"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”
Those are the words of President James Madison in 1795.
He goes on to say,
“War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
Unhappily, in what will be the 250th anniversary of our nation we have been at war, one way or another, for all but fourteen years.
That included a genocide against our native population who, in our geographic ignorance, we called ‘Indians.’
In the elegant language of his times and education, Madison further reminds us of the discretionary power of the president is extended. Foreseeing the inevitable he understands that the presidential influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied, even to talk-show hosts (as soon as talk-shows are invented) and all the means of seducing the minds (by unending repetitive lies), are added to those subduing (by not yet invented ICE officers) the force of the people.
Has any president so successfully and accurately looked 200 years down the political telescope?
Yeah, a few, but not many. James Madison had a unique ability in that talent. But what it clearly indicates is that those who delivered this fragile entity that we call a republic, knew its flaws full well, and its imperfections even more clearly. We were born a slaveholding nation, where the right to vote was carefully restricted for its first one hundred, forty-four years, until female citizens finally attained the vote in 1920, my mother among them.
We patched and repaired these inconsistencies as best we could, with a written constitution and 27 amendments (thus far) to the Constitution, beginning with the Bill of Rights. Thus we had constructed a document to deal with and correct the inconsistencies we knew were there, as well as those that might come.
We the People are not yet done.
Madison was eloquent in his assessment that a state of war would enhance the ‘inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud,’ growing out of a state of war...and in the ‘degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both.’
Well, I guess.
Need I name the perpetrators and their victims?
The Billionaire Class will do for the former, gathering their unbounded wealth by fraud, and using it to suborn the very checks and balances that separate a republican democracy from dictatorship. The latter are our stolen Middle Class, largely crated up and sent to China, who mainly are composed by what we named the Maga Movement. The balance are the poor, who fill our ghettoes and prisons, live on what scraps our society leaves them, and have little hope of moving up.
As Madison predicted a ‘degeneracy of manners and morals,’ if war became a commonality, we have separated our class warfare into the haves and have-nots. Both Republicans and Democrats are co-conspirators in that half century of social and economic decline. The result has been that Republicans are hated for hoarding all the money, and Democrats hated for letting them do it.
President Madison cannot be charged with failure to predict the internet, today’s firehose for all that rage and hatred. But he accurately named its raisons du jour.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare, Madison claimed.
We have, and are, testing that prediction.
Stay tuned, for how all that works out…