So they believe in the Constitution. But that belief is in a similar vein to the Leftists, that it does or doesn’t mean what we think it should. We project our own ideals into the principles put forth. It is a mistake we all make. Not just in the Constitution either. History. Religion. Philosophy. We project our own ideals into all of these. And since they are our ideals of course they are right.
Since I can't crawl into the minds of the Founders, I can only guess that they made certain assumptions. At the core of those assumptions is that Americans of all political stripes would be operating under the same set of general ideals and guideposts, and then the blending of disparate ideals would lead us well into the future.
That "blending", of course,
would require a shared commitment to the very same communication and collaboration that created our Constitution. There is no way the Founders could have seen that the country would ultimately split into two separate, competing realities like this. They simply could not have predicted this.
Actually, the Founders would agree, and sort of disagree. Remember the initial plan as laid out in the Constitution was the second place person in the election would serve as Vice President. They believed that Patriotic Zeal would cause the person to serve loyally.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. We all know that Aaron Burr killed Jefferson. And shortly afterwards the 12th Amendment was passed and ratified in a mere 189 days.
From then on the President and Vice President would be elected together.
One of the most common, and largest mistakes one can make when studying History is knowing the outcome. We can look back now and scoff and roll our eyes. You idiots. You had to know that the nature of Man and of Political Beliefs would prevent any man from serving loyally to a person they disagreed with on the issues of the day.
Hindsight gives us certain advantages. Those advantages were unavailable to the people doing it at the time.
That goes back to my point about trying to make the best assumptions we can at the time. This document was put together with great care and covered an amazing amount of territory with its flexibility. But two competing realities? I can't imagine they planned for that. No one could.
I think some of them did. The famous and often quoted Ben Franklin. His quote about a Republic. If we can keep it.
So, did Benjamin Franklin actually say that? Well, maybe. Probably. With some changes.
www.seattletimes.com
I believe he foresaw this eventuality. He was a bit of a futurist. He foresaw Paratroopers more than a century before airplanes.
He hoped that everyone would do their jobs. The Congress would keep the executive in check. The executive would do its part. But mostly. That the people would do their part.
After all. They had hammered out a compromise government with checks and protections to satisfy everyone.
Think about it. As they intended it. The House would answer to the people. The Senate was to answer to the State. The Senators would be appointed by the States. More along the lines of Ambassadors than legislators.
The House would run around and deal with the hysteria’s of the people. The senate would slow things down and give it time to cool off. The saucer that cooled the boiling tea.
This compromise was to deal with conflicting realities.
What I think they did not foresee was a future in which political disagreement would become outright hatred. A future where comprise is viewed as abject defeat.
