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September 28, 2006
A little history won't kill you
Gadsden Flag emails this essay by Gary Galles, which discusses America's Antifederalists, a group that opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution on grounds it would permit the "central government" to become too strong, and too influential -- "constitutional tyranny," in Galles' words. (It was the anti-federalist objections, he points out, that led to the Bill of Rights.)
Galles details the prophetic concerns of a New York judge -- Robert Yates, writing under the nom de plume "Brutus" -- specifically, the "immense" and "unprecedented" powers of the US Supreme Court. Ironically these are the concerns raised by modern Federalists; "process" conservatives regard today's Federalists as guardians of the Constitution, but Brutus might argue they are seeing precisely what their forebears ratified, over his objections, in 1787.)
Some of Brutus's concerns seem almost quaint by modern standards -- he wondered whether our form of governement could prevail given its geographic girth; and whether the legislature's war powers would permit a centralization of government. But Galles' article provides a valuable historical perspective regarding many a current issue concerning goverment authority.
History is good. Math is bad.
Posted by bill at September 28, 2006 09:37 AM
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