Our forefathers were incredibly wise.
Having more free time than is justifiable as leisure, I chose to read texts based on the founding of our great national enterprise... a democratic republic. As a Pennsylvanian originally I have always been much enamored of Benjamin Franklin and his place in our national history. His autobiography led me to the history of his time in Paris securing us much needed funding, materiel and military knowledge in our revolt against the British. And that has now led me to read the Federalist Papers. In these trying times and after watching the first day of IMP 2.0 for Mr. Trump, I find this excerpt from the Federalist Papers No.1 by Alexander Hamilton in October 1787 as amazingly pertinent to our recent and current times.
"And yet however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we have already sufficient indications, that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude, that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations, and by the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatised, as the off-spring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An overscrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretence and artifice; the bait for popularity at the expence of public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their carreer, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants."
Alexander Hamilton
The Federalist No. 1, [27 October 1787] (archives.gov)
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