Along the Way…

Posts Tagged ‘Constitution’

Image via Wikipedia

Have you read Philip Dru: Administrator? The famous anti-communist columnist Westbrook Pegler described this book as “one of the most important political documents of our age.” The author of the book, Edward Mandell House, describes why he wrote Philip Dru in the following letter.

Cabourg, Calvados, France
July 10, 1922

“Philip Dru” was written in December and January of 1911–12 at Austin, Texas, during the six weeks I was convalescing from a protracted illness.

It was my intention to re-write it during the summer of 1912, but when I returned to New York in April of that year I found myself submerged in the campaign being waged to nominate Governor Woodrow Wilson as the democratic candidate for President.

During a hurried trip to Russia that summer I had but scant time to go over the manuscript, and when I returned to America I again became engrossed in the national elections, and being pressed by the publishers, consented to its immediate publication anonymously. Early November of 1912 found it upon the book-stands, but it also found Woodrow Wilson President-elect of the United States, therefore, I have never had the leisure to read “Philip Dru” except in manuscript.

It was written in the form of fiction in the hope that it would reach a wider public in that guise, but when it was finished, I saw that the material of an economic and governmental character which I had put in it was far too heavy to carry any story, much less the one around which I had thrown it.

When I indicated my purpose to read and perhaps re-write the book I was advised to discard the fiction and put out the substance of it in a number of essarys [sic] on government. However, I have finally concluded to leave it as it is, and to write this word of explanation.

Governmental affairs, both domestic and foreign, have been almost my sole interest during and since boyhood. For a long time it had seemed to me that our Government was too complicated in its machinery and that we had outgrown our Constitution. It has been by constant wonder that our people were willing to go along without protest with such an inefficient machine.

When our Republic was conceived, there was no modern guide-post to point the right direction in which to go. France had overthrown one monarch only to accept another. Therefore it was to be expected that the makers of our Constitution should proceed with caution and place within it checks and balances.

The climate, the character of the population and, more than all, our great natural resources have caused us to move forward in the acquisition of wealth at phenonmenal [sic] speed, and this in itself has been sufficient to keep our people content.

When things are going well it is the part of wisdom to use care in making changes of any sort, and things have undeniably gone well with us up to the present. But we have taken many chances which were unnecessary, and still continue to take them. One of these chances has been the succession to the Presidency. If the crisis of 1876 had not followed so closely upon the Civil War, or if a man of different temperament than that of Samuel J. Tilden had been “counted out,” there can be but little doubt that physical force would have been substituted for the milder measure of compromise which was adopted.

We hearkened to the warning sufficiently to change the method of procedure somewhat, but there is still must to be desired. It has never been settled whether the House, Senate or both concurrently shall count the vote and determine its validity. The makers of the Constitution contemplated an entirely different procedure from that now in use. In the early days Electors were voted for as now, but these, in turn had the sole responsibility for choosing a President. Today an Elector is a mere automaton, and while he has the constitutional right to vote for whom he pleases, he would no more dare to exercise it than the King of Great Britain would dare to use his right of veto.

Without entering into a discussion of whether the change which has come about is for the best, there should be no difference of opinion as to the advisability of adjusting the legal procedure to fit conditions as they are now rather than as they were a century and a half ago.

The partisan heat now engendered in the election of a President should in itself be a warning to us to change the procedure so there should never be a question as to its legality. And while doing so, some method determining the disability of a President should definitely be reached. If this is not done, a conjunction of circumstances may some day arise which may cause civil war.

These questions do not present any insoluable [sic] difficulties, and all that is necessary to take away the hazard of danger is for the President and Congress to clarify the law in order to meet the requirements of the situation.

The negative character of our Government and its lack of responsiveness to the will of the people makes it less efficient than it should be. No unprejudiced student of governmental affairs will question the assertion of Lord Bryce that “America is the most undemocratic of democratic countries.” When he wrote this he probably had in mind Russia, Japan and Germany as being the only countries throughout the world less democratic than the United States.

One of the purposes in writing “Philip Dru” was a desire to bring to a [sic] our people a realization of this. We are pleased to consider ourselves the most democratic of all nations, but as a matter of fact, our Government is not as democratic as the Governments of Great Britain, France, Italy and others. I have tried to explain why in “Philip Dru”, and I have also tried to present a really responsive form of government. It has been my purposes to show how our laws could be simplified so as to become understandable, and our courts rendered more effective, and stripped of their power to obstruct.

In order to bring about composure between capital and labor, some plan like Dru’s might be tried, for, surely, our present method is a failure.

The tendancy [sic] of the times is to give more power to the executive of a state, for only in this way can efficient and economical government be reached. But in placing such power in the hands of one individual, the wise and cautious thing to do is to make the duration of the term of office subject to the will of the popular legislative body. Otherwise, great dander to the state may conceivably result.

The negative form of our Government has at times caused the President to assume almost dictatorial powers in order to bring about desired legislation, and the people of the United States have accepted this assumption without protest. It is the executive part of the Government, both in the States and Nation, that almost always has the sympathy of the public, while the legislative side is generally ridiculed and belittled. In this way the already too great powers of the President have become augmented, and there have been no corresponding checks upon it.

It is true that in foreign affairs the Senate has sometimes refused to entirely accept the President’s recommendations regarding treaties, but in the most pronounced instances it has been when the opposition party was in control and the issue became more a matter of politics than of policy.

Dru, in his plan of governmental reconstruction, tried to prevent these periodical hiatuses which must occur in such a government of negation as ours. It is a tribute to the good sense and self restraint of the American people that we have passed through so may crises without serious harm, but it is not wise to leave these loop-holes for trouble which some day might bring disorder and revolution.

It is astounding that an intelligent people having universal franchise as a means to remedy matters are willing to move along year after year and not better their governmental conditions. Was not Hardy right when he told Dru that the people received as good government as they deserved?

As an example let us take the costly and unnecessary monetery [sic] panics which swept over the United States at such frequent periods. No other country in the world had them and it was obvious that our banking an currency laws were at fault. It was not necessary to have any prescience in order to be able to frame a law which would correct the trouble, for we had the existing laws in Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada and other commercial nations to guide us. And yet we continued our wasteful and costly system for fifty years without changing it. What are we to say of a people who are so indifferent to their self-interest when it touches public affairs?

Those who were responsible for the Federal Reserve Act have recieved [sic] much commendation for securing its passage, but such commendation should be purely relative as it was the obvious thing to do. Would it not be more to the point if the people blamed themselves and those who were in power before who failed to do their obvious duty. [sic]

Governmental power has become so largely invested in the executive that only measures which he recommends and back of which he puts the strength of his office, have much chance of becoming laws. And the executive as a rule, is so busy with the day’s work that he ahs but little time, and little inclination, to initiate legislation not on his party’s program.

At no time should there be deadlocks between the Executive and Legislative branches of our Government. The one which occurred between President Wilson and the Senate has had disastrous consequences not alone to us but to the entire world. The future historian may well reckon that quarrel as one of the great tragedies that have befallen mankind. The consequences have gone far beyond the limits anticipated by the chief actors in it. It halted the most promising epoch in human history, and changed an expectant and exalted fervor in behalf of universal peace and good fellowship, into a spirit of sullen and cynical distrust.

It not only changed a hopeful world into a skeptical world, but its effect permeated the economic structure to an unbelievable degree,. Industries have slackened when the waste form the Great War should have accelerate them; debts have piled upon debts, and millions on unhappy men, women and children have needlessly starved or died from preventable deseases. [sic] It is a terrible reckoning and one which could not have occurred had out legislative and executive system of government been so constructed as to make impossible such a deadlock.

It might well be claimed that it should have been impossible even as it was, but when the baser human passions are aroused as then, it is wise and prudent not to have governmental machinery convenient through which such passions can be safely and constitutionally exercised.

The trouble with the world is that it never learns,. We go blindly on making the same mistakes which those preceeding us have made. We listen to the sophistry of the eloquent self-seeker, and turn a dull ear to the blunt honesty of those not given to flattery or fluent speech. The demoagogue [sic] with his extravagant promises has his followers, just as the swindler has his victims. Something is seldom gotten for nothing, and that is a lesson many of us learn too late. If we are to prepare for old age or retirement, we must needs be [sic] frugal, energetic and painstaking. If we are to have good government we must be vigilent [sic] and willing to devote some of our time to its accomplishment. Philip Dru will have served his purpose if he has awakened even a small portion of his countrymen to a realization of this fact.

 

Image by Barrybar via Flickr

After Dr. Franklin’s speech was published, another patriot writing under the pseudonym of “Z” published this response:

Mess’rs. Adams & Nourse, When I read Dr. Franklin’s address to the President of the late Convention, in the last Monday’s Gazette, I was at a loss to judge, till I was informed by mere accident, from which of the contending parties it went to press. “I confess,” says the Doctor, (and observe the Printers tell us it was immediately before his signing) “I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present.” Surely, I thought, no zealous fœderalist, in his right mind, would have exposed his cause so much as to publish to the world that this great philosopher did not entirely approve the Constitution at the very moment when his “hand marked” his approbation of it; especially after the fœderalists themselves had so often and so loudly proclaimed, that he had fully and decidedly adopted it. The Doctor adds, “I am not sure I shall never approve it.” This then is the only remaining hope of the fœderalists, so far as the Doctor’s judgment is or may be of any service to their cause, that one time or another he may approve the new Constitution.

Again, says the Doctor, “In these sentiments I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no FORM of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered.” But are we to accept a form of government which we do not entirely approve of, merely in hopes that it will be administered well? Does not every man know, that nothing is more liable to be abused than power. Power, without a check, in any hands, is tyranny; and such powers, in the hands of even good men, so infatuating is the nature of it, will probably be wantonly, if not tyrannically exercised. The world has had experience enough of this, in every stage of it. Those among us who cannot entirely approve the new Constitution as it is called, are of opinion that any form may be well administered, and thus be made a blessing to the people, that there ought to be at least, an express reservation of certain inherent unalienable rights, which it would be equally sacrilegious for the people to give away, as for the government to invade. If the rights of conscience, for instance, are not sacredly reserved to the people, what security will there be, in case the government should have in their heads a predilection for any one sect in religion? what will hinder the civil power from erecting a national system of religion, and committing the law to a set of lordly priests, reaching, as the great Dr. Mayhew expressed it, from the desk to the skies? An Hierarchy which has ever been the grand engine in the hand of civil tyranny; and tyrants in return will afford them opportunity enough to vent their rage on stubborn hereticks, by wholesome severities, as they were called by national religionists, in a country which has long boasted its freedom. It was doubtless for the peace of that nation, that there should be an uniformity in religion, and for the same wise and good reason, the act of uniformity remains in force to these enlightened times.

The Doctor says, he is “not sure that this is not the best Constitution that we may expect.” Nor can he be sure that it might not have been made better than it now is, if the Convention had adjourned to a distant day, that they might have availed themselves of the sentiments of the people at large. It would have been no great condescension, even in that august Body, to have shown so small a testimony of regard to the judgment of their constituents. Would it not be acting more like men who wish for a safe as well as a stable government, to propose such amendments as would meliorate the form, than to approve it, as the Dr. would have us, “with all its faults, if they are such.” Thus the Doctor consents, and hopes the Convention will “act heartily and unanimously in recommending the Constitution, wherever their influence may extend, and turn their future tho’ts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.” Even a bad form of government may, in the Doctor’s opinion, be well administered—for, says he, there is no form of government, but what may be made a blessing to the people, if well administered. He evidently, I think, builds his hopes, that the Constitution proposed, will be a blessing to the people,—not on the principles of the government itself, but on the possibility, that, with all its faults, it may be well administered;—and concludes, with wishing, that others, who had objections to it, would yet, like him, doubt of their own infallibility, and put their names to the instrument, to make an Unanimity MANIFEST! No wonder he shed a tear, as it is said he did, when he gave his sanction to the New Constitution.

I totally agree with “Z” when he expresses his disappointment that Dr. Franklin would grant his “stamp of approval” on a Constitution whose success depended upon good people administering it.

The core flaw in Dr. Franklin’s reasoning is the presupposition that “a General Government [is] necessary for us.” The original confederation of independent states was working quite well in terms of individual liberties. The problem the Convention had been called to address, was the ability to pay its debts. Strengthening the federal government simply to raise money was a drastic sin, in my opinion!