tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post6938173776316266669..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: Kind of what I've been saying....Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-81229728758291288442017-09-17T13:19:23.673-05:002017-09-17T13:19:23.673-05:00This brought to mind this passage from "James...This brought to mind this passage from "James Madison and the Bill of Rights: A Reluctant Paternity"<br /><br />https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1120299<br /><br />by Paul Finkelman who, I have to say, is becoming one of my favorite living historians as I read more of his papers.<br /><br />"[George] Mason had other objections to the Constitution. He disliked the commerce power, the treaty-making provisions, the continuation of the African slave trade for at least twenty more year, and the power of the President to grant pardons, especially to "those whom he had secretly instigated to commit" crimes and "thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt." These complaints about the Constitution were magnified by the lack of a bill of rights. Mason feared that the Senate and President would combine "to accomplish what usurpations they pleased upon the rights and liberties of the people," of the several states." <br /><br />I think the anti-federalists provide a lot of valuable insights into just how bad some of the things that are causing us trouble today really were known to be at the time. The opposition of, especially, many of the big names of federalism, to a bill of rights and how Madison only took a role in its adoption because he had to be get the Constitution with all of its slavery and aristocratic enhancements passed shows how shaky the whole thing is. The realistic view of American history as a series of many, often violent, objections to the status quo of the American government, the struggle to expand equality and of the constant violence both permitted under the Constitution - slavery, inequality, discrimination, economic injustice - and it maintaining that status quo is necessary to making any real change to it. The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.com