The Constitution and the Bible

There are two items in my library that I consider the most important in understanding who we are, why we are who we are and why we are not what this Democratic Party envisions. What our forefathers achieved is unprecedented and the most important works ever achieved by mankind. As with Jefferson, the Bible is the penultimate in understanding.

I have a book entitled, "Thomas Jefferson: On Democracy", collated by Saul K. Padover. It is a book containing 282 pages of letters written by Thomas Jefferson. If one reads it, it will be abundantly clear the mind behind the Constitution and this Republic. He made it clear the distinctions with Republics, Democracies, Monarchies, etc. There are facets of both Republics and Democracies inherently designed in our system. For those of you who think we are a Democracy, you are correct. The House of Representatives is your Democracy, elected by popular vote. The Senate was never designed by Jefferson to be elected by popular vote and for good reasons. Each Senator was appointed by the legislatures of each state, making them beholden to the State, not by popular vote. That remained true until the greatest mistake made in our history, the 17^th Amendment. In fact, there are no useful Amendments beyond the original Bill of Rights.  It should be repealed and it is my hope that it will be. By design, the Senate, the Executive Branch and the Judiciary checked the Democracy and formulated the Republic. It is drawn out in our Constitution, as Amended, and that design was the mind of Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was our Ambassador to France, primarily, at the time the crafting was done, largely by its author, James Madison, another Virginian; one of 6 from that Commonwealth who served as President.

Madison not only authored the Constitution, he took copious notes on the entire process, which are the minutes of the ratification process. Thomas Jefferson was his protégé in all things, but most especially with respect to the Constitution. It is these notes/ minutes that are the other of the most important documents in my library.

What you will come to understand by reading both is why we are what we are. You will also come to understand his words are even more pertinent today than they were even then. You will understand that the arguments on every issue today are the exact same as they were then. You will further most likely agree that no Amendment beyond the Bill of Rights has a useful place in that Constitution. It was complete in 1789. It is simply the lack of understanding the Bill of Rights that gave us all the rest.

The arguments made back then between the Convention delegates from New York and Virginia are the same we have now. I should also point out that also holds true between the presidents elected from those two states. The arguments divide between the minds of Jefferson and Hamilton; the same divide between Federalists and Democrat-Republicans. It should be pointed out however that the latter party became divided by President Jackson in philosophy and understanding in 1820. That same divide exists in that party today.

Jefferson wrote letters on every subject pertinent today as it was then. Give me a subject and I will provide you with a letter from TJ. Jefferson did not just write these letters willy-nilly. They were solicited; before, during and after the Ratification. The great minds of that time of Enlightenment still were seeking his wisdom until his death. Some of us still are point of fact. There is no mind short of our creator that has a match to his mind, before, now or since. Hamiltonians remain jealous of his mind and continue to argue against him to no real avail. They win some battles but always lose the war in the end—the pendulum swings to and fro but always comes down to balance, as it is right now.

Hamiltonians hate the electoral process while Jeffersonians love it and for the same reasons then and now. We are a Constitutional Republic and it is that electoral process that maintains that distinction. It is that same electoral process that makes it difficult to amend the Constitution. It is amended by the States, by design, not a popular vote. Folks who wish we were a Democracy need to get over it. Democracies are a worldwide dime a dozen and most reside south of our border. What Jefferson said about them is neither complimentary nor politically correct but it is the damned truth. The same can be said of his views on mass immigration—they are neither complimentary nor politically correct but it is the damned truth. PC was not in Jefferson’s vernacular nor is it in my own. If you want PC, get a hamster with which to argue.

There seems to exist today an argument of Hamiltonians, a preoccupation if you will. Below is what Jefferson stated on the matter and it is instructive. It also provides a glimpse of his larger mind on the subject. Please note too that the issue is the same today as then. It is the SOS—Hamilton vs. Jefferson, north vs. south, east vs. west. It is the electoral process that stands between these United States and becoming a socialist banana republic like Venezuela. It is only that which prevents our being as ignorant as they have been kept by their priests and their despotic leaders. “Ignorance in South America may keep the people enslaved” TJ. I think I can stipulate that it has. Jefferson goes into much greater detail on our differences with South America. Again, it is none too flattering but it is as true today as it was in his day and it is self-perpetuating. It is steeped in abject ignorance and poverty. If you think money drives our politics, just turn, face south and thank God that you live in a Federal [Federation] Representative Democratic Constitutional Republic. They have one religion and one leader, the Aristocracy. Keep up with your nonsense and we might be just like them one day.

Thomas Jefferson – from “Notes on the State of Virginia”

But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together.

Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe.

It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.

These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.

I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?

Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements.

I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations. Spare no expence in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us something we do not know. It is not so in agriculture. The indifferent state of that among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

Query #8