cost of moral compromise is much higher.—Michael Josephson

Samuel Adams
Painting by John Singleton Copley
image from Wikipedia

"Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man."—Samuel Adams ("The Life of Samuel Adams," 1:22)

"How our governments need standards of integrity! How our communities need yardsticks to measure decency! How our neighborhoods need models of beauty and cleanliness! How our schools need continued encouragement and assistance to maintain high educational standards! Rather than spend time complaining about the direction in which these institutions are going, we need to exert our influence in shaping the right direction. A small effort by a few can result in so much good for all of mankind."—L. Tom Perry, Ensign, May 1988

"No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."—George Washington (from his First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)

The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world!—Samuel Adams, speech at Philadelphia state house, August 1, 1776

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.—Thomas Paine, Common Sense

George Washington
portrait by Gilbert Stuart, 1795
image from Wikipedia

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes and for a certain limited period to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is execised contrary to their interest, or not according to their wishes, their Servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.—George Washington (in letter to Bushrod Washington, November 9, 1787)

“In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate, and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree…. The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe.”—Thomas Jefferson (The Works of Thomas Jefferson, P. L. Ford, 8:390-1)

The Executive Is No Angel

There are a couple of quotes I’d like to contrast. This first is from James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, #51:

What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither internal nor external controls on the government would be needed.

The second quote is from that contemporary political mind, Gwyneth Paltrow, who held a fundraiser at her Santa Monica, CA, home last week. Besides gushing, “You’re so handsome that I can’t speak properly,” she advised all who would hear:

It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass.

James Madison, image from here;                      Gwyneth Paltrow, photo from here

If great minds think alike, then one of these divergent thinkers might not be a great mind.

Here’s what we know. Human nature means that no person—not even another George Washington—should be imbued with absolute power. If a person is neither God nor one of His angels, that person’s power should be limited. So, while it might be possible to pile up the complaints against our current president’s character (even though Miss Paltrow apparently can’t), the only necessary reason for being suspect and limiting his power is: he is not God, and he is no angel.

Our founders brilliantly identified three aspects of power—and wisely separated them: law making, law judging, and law executing.

There’s a new course offered online, for free as usual, from Hillsdale College, called The Presidency and the Constitution, with Dr. Larry Arnn giving the introductory lecture. In lecture 1, around 17 minutes in, he gives this background on separation of powers:

In the Declaration of Independence, there is separation of powers. It occurs in two ways. In the first way, in the middle of the document, a largely ignored but incredibly important part of the document, they gave the reasons why they’re doing it. The bad stuff the king has done. There are 17 of them, and several of them are violations of separation of powers: made judges dependent on his will alone, suspended legislatures and interfered with their operation. And so here you have an executive, and he’s actually getting control—and in English history sometimes the king did have control—of all of the processes of government, making him a law unto himself. And so, that’s condemned in the Declaration of Independence. That is grounds for revolution, if that happens.

But then the second way is, if anything, more sublime. And that is, the branches of government are named in the Declaration of Independence in relation to God. God appears four times. Once he’s the creator. That’s like a constitution maker, like a founder, if you see that in political terms. And it would be right, I think, to see it in political terms, because here we have a sublime political document. The first time He shows up, He’s the maker of the laws of nature and of nature’s God. He’s the legislator.

Then later, toward the end of the document, He’s named as the supreme judge of the world—the judicial branch. And as divine providence, the executive branch. And the lesson from that is plain. The way God is addressed is the way He is viewed.

And then these complaints against the king, about his violation of separation of powers, that it is in the hands of God alone that you would place all the powers of government. And any man, like King George III, who tried to arrogate those powers to himself—that would be an evil. Not to be trusted.

Absolute power is not a new threat. It wasn’t even new in the days of King George III. Tyrants seeking absolute power have been the norm. But not right. Absolute power in a human being—or even a small number of humans—is an evil to be avoided. On the Spherical Model, it is southern hemisphere statist tyranny.

I came across another source this week, also from Hillsdale, about separation of powers. September’s Imprimis article is “The History and Danger of Administrative Law," by Philip Hamburger, of Columbia Law School. He defines administrative power as a modern version of placing multiple powers in the hands of the executive—in other words, just another form of tyranny.

He says, in introduction,

Administrative law is commonly defended as a new sort of power, a product of the 19^th and 20^th centuries that developed to deal with the problems of modern society in all its complexity. From this perspective, the Framers of the Constitution could not have anticipated it and the Constitution could not have barred it. What I will suggest, in contrast, is that administrative power is actually very old. It revives what used to be called prerogative or absolute power, and it is thus something that the Constitution centrally prohibited.

He compares what our current form of executive-appointed administrative rule with the long-familiar prerogative power of kings. He uncovers three types of prerogative power—all of them precluded by our Constitution: extra-legal, supra-legal, and consolidated power. He explains:

Whereas ordinarily kings bound their subjects through statutes passed by Parliament, when exercising prerogative power they bound subjects through proclamations or decrees—or what we today call rules or regulations. Whereas ordinarily kings would repeal old statutes by obtaining new statutes, when exercising prerogative power they issued dispensations and suspensions—or what we today call waivers. Whereas ordinarily kings enforced the law through the courts of law, when exercising prerogative power they enforced their commands through their prerogative courts—courts such as the King’s Council, the Star Chamber, and the High Commission—or what we today call administrative courts. Ordinarily, English judges resolved legal disputes in accordance with their independent judgment regarding the law. But when kings exercised prerogative power, they expected deference from judges, both to their own decrees and to the holdings and interpretations of their extra-legal prerogative courts.

When we see our president—and not just the president, but the legislature, by not doing their duty, but turning it over to some regulatory agency—writing thousands of regulations, such that no human could possibly identify them and abide by them, that is the same old tyranny we’ve seen before. When he decides, using waivers, whom he will choose to exempt from laws and regulations, again that is the same old tyranny rule. When he has regulatory agencies judge whether a person is in defiance of a regulation and can then fine and/or imprison that “wrongdoer,” that is not what our founders would call divided powers. That is the executive branch (president, potentate, dictator, king…) making the laws, judging the laws, and executing the enforcement of them.

What we have is the very mess we declared independence from back in 1776. So what do we do now?

Hamburger offers this simple-but-not-easy starting point:

The Constitution carefully barred this threat, but constitutional doctrine has since legitimized this dangerous sort of power. It therefore is necessary to go back to basics. Among other things, we should no longer settle for some vague notion of “rule of law, understood as something that allows the delegation of legislative and judicial powers to administrative agencies. We should demand rule through law and rule under law. Even more fundamentally, we need to reclaim the vocabulary of law: Rather than speak of administrative law, we should speak of administrative power—indeed, of absolute power or more concretely of extra-legal, supra-legal, and consolidated power. Then we at least can begin to recognize the danger.