Photos of the recently moved Hamilton Grange

On my recent trip to New York, I had the pleasure of visiting Hamilton Grange, the Harlem house built by Alexander Hamilton in 1802. I had visited the Grange before when it was located just a block away tucked in behind a church. It now sits in St. Nicholas Park, where its beauty shines.

In its new location, the inside of the Grange also looks much brighter and more colorful. The windows sport better views.

A statue of Alexander Hamilton with some quotes about his greatness still stands at the location where the Grange had previously stood.

I highly recommend a visit to Hamilton Grange if you live in New York City or planning a visit.

The evils of democracy and the mob: Quotes from some of the greatest minds in history.

Fisher Ames: “A democracy is a volcano, which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption, and carry desolation in their way.”

John Jay: “Pure democracy, like pure rum, easily produces intoxication, and with it a thousand mad pranks and fooleries.”

Lord Acton: ”The one prevailing evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”

George Washington: “It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act.”

Alexander Hamilton: “If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.”

Alexander Hamilton: ”Real liberty is neither found in despotism, nor in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”

James Madison: “Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.”

James Madison: ”Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Alexis de Tocqueville: ”The will of the nation is one of those phrases most widely abused by schemers and tyrants of all ages.”

Cicero: ”No tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than mob carried away by the novelty of power.”

Cicero: ”This excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows.”

Plato: ”Is it not the excess and greed of this and the neglect of all other things that revolutionizes this constitution too and prepares the way for the necessity of a dictatorship?”

Plato: ”And is it not true that in like manner a leader of the people who, getting control of a docile mob, does not withhold his hand from the shedding of tribal blood, but by the customary unjust accusations brings a citizen into court and assassinates him, blotting out a human life, and with unhallowed tongue and lips that have tasted kindred blood, banishes and slays and hints at the abolition of debts and the partition of lands.”

Plato: ”And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices.”

Plato called democracy “a delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!”

Polybius: “And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.”

The evil trinity of big government: media, public schools, and government bureaucracy

With Occupy Wall Street in the news, the decline of the American economy and competitiveness, and our growing indebtedness as individuals and a nation, I have been thinking a lot the causes of our current “unequivocal experience.” [Hamilton, Federalist No. 1] Or as Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 15, “We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience.”

For those who read this blog, my tweets, or my books, you already know that I firmly believe that all problems in government can be traced to the people. No government can stand long without the support–or lack of opposition–from the people, as Hamilton points out in Federalist No. 21 and Madison in Federalists No. 28 and 44.

The question then is not why the government has grown, but why the people have encouraged or allowed its growth from under ten percent of GDP to over forty percent over the past century.

Quite a while ago I came to the conclusion–and I’m sure I’m not alone in this opinion–that there is an evil trinity promoting big government.

• The media: The print and television media has long been controlled by the left. Only with the emergence of Fox News and talk radio has the right gotten a voice. The Internet has also helped expanded “alternative” viewpoints. Nevertheless, the left still has a dominant market share among casual listeners/viewers/readers. The media has an innate interest in promoting government. The media’s job is to find a problem or crisis and blow it out of proportions to get ratings. On top of that, a story gets even more traction if there is somebody to blame. Who to blame? Well, you certainly cannot blame your customers, even if they are responsible. So, the media blames big corporations, the government, or foreign nations. If they blame a foreign nation, obviously it is the government’s job to protect us from these foreign attacks. If they blame a big corporation, only the government is large enough and powerful enough to rein them in. If they blame the government, they suggest, promote, or demand that the government do more next time to prevent its own mistakes. (Think about government stimulus, which the media says failed only because it was not big enough.)
• Public education system: Most Americans received the majority of their education from the public school system. Public schools teach nearly 100% of K-12 students. Even in college, many universities are public with tuition subsidized by the states. On top of that, the federal government subsidizes student loans to private universities, which creates all sorts of market distortions. Public school administrators and teachers alike receive their paychecks from the government. They have chosen to work for government and most of them, by choice or mandate, join the teachers union. These teachers and administrators are brainwashed by unions and government education departments and then brainwash their own students to believe those same ideals. When election time comes, they turn out in droves and convince parents through phone calls (I received one the other day) and PTA activities to vote for their candidates and to approve propositions to increase their funding.
• Government bureaucracy: Currently, seventeen percent of American jobs are in the government sector. On top of that, as I write in The Path to Tyranny, “these employment figures do not include all the jobs created by the 529 billion dollars worth of contracts given out by the federal government each year, two-thirds of which were for defense programs. As of 2006, government contracts to private defense companies employed an additional 1.4 million people.” Just like the teachers and school administrators above, these people want to keep their jobs and generally believe that they are doing more good than bad for the country.

With such a large percentage of Americans working for the government, either directly or through public schools, with the media’s influence on the American mind, and the public school system’s stranglehold on our children’s education, the left has been able to advance their agenda with little opposition. There should be little doubt as to why government’s size has more than quadrupled in the last hundred years and now eats up almost half of our GDP (with the cost of regulation added on top of that).

A fourth group may possibly be included: welfare recipients. Back in 2009, I wrote about this in The Path to Tyranny, but the situation has worsened since then. Here is what I wrote then:

In the first quarter of 2009, Social Security, Medicare, welfare, and other benefits provided by the government accounted for 16.2 percent of all personal income, a record high. Americans have become dependent on the government, something the Founders did not intend. After paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into Social Security and Medicare, only the very rich would be able forego the benefits promised them. Every election, retirees and people approaching retirement vote for candidates who promise not to touch their retirement or health care programs. This has made fixing the structural problems behind these programs virtually impossible, but it has accomplished the goal of modern liberals and socialists of making Americans dependent on the government.

Nevertheless, I do not include these welfare/benefit recipients because they are people from all walks of life who do not represent a singular group. Though they certainly skew elections and public sentiment, there is no way to infiltrate, attack, and convince them as a group; we can only do so as individuals. The other three are institutions influencing government; this one is a loose collection of individuals. The left uses the apparatus of the left within the media, public education, and government bureaucracy to influence others. In contrast, those dependent on government are a symptom of big government more than a cause, though they certainly seek to maintain their benefits and this makes shrinking government more difficult. But these people do not necessarily promote big government. In fact, many oppose government’s actions to increase welfare because it may threaten their own benefits. Thus, welfare/benefit recipients are not including among my evil trinity.

Topic to be continued…

Occupy Wall Street: The Return of Shays’ Rebellion

One of the demands by the Occupy Wall Street protestors is student loan relief. According to a report by CNBC:

It may be hard to pin down exactly what the Occupy Wall Street protesters want, but one of the sources of their frustration seems clear. Many of the demonstrators are drowning in student debt.

[...]

One proposed list of demands for the Occupy Wall Street movement includes “free college tuition” and “immediate across the board forgiveness” of student debt. While neither demand may be very realistic, the student debt problem is very real.

[...]

Of course, if some of the protesters get their way, with free tuition and debt forgiveness, the problem might go away. Rose Swidden, the agriculture student-turned-protester, acknowledges the demands may be far-fetched, but said it is worth a try.

“Sometimes if you shoot for the moon, you land in the stars.”

This is not the first time the United States has seen these demands for debt relief. The same demand was made 225 years ago during Shays’ Rebellion. As I describe in Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers:

Daniel Shays was one such army veteran disappointed by how the government treated veterans. Shays, who returned to farming after the war, was also angered by how creditors treated farmers who had borrowed money. As delegates from five states met in Annapolis in 1786 to try to fix some of the defects of the Articles of Confederation, Daniel Shays led a rebellion of 1,200 men against the Massachusetts government.

General Henry Knox wrote to George Washington explaining the objectives of Shays and his followers: “Their creed is, that the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscation of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all; and he that attempts opposition to this creed, is an enemy to equity and justice, and ought to be swept off the face of the earth… They are determined to annihilate all debts, public and private, and have agrarian laws, which are easily effected by the means of unfunded paper money, which shall be a tender in all cases whatever.”

While Shays’ Rebellion was put down quite easily, it could have easily led to civil war (from Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers):

Shays’ Rebellion was put down in January 1787 by a well-armed force of 4,400 men. Alexander Hamilton noted how close America came to civil war: “Who can determine what might have been the issue of her late convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by a Caesar or by a Cromwell?”

In fact, although the rebellion itself was stopped and no Caesar or Cromwell emerged, the story did not end there (from Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers):

The rebels were pardoned and they succeeded in elections the following year. The new legislature passed the debt relief that the rebels demanded.

Shays’ Rebellion was all about debt relief, which is a major demand of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

We surely should heed the words of General Henry Knox and Alexander Hamilton and swear off this idea of debt forgiveness. Debt forgiveness is nothing more than stealing from a large number of people to satisfy the demand of a small but vocal minority.

– Michael E. Newton is the author of the highly acclaimed The Path to Tyranny: A History of Free Society’s Descent into Tyranny. His newest book, Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers: The Fight for Control of the American Revolution, was released by Eleftheria Publishing in July.

The Bill of Rights: Good, Bad, or Indifferent?

I brought up this topic months ago and had the opportunity to lead a discussion about it at the Arizona chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Please join the conversation in the comments sections below.

Anti-Federalists demanded a bill of rights, BUT…

There was disagreement about what a bill of rights should contain. James Madison in Federalist No. 28 wrote about the Anti-Federalists opposition to the Constitution:

A third does not object to the government over individuals, or to the extent proposed, but to the want of a bill of rights. A fourth concurs in the absolute necessity of a bill of rights, but contends that it ought to be declaratory, not of the personal rights of individuals, but of the rights reserved to the States in their political capacity. A fifth is of opinion that a bill of rights of any sort would be superfluous and misplaced…

Some Anti-Federalists opposed the Constitution even after a bill of rights was promised. For them, a bill of rights was just a way to oppose ratification.

The Articles of Confederation had no bill of rights.

Four state constitutions, including that of New York, lacked bills of rights even though the states had been acting as independent republics for years.

Hamilton opposed a bill of rights

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

Madison had a mixed opinion regarding bills of rights

There are many who think such addition unnecessary, and not a few who think it misplaced in such a Constitution… My own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights… At the same time I have never thought the omission a material defect… I have not viewed it in an important light.

In a letter to Jefferson, Madison lists four reasons a bill of rights was not needed:

because I conceive that in a certain degree… the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted.

because there is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude. I am sure that the rights of conscience in particular, if submitted to public definition, would be narrowed much more than they are ever likely to be by an assumed power.

because the limited powers of the federal Government and the jealousy of the subordinate Governments, afford a security which has not existed in the case of the State Governments, and exists in no other.

because experience proves the inefficiency of a bill of rights on those occasions when its controul is most needed. Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State… Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.

Upon introducing the Bill of Rights, Madison said:

It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it.

Madison attempted this with the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Discussion:

Did Madison succeed with the Ninth Amendment?

Were the arguments against a bill of rights valid then?

Are they valid today?

Have our rights been effected positively, negatively, or not at all by the Bill of Rights?

Should we focus the debate on protecting our individual rights or on limiting the government’s powers?

– Michael E. Newton is the author of the highly acclaimed The Path to Tyranny: A History of Free Society’s Descent into Tyranny. His newest book, Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers: The Fight for Control of the American Revolution, was released by Eleftheria Publishing in July.

The Founding Fathers Solve Our Debt Crisis

The United States accrued a huge debt to fight the American Revolution. The debt equaled 35 to 40 percent of GDP at a time when government spending and taxes were just 2 percent of GDP. Interest consumed about half of the government’s revenues. Numerous states and the government under the Articles of Confederation were negligent in paying interest and principle.  The nation faced a real debt crisis.

The Founding Fathers recognized the burden of such a large debt and wanted to pay it off.

Read the rest at What Would the Founders Think…

Bill of Rights. Good, bad, or indifferent?

In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton writes:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

I can see both sides of this argument:

• By listing certain rights, other are ignored and those in power will infringe on those unlisted rights, even if they are included in the ninth and tenth amendments.
• On the other hand, it is possible the government would have more easily infringed on our rights if they were not written down for posterity.
• Maybe the Bill of Rights has made no difference in either direction as the Constitution is increasingly ignored and reinterpreted. The government has simultaneously grown its power and reduced our rights so that the Federalist argument against bills of rights and the Anti-Federalist argument for them turn out to be the same thing: different methods of limiting the growth of government, both of which failed over time, but only after working well for many decades.

I must admit that I have an ulterior motive in bringing this up. I am writing about this in my next book. I’d love to hear your thoughts. (And if you have a great idea or quote, I may even quote you in my book.) So please, comment below.

We don’t want democracy in Egypt! We want republicanism.

Now that Hosni Mubarak has stepped down, the media, analysts, politicians, and just about everybody else is calling for democracy in Egypt. For example:

• Marketwatch: Real democracy has a chance in Cairo
• CTV: Will U.S. help Egypt transition to democracy?
• Washington Post: U.S. must take the walk to democracy with Egypt
• Joe Biden: “The transition that’s taking place must be an irreversible change in a negotiated path toward democracy.”

I believe these calls for democracy are made out of ignorance of the word’s real meaning. While we want a democratic system over there, we don’t want true democracy. Alexander Hamilton said at the Constitutional Convention:

“We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism, nor in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”

Here are some more quotes about the evils of democracy:

“Now the first of these to come into being is monarchy, its growth being natural and unaided; and next arises kingship derived from monarchy by the aid of art and by the correction of defects. Monarchy first changes into its vicious allied form, tyranny; and next, the abolishment of both gives birth to aristocracy. Aristocracy by its very nature degenerates into oligarchy; and when the commons inflamed by anger take vengeance on this government for its unjust rule, democracy comes into being; and in due course the licence and lawlessness of this form of government produces mob-rule to complete the series.” [Polybius, The Histories 6.4.7-13.]

“And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.”[Polybius, The Histories 6.9.7-9.]

“And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices.”[Plato, Republic 557a.]

“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” [James Madison, Federalist No. 10.]

“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.” [John Adams letter to John Taylor, 1814]

“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.” [Lord Acton]

I for one shall hope that Egypt forms a republican and moderate government, just as Alexander Hamilton recommended for our own country more than 220 years ago.

Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton on income and sales taxes.

Back in the 1700s, income taxes were rare, yet more countries were adopting such revenue generating schemes. Adam Smith minced no words in attacking such “absurd and destructive” taxes. In a section of The Wealth of Nations titled “Taxes upon the Wages of Labour,” Adam Smith wonders why countries institute such income taxes:

Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in many countries.

Just a decade later, the Founding Fathers recognized that limits needed to be placed on government. One such limit would be to make it more difficult for government to raise our taxes. In Federalist #21, Alexander Hamilton argued that a consumption tax would effectively limit the size of government:

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, “in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.” If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

We have seen how the income tax has accomplished the growth of government that duties were unable to do previously. I return to this chart of the size of government excluding defense dating back to 1910. Remember, the income tax amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1913.

Click on image to zoom in:

Seeing the growth of government since the income tax appeared a century ago, Smith and Hamilton were correct in their assessments. Based on the above quotes and their other writings, Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton would support a switch to a consumption tax, more commonly called a sales tax today or the proposed Fair Tax.

Classic quotes about Liberty vs. Safety

Montesquieu: No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice… [Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline]

Benjamin Franklin: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Alexander Hamilton: Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of…national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. [Federalist #8]

John Basil Barnhill: “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” [1914]