As the planet of communications and writings slows to an apparent halt this morning, I have slowed down enough myself to actually sit down and write a blog; which has been writing itself in my head these last few weeks.
Lest anyone think that what we are witnessing these days in Washington is anything new, they should be reminded that the anti-government movement in this country was in place at our founding. In fact a case can be made that the duel that Alexander Hamilton had with Vice President Aaron Burr, in which he lost his life and Burr his political life, was in part, over just such as issue.
Burr became the vice president by tying in electoral votes with Republican Jefferson in the 1800 election; which had to go to Congress to be settled. After 35 ballots in the House, Burr lost the presidency to Jefferson, whom Federalist Hamilton had supported. (Hamilton preferred a man with wrong principles to one without any). The Federalists, after 12 years of governing, had bequeathed to posterity a strong central government with a central bank, a funded debt, a high credit rating, a tax system, a customs service, a coast guard, a navy and many other institutions that would guarantee the strength to preserve liberty. (see Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton).
But the slave holding states of the south and the Democratic-Republican ticket gained control of the executive branch in 1800 and occupied the presidency for approximately 50 of the 72 years following Washington's 1st inauguration. This was made possible because of the 3/5 rule-that southerners could count 3/5 of their slaves as property in calculating their electoral votes. Without this Constitutional provision Adams would have defeated Jefferson in 1800. Not only did the Constitution tolerate slavery, but it rewarded it. The long term effects of the compromise on slavery inflated southern power and wealth, won the south more elections and diminished the meaning of a true democracy.
Burr, desperate in 1804 for a future in politics, having lost the governorship race in NY, (allegedly because of Hamilton's disowning him) saw Alexander Hamilton as the cause of all his ills. Knowing that Jefferson would not keep him on the ticket for the fall election, Burr saw the trumped up feud with Hamilton that lead to the duel as a way to reignite his political career. Hamilton feared that if Burr stayed in politics, (Burr had been a lieutenant colonel in the continental Army, a brilliant trial lawyer, a NYS Assemblyman, a NYS Attorney General and a NYS Senator before becoming VP), he, as a powerful force in NYS, could be a proponent of secession by the largely Federalist, abolitionist northern states, who were afraid of slavery spreading to the western states after the Louisianan purchase, even for so slight a reason as to get back at Hamilton. Hamilton, Chernow says, might have gone ahead with the duel in order to keep a foe of a strong federal government from staying in power. In other words, Hamilton feared that Burr would be a party to breaking up the wobbly union of Northern and Southern states, which he, Adams and Washington had struggled and sacrificed so long and hard to forge.
On the night before the duel, July 10th 1804, Hamilton wrote to a Massachusetts Federalist to be wary of any secessionist threat, that it would do more harm than good. It was not only the Democratic Republicans, under Jefferson who were anti strong federal government and pro states rights, but even among the Federalists, there was talk of succession. (Hamilton had written a scathing pamphlet against fellow Federalist Adams because he refused to fund a standing army-probably contributing to Adams loss to Jefferson in 1800). Hamilton feared democracy-that is rule by the unruly masses or 13 independent states and in order to keep that ever present possibility in check dedicated his life to creating and maintaining a strong nation of states, as envisioned in the Constitution adopted in 1787 and going into effect March 4, 1789.
So what we read in today's papers is nothing new. Saturday's NY Times front page had a piece about the conservative coalition's efforts to defund Obamacare, having failed in the Congress, is being aggressively taken up in select individual states. Twenty-six states, since the June 2012 ruling by the Supreme Court that individual states could opt out of the joint federal/state program to bring health insurance to the 48 million uninsured Americans, have done so. A well funded conservative coalition with paid staff in 34 states have taken the ruling to heart, convincing people not to participate. With their hatred of big governmen, the conservative groups are working to succeed where the Congressional effort to defund Obamacare by shutting down the government failed. The secessionist movement is alive and well in this country as it always has been. The solar eclipse of August 2017 whose shadow passes right through the center of the US portends more of the same.
