AmHist 101 Revisted

Did your class cover this?

Remember the Federalist Papers?

Wha..? Papers?

I can picture Jesse Watters’ Street Interviewer, ‘Johny,’ asking unsuspecting Americans that question. Everyday folks who can’t identify a picture of a Cabinet member or name just one SCOTUS jurist would likely draw a blank about the series of essays produced by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pen name Publius around 1787.

Chances are, you might not fare too well either. Regrettably, I can attest Mr. Morgan, my AmHist 101 prof, didn’t spend a lot of time discussing their significance; “No time” would be more accurate. If it wasn’t for my cherished friendship with the late Walter Williams, I could be a blank look on a TV show segment, too.

If you secretly share the same problem but don’t have time to gather and read all 85 of them, the incorrigible Brad Smith has scribbled an informative and mildly amusing summary that can save you time and potential embarrassment. At least you’ll be able to stand your ground if “Jeopardy” ever has a similar category.

BW

Federalist Papers Made Simple

Here is a really dumbed-down version of the first arguments made in The Federalist Papers.

There are Fine People on both sides, although of good faith and goodwill, the Anti-Federalists are misled, probably deluded and ignorant, possibly retarded, but it's not their fault they are morons.

We, on the other hand, are great guys. We proved it when we got together a while back and shot the balls off the English, and we all agree that Liberty (i.e., our necks) requires a big federal government, so when the English come back we can shoot their balls off again. If you don't think that's a good idea you are like really dumb or something. If we let the States or a handful of smaller confederations have too much power, how will we have a big enough army to protect our Balls? I mean liberty.

Plus, if we have too many states with real power, they will enter into too many of their own agreements and treaties and probably get us into wars all the time; you know how them yokels can be. Who knows, they might even get run by traitors whose alliances with other nations put our nation in jeopardy. (like that's never happened)

Oh, and it seems almost "Predestined" that we ended up with this great country with its endless bounty. It's fantastic that we all speak the same language and have basically the same culture. This doesn't seem to be by chance. (They don't say it's a miracle but imply it.) This means we should preserve our borders with a strong federal government. In other words, God probably just really likes Uncle Sam.

I'd say that of these arguments, the best one concerns the confusion that could take place with fifty (13) states, or three or for confederacies, each making its own treaties. However, I think you could make that illegal without giving the feds themselves all the power, right? Did they ever consider putting treaties up for a vote or having a referendum instead of leaving something like that up to politicians in Washington? Might have saved us all a lot of trouble. It's not like putting that power in the hands of Washington has turned out so great. Nor has having a huge army at the beck and call of the Bush family, but I digress.

It's not a bad argument. I could see how having fifty strong states or just three or four confederacies could lead to issues when dealing with foreign nations regarding treaties, tariffs, etc.

A lot of their arguments would be considered very snarky today; well-bred and very veiled insults are common in their language. It's kind of like listening to some of our lefty leaders talk down to the right today, actually, well, the more well-spoken ones like Obama, that is, not the AOC's, if you know what I mean. Their command of the English language was extremely good, but they also wrote in a way that everyone could easily understand. These were written for publication in the newspapers and meant to convince the public.

The anti-Federalists didn't want the feds to have so much power that the states/colonies lost their entire sovereignty. That didn't mean they were against a federal government at all. They had also considered the idea of having two or three, maybe four, Confederacies instead of thirteen colonies. Think of it like a handful of powerful states who agreed to form a union. So there would still be some rules that applied to all three, and they could have an Army under a central command if needed.

Imagine what it would be like if we only had three states, let's say, New York, Texas, and California, and they were each more powerful than the feds. Wouldn't that be wild? Someone should work that into a sci-fi story. Take it far enough into the future and they would probably each have their own language. It's also interesting that some people think we might be heading that way right now, breaking apart, I mean. Maybe we should give the anti-Federalist's Ideas a chance. Just something to think about. If we can't get along as a nation, maybe we can get along better as neighbors who help each other out when needed. You can mow all your lawn; I'll let mine go wild; maybe Bob and Jill down in Texas will put in a swimming pool? We’ll get together once in a while to bullshit about the good old days and how we still got each other's backs. Might not be that bad.

Take away the State monopoly on the use of force while we are at it, and we'd be cooking with Crisco. Well, Texas would probably be the only one to consider it, so I'd have to move, but I digress again…

Brad Smith

Given the two choices, I likely would have opted for the Articles of Confederation. But both options had their shortcomings, which is why I would have recommended neither. In America’s infancy, there never was a better time to introduce “There’s no Government like no Government. No Government, know Peace.” As attractive as the concept is, Statist conditioning and aggressive ignorance still make it a hard sell—all that cognitive dissonance and stuff. Maybe the Brains who gather here will noodle something out one day—soon!

Thanks for reading this far. Time to spread the word!