"Jim DeMint’s History Lesson"

[applegrove]

Jim DeMint’s History Lesson

By Jamelle Bouie at Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/04/jim_demint_american_abolitionism_and_constitutional_conservatives_why_the.html

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What of DeMint’s view that emancipation “did not come from the federal government”? If war is the biggest government program of all, then it’s clearly true that the feds freed the slaves. Indeed, the Civil War stands as an inflection point in the development of our national government. Before the war, it was a small operation of limited means. During the war, under Lincoln’s direction and with deep resistance from the small-government conservatives of the day, it ballooned to unprecedented size to meet the demands of the war. It’s why, even now, there are radical libertarians who despise Lincoln as a tyrant who moved America down the road to serfdom.

The point of DeMint’s history lesson—and constitutional conservatism writ large—is to place liberals outside the narrative of American history, and to make liberalism a deviation from the norms of American thought. But the opposite is true—constitutional conservatism is foreign to liberals and conservatives—and the truth is ironic. If there was any period in our history where so-called constitutional conservatives held sway, it’s during the brief life of the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, national government was extraordinarily weak—it could not tax, mint coins, or pay collective debts—and states held near-total sovereignty. The result was economic disaster—several states were gripped by depression in the 1780s—and revolt. The failed Articles led American elites to convene a constitutional convention, where they would rethink their approach to national government.


These elites were opposed by the “anti-federalists,” who saw strong government as the prelude to tyranny. Their rhetoric was as hyperbolic as any Tea Partier’s. “A conspiracy against the freedom of America, both deep and dangerous, has been formed by an infernal junta of demagogues,” wrote one.


Indeed, if Jim DeMint wants to sharpen his broadsides against the president, he could do worse than to pick up the Anti-Federalist Papers. Sure, he reveres the founders, but he has much more in common with their opponents.



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