From: Connecticut Committee of Correspondence
(Committees of Correspondence were early revolutionary cells, specially organized for revolutionary reeducation, for the manipulation of opinion, so as to lay the groundwork of resistance to the globe’s greatest imperialist power, the British Empire. “Sam Adams was the promoter of the first local committees on November 12, 1772, and within three months Governor Hutchinson reported that there were more than eighty such committees in Massachusetts.” Committees of Correspondence formed the basis for the soon to follow Committees of Public Safety, as the road to Revolution unfolded. See page 217, “Committees of Correspondence,” Concise Dictionary of American History, Editor, Wayne Andrews.)
* * * * *
The Horizontal Determinism of History
And, . . . The Founders
By Mark Albertson
* * * * *
(Horizontal Determinism is a research method used by this historian in order to foster a deeper understanding of the Science of History; and, to bring to attention those events and developments that tell the Story of Man.
The oft quoted dictum that history repeats has merit; yet, the repetitive nature of the history of Man is never exact; since in finality we are dealing with the Human Condition. The study of Man is captivating yet, at the same time, a bewildering product of centuries of Evolution. He is every bit as unreliable, untrustworthy and fallible, this human clay with which Mother Nature–the one true Blessed Virgin—had to work.
Horizontal Determinism, then, places events in a horizontal progression, for a sequential form of analysis that can be appropriated for a time frame of just a few years, perhaps decades, even centuries. The more expansive the time frame the more data there is to sift, providing the reviewer a track record of events for a particular objective in question, revealing as it does the Tides of History. This, then, enables one to chart the course of Man; and in so doing, bring into the researcher’s field of view Man’s successes as well as his excesses; to which the reviewer has accumulated with a continuity of experience and time, a measurement of history by which a voluminous storehouse of history has been gleaned. Such can be put to use to analyze military campaigns, cultures, societies, governments, empires; to which the researcher is better able to prognosticate a course of events and do so with a reasonable degree of success.
Horizontal Determinism, then, affords us a better understanding of the fallibility of Man, to which Nature of Flesh and Blood and all the inequities contained therein has proven resistant to centuries of correction or cure. For Man will always plunder his fellow Man; consign to bondage his fellow Man; make war on his fellow Man and, even exterminate other members of his species if it so pleases him. For the Horizontal viewpoint of history shows this is so.)
* * * * *
The Founders understood the tides of history. And, they were cognizant, too, that Man will not, if ever, overcome the tides of history. Intentions, though good, most always result in not being so for the many, and in many instances, for most of humanity. For the struggle of Man is that perpetual, and indeed, endless conflict, waged by—following the assertion of Karl Marx–the Haves and Have Nots; a contention that underscores the tides of history. Regard James Madison:
But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the greatest difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed: and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.[1] Translation: The Common Man, though a check on those in government, needs to be checked as well. Hence the Electors or Electoral College, since many of the Founders were not fans of Popular Democracy, to which Madison added:
From this view of the subject, it may be concluded, that a pure Democracy, by which I mean, a Society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incapable 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. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of Government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions and their passions.[2]
Such a system or administration, or misadministration, is certainly slated for demise, since the fiction of equal political rights is hardly possible with the inequality of possessions. Present day America being a glaring example. Before Madison, Plato in The Republic, observed, “The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honorable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. The say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy to honor them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor. . .[3]
The fallibility of Man, and in particular, the poverty of confidence in the Common Herd to act as a prophylactic to the machinations of the unsavory, “common passions and interests” as stated by Madison, resulted in a healthy distrust of Democracy. The word “Democracy” is a derivative of the Greek “Demos” or the people and “Kratos” or Rule, People’s Rule, though some critics of Democracy would label same as “Mob Rule.”
But was Democracy even possible in colonial America? Fortunately America, in its development, had escaped the retardation of feudalism/serfdom. Many who came here became landowners at the start in the 17th century, besides the indentured servants consigned as agrarian laborers to work off their debts and the slaves deposited through the horrid process of forced deportation. Yet despite the omission of serfdom, class distinctions applied as well as they were expected to, for such is Man. In the South the developing Virginian-Carolinian Planter Class, soon to become America’s Aristocracy or Boyar class.,[4] while up in the north, Puritan-Protestants settled what became known as New England. Gore Vidal offers a lucid explanation of this North American development in the 19th century:
From the beginning social differences not only between New Englanders and Virginians but within the two sections reflected the seventeenth century division in England between Roundheads (Puritan Protestants of republican tendency) and Cavaliers (who were—or saw themselves as—landowning aristocrats tending to monarchy). The subsequent English civil war was won by Roundheads, and the Devine Right of Kings fell with King Charles’s head, to be replaced by a quasi-republic with a hereditary protector, who in turn, was superseded by the Restoration of the now-secular King Charles II. During the troubles, many edgy Cavaliers and and disappointed Roundheads moved on to America, where New England got the dour Roundheads and the South got the Cavaliers or would-be Cavaliers.[5]
What Gore Vidal was offering was the rise of the dominate class below the Mason-Dixon Line, the Plantation Owner or Southern Aristocracy. A distinct minority in comparison to the average Southern farmer, whose livestock and grain fed the dominate Plantation Owner. But it was the latter who grew the cash crops for export and therefore reaped the greater financial rewards, which, in turn, fostered by the Cotton Capitalists, their political domination and control of the Agrarian Capitalist state known as the South; to later become the Confederacy. While north of the Mason-Dixon Line, though agrarian as well, the development of the Middle Class was taking place, with its merchants, shippers, artisans, lawyers. . . And here, in New England, John Adams saw the ineptitude of Democracy: “A simple, perfect democracy had never yet existed. The whole people were incapable of deciding much of anything, even on the small scale of a village. He had had enough experience with town meetings at home to know that in order for anything to be done certain powers and responsibilities had to be delegated to a moderator, a town clerk, a constable, and, at times, to special committees.”[6]
* * * * *
When attempting to understand Madison, Adams and Plato, one must ask the question . . . what is Democracy? Again, the word “Democracy” is a derivative of the Greek, “Demos” or people and, “Kratos,” or rule. The result is People’s Rule; or, as detractors might state, “Mob Rule.” Yet at the same time, many of the words affiliated with politics come from the home of Democracy, Greece, as well as from Rome. For instance, polis or city-state; polites or citizens of a city-state; politeia or polity; tyrannos or tyrant,[7] monarchy or monos, aristocracy or aristos, oligarchy or oligoi.[8] But the question remains, what is a Democracy?
Democracy is of the popular and equal participation of the polities, emblematic, of course, with universal suffrage, in addition to elections on a frequent basis. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, the right to petition the government to address grievances, and even freedom from arrest for expressing criticism of the government. Since individuals are limited in effecting change on a large scale, in the modern age, individuals can join parties to take part in the political system. Free expression of debate as to the criticism or support of the elected leader must be observed.
Rights and freedoms are protected, perhaps, with a constitution, written or otherwise. In England and France, such rights and freedoms are protected by the legislature; in the United States, by the courts. “The individual’s rights must be protected from encroachments by officers of the government (through administrative courts as in France or through what the British call ‘rule of law’ and Americans call ‘due process’). The basic concepts of Democracy are that the individual is an end in himself and that government is a means of achieving the fullest development for all individuals.”[9]
However, Democracy, as this egalitarian ideal—which only laws can enforce, for Man has, as yet, proven incapable of being egalitarian politically, economically and socially—is a threat to the liberty of the individual. Democracy is a 51/49 proposition. The potential of the majority to tyrannize the minority must be appreciated, and can only be reversed with the appropriate rules and regulations as applied in a written Constitution. For Man, in the end, is fallible and thereby—except with a distinct minority of cases—unable or incapable of correcting himself. Therefore an array of mechanisms for central authority are required to govern the inadequacies of Man; to which the vitality of the mechanisms employed must correspond to the society in question, since the cookie-cutter approach is hardly conducive to arranging a functioning governmental system owing to the myriad of societal, cultural, economic and historical factors that differentiate the civilizations and societies of Man.[10]
In the Christian world, centuries of history show unequivocally that in many more instances than not, Christians eventually eschew the precepts of the so-called Prince of Peace and opt, instead, for an authoritarian or despot. A reality many of America’s Founders understood, since many avoided religion but still regarded God, or a creator, from the perspective of Deism. Yet they were willing to placate the colonial masses and their regard for religion, to eventually insert into the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, Freedom of Religion.
* * * * *
Greek Democracy
Greek Democracy, as viewed by the American Framers, was not seen as being the appropriate model for a nation that was to be founded on the principle of Economic Liberty or, Private Property. Focus, here, will be on Athens. “There the largest power was the assembly (ekklessia) in which some 30,000 male citizens were entitled to participate. It was in this body that the citizens of Athens deliberated over and passed laws regarding peace, war, empire, citizenship and taxes. Of course, the Pynx, the small open-air, rocky outcropping where the assembly met, could only hold around 6,000 citizens. But every 10 days, these 6,000 citizens would gather to an agenda that had been prepared for it by an elected council of 500 citizens (boule), each of whom served a term of one year. Individual citizens were allowed to come forward in the assembly and either propose motions on the basis of the agenda supplied by the council or deliver speeches advocating, or contesting them.”[11]
These sessions would have failed Roberts’ Rules of Order, lacking procedural guidelines so as to referee oration, let alone exact order and courtesies among the participants and audience. Assemblies could and did fall out of control. Proceedings would also be dominated by overbearing orators skilled with the powers of persuasion. Votes were taken by the raised hand method.
30,000 boiled down to 6,000 decision makers guided the prospects of some 250,000 inhabitants. Minus a roster of rules and regulations or a written constitution to establish Rule of Law, pandemonium was the result. Such was the governmental structure that ordered the execution of Socrates; and, showcased, too, the administrative prowess of the Common Herd. True, Athens was emblematic of the Greek experiment in Democracy; a venture in representative government lacking those mechanisms of Checks and Balances, leading in the end to autocracy, factionalism, political, economic and social strife, regime change and war. And helped to set the stage for the Hoplite Revolution.
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Hoplite Revolution
Towards the end of the sixth century B.C., Athens engaged in warfare in a less than periodic basis. Usually border conflicts, of short duration, and were usually orchestrated by the aristocratic class. The inducement for soldiers was the promise of land. These infantrymen or Hoplites, were of the elite class and not all that numerous. But by 508 B.C., Cleisthenes promulgated policies and reforms that would noticeably increase the size of the armed forces.
“In 506 their army defeated those of Chalcis and Boetia in back-to-back battles. In 499 they sent twenty warships to help the Anatolian Greeks to revolt from the Persian Empire, while in 490, at the Battle of Marathon, they deployed 9,000 heavily armed soldiers. These reforms effectively integrated Athens and its Khora (countryside) for the first time. Each free male who lived in Attica was now registered as a citizen of Athens in his village or city suburb, and groups of these so-called demes from across the Khora were linked together in ten tribes. These new tribes served as the subdivisions of the new popular council and the new publically controlled army of Hoplites. This was the Athenian state’s first ever mechanism for mass mobilization. Attica was around twenty times larger and more populous than the Khora of the averaged-sized polis, meaning that this mobilization mechanism gave Athens a huge military advantage. Demography was therefore manifestly a major reason for the military success of democratic Athens.”[12]
The Greek experiment in Democracy lasted till 146 B.C., when Greece was absorbed into the Roman Empire. Yet, as a “Democratic state,” that was over long before the invasion by Rome. For Athenians had been exacting tribute from their allies. By the middle of the 5th century B.C., war had consumed Athens. Citizens were obligated for military service. War was draining the public budget at a rate greater than all other spending combined. Indeed as a Democratic state, Athens can be construed as being a failed state.
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Respublica
“Republic,” is the English derivative of its Latin antecedent, Respublica, meaning, “the Public Concern.” What is considered Republican Rome existed “between late sixth century B.C., when the early monarchy was terminated, and first century B.C., when a new monarchy, which we know as the Principate, was established by Augustus.”[13]
The basic premise of the Roman Republic was, “Balance of Power:”
1) Magistrates, many of whom were Consuls.[14]
2) The Senate, assembly of the aristocracy.
3) The masses or the people (populous).
Most of the citizens of Rome were Plebeians or the Common Herd. The Patricians were the privileged set, aristocracy. The realities of government, though, was that the oligarchs controlled administration. Politicians in Rome received no salaries. Therefore only the wealthy or privileged could hold office. Office holders could be either civilian or military. Not only government was controlled by the Patricians, but religion, too.
Voting blocks were arranged and organized into groupings of 100. These were known as “Centuries” and, were structured dependent upon income. When the senate, then, passed legislation, each Century or voting block of 100, got one vote.[15]
Within the governmental structure of the Roman Republic, the notion of a Dictator was a possibility. Based off the consul or praetor which enjoyed executive authority, dictatorship was possible as a result of trying times owing to severe economic decline, political upheaval or external threats posed by foreign powers. Such an option was available in 20th century Germany, Article 48 in the Weimar Constitution.
The Century system of elections was opened to manipulation. People from the outskirts and countryside sold their land and moved to Rome. Many remained poor. Oligarchs, of course, increased their land holdings at the immigrants’ expense. And also increased their political power.
Those who volunteered for the army, to fight in Rome’s increasing military campaigns abroad and therefore, creating the empire, became important voters as they were accorded land for being soldiers. Rome, then, was forming a professional army in lieu of the citizens’ army prior to empire building. The corporate nature of Rome was being solidified at the expense of the Republic. Indeed, the Plebeians—even though some became Tribunes, considered defenders of the plebs—the people, within their tribes or century voting blocks, were controlled by the oligarchs due to their financial power and control of the military, which was becoming more professional and geared to not only protect but expand the empire.
The Tribunes, some of whom became wealthy, eschewed their true function as representatives of the people and became political allies of the Patricians. And so wealth controlled by the few eventually consigned the masses to political ineptitude. Dictatorship became the inevitable result.
* * * * *
Restless Desire for Power in All Men
In preceding examples, that of Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic, both died owing to unbridled greed, the sickness of empire, militarism in the guise of a professional military, the ostracizing of the masses from the levers of power, the poverty of functioning mechanisms to limit the usurpations of political and economic power. As Thomas Hobbs tells us:
So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceases only in death. And the cause of this, is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is, that kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavors to the assuring it at home by laws, or abroad by wars; and when that is done, there succeeds a new desire; in some, of fame from new conquest; in others, of ease and sensual pleasure, in others, of admiration, or being flattered for excellence in some art, or other ability of the mind. . . . Competition of riches, honor, command, or other power, inclines to contention, enmity, and war: because the way of one competitor, to attaining of his desire, to kill, subdue, supplant, or repel the other . . . For men contend with the living, not the dead. . . [16]
The Common Man in both cases seemed inept, or at least lacking in courage and/or skills to act as a check on the power of the lecherous few. The outspoken Voltaire had scathing words for the Common Herd: A society of men governed arbitrarily resembles perfectly a herd of cattle yoked in the service of a master. He feeds them only so that they are in condition to serve him; he only tends them when that are ill so that in [good] health they will be useful to him; he fattens them up so that he can obtain nourishment from what their bodies produce; he used the skins of some to harness others to the plough.[17]
To solve the political dilemma of the graceless few versus the unschooled masses, the Founders turned to such philosophers such as Locke and Montesquieu. The latter observed, “As most citizens have sufficient ability to choose, though unqualified to be chosen, so the people, though capable of calling others to an account for their administration, are incapable of conducting the administration of themselves.”[18] To which de Montesquieu added:
Intriguing in a senate is dangerous; it is dangerous also in a body of nobles; but not so among the people, whose nature is to act through passion. In countries where they have no share in the government, we often see them as much inflamed on account of an actor as ever they could be for the welfare of the state. The misfortune of a republic is when intrigues are at an end; which happens when the people are gained by bribery and corruption: in this case they grow indifferent to public affairs, and avarice becomes their predominate passion. Unconcerned about the government and everything belonging to it, they quietly wait for their hire.[19]
* * * * *
Pure et Dure
With Jacobin control of the French Revolution, going into the period of The Terror, they would fashion a dictatorship, “following the Roman usage, they saw that office as a claim to use absolute power for the duration of an emergency:[20] the destruction of the old regime—royalist risings in France, the monarchy before the revolution spread, and opposition and conspiracy (both real and imagined) by their opponents in Paris.[21] And dictatorship was, of course, only for the duration of the emergency until the republic was pure et dure, purified, strong, secure. This mentality had little time for democracy in the emerging American sense of majority rule blended with liberty, or legally guaranteed individual rights. The revolutionaries went far beyond justification to the world of the right to independence, such as Jefferson had penned in the language of a universal appeal to reason; they produced a ‘Declaration of the Universal Rights of Man,’ which was incitement to all peoples to cast off kings and aristocracies and a promise to propagate these principles themselves throughout Europe.”[22] Yet . . .
. . . “When you undertake to run a revolution, the difficulty is not how to make it go; it is how to hold it in check. . . Comte de Mirabeau, leading member of the National Convention.”[23] To which the American Framers concurred and, in the end, were able to accomplish. Of course, the American Revolution was 3,000 miles from Europe. And even though the Royal Navy dominated the waves, 3,000 miles was a distance to keep the occupation army manned and supplied. In addition, to the fact, the American colonists were opposing a single monarch, as opposed to the revolutionaries who were not only struggling to bring down the Bourbons in France, but who would have to eventually take on the monarchical families of Europe, who knew what the ideas of the Age of Reason/Enlightenment meant to their longevity in power, let alone, perhaps, their continued existence, as exemplified by the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The French Revolutionaries, then, attempted regime change in France which led to a Continental wide conflict and the eventual dictatorship of a wee Corsican in the French Army named Napoleon Bonaparte.[24]
From earlier in the narrative, reference Locke and Montesquieu, to which we brought forth the latter, we now return to the former. Here the American framers followed much of what the English philosopher offered via his triad of government: Legislative, Executive and Federative power of the Commonwealth.[25].
“The Legislative Power is that which has a right to direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be employed for the preservation of the community. . . Therefore, in well ordered commonwealths, where the good of the whole is so considered as it ought, the legislative power is put in the hands of persons who duly assembled, have by themselves or jointly with others a power to make laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are themselves subject to the laws they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them, to take care that they make them for the public good.
“But because the laws that are at once and in short time made, have a constant and lasting force and need a perpetual execution or an attendance thereunto; therefore, it is necessary there should be a power always in being, which should see to the execution of the laws that are made and remain in force; and thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated.
“There is another power in every commonwealth, which one may call natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man naturally had before he entered into society for though in a commonwealth the members of it are distinct persons still in reference to one another, and as such are governed by the laws of the society, yet in reference to the rest of mankind they make one body, which is, as every member of it before was still in the state of nature with the rest of mankind. So that the controversies that happen between any man of the society with those that are out of it are managed by the public, and an injury done to a member of their body engages the whole in the reparation of it. So that under this consideration the whole community is one body in the state of nature in respect of all other states or persons out of its community.
“This therefore contains the power of war and peace, leagues and alliances, and all the transactions with all persons and communities without the commonwealth, and may be called federative if any one pleases. So the thing be understood, I am indifferent as to the name.
“These two powers, executive and federative, though they be really distinct in themselves, yet one comprehending the execution of the municipal laws of the society within itself upon all that are parts of it; the other the management of the security and interest of the public without, with all those that it may receive benefit or damage from yet they are always most united.
“Though, as I said, the executive and federative power of every community be really distinct in themselves, yet they are hardly to be separated and placed at the same time in the hands of a distinct person; for both of them requiring the force of the society for their exercise, it is almost impracticable to place the force of the commonwealth in distinct and not subordinate hands; or that the executive and federative power should be placed in persons that might act separately, whereby the force of the public would be under different commands, which would be apt some time or other to cause disorder and ruin.”[26]
“In all cases whilst the government subsists, the legislative is the supreme power; for what can give laws to another must needs be superior to him, and since the legislative is no otherwise legislative of the society but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts and for every member of society, prescribing rules to their actions, and giving power of execution where they are transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, and all other powers in any members or parts of the society derived from and subordinate to it”[27]
Hence, the Framers of the United States Republic fashioned a triad of Government: 1) The Legislative Branch, featuring a pair of chambers, Senate and House of Representatives; 2) Chief Executive or President and 3) The Judiciary overseen by the Supreme Court. These were supposed to be co-equal branches of a functioning Republic, not a Democracy. Of course, such is no longer the case. But in the world of John Locke, the American Legislative Branch would have been “more equal’ than the remaining two, because it represented the wishes of the people. But such is flavored with Democracy, something the Framers were not going to allow on the political taste buds of the American masses, checking same with such political governors as Electors and those applied to the Senate elected by State Representatives and not by direct elections, as would be the two-year representatives to the House. Senators, applied by the state representatives was a sop to States Rights, since citizens in every state voted for their state representatives or however methods they would be applied on the state level. But that would change, of course, with Amendment XVIII, ratified in 1913, providing the masses the opportunity for voting for their six-year senators, thereby driving a nail into the coffin of the original Republic.
Endnotes
[1] See page 349, “The Federalist No. 51, February 6, 1788, by James Madison,” The Federalist, edited by Jacob E. Cooke.
[2] See page 408, “To Break and Control the Violence of Faction,” ‘Publius,’ The Federalist X [James Madison], Daily Advertiser, New York, November 22, 1787, Debate on the Constitution, Part One.
[3] See page 60, “Book Two,” The Republic, by Plato.
[4] Land owning class in Russia for centuries. Also held positions in the civil and military administration of Czarist Russia.
[5] See pages 48 and 49, “Three,” Inventing a Nation, by Gore Vidal.
[6] See page 376, Part III, “Independence Forever,” John Adams, by David McCullough.
[7] See page 14, Chapter 2, “The Place From Where We Started,” Democracy, by Bernard Crick.
[8] Chapter V, “Greece Before 500 B.C.,” Europe Before Modern Times, by Reverend Arthur O’Brien.
[9] See page 26, Chapter 4, “Theories of State Functions,” Political Science, by G.A. Jacobson and M.H. Lipman. Readers should note, here, that according to Jacobson and Lipman, that with Democracy, “government is a means of achieving the fullest development for all individuals; not, though, each individual? Hence, Democracy is for the mass and not for the individual. The case can be made in the support of Hegel, that the optimum endeavor of any people is the state. And people are subject to the state. Lends, too, to Mussolini’s Corporate Fascist State. That the only right worth having is the Right of the State, the right of the individual is second to the Right of the State.
[10] The notion of Man being equal is patently false, depending, of course, on how he is weighed and measured. Many consider Man equal since he is born of mortal woman. But once the little chest of a fetus begins to convulse with its first breath outside the womb, prior to its being wiped and cleaned and cuddled, the level playing field comes to an end. A myriad of factors contributes to the inequality that is the reality of Mankind: These are political, societal, cultural, economic, educational, geographical, environmental, . . . to which these and others too numerous to quantify enhance and reinforce the inequality that is the reality of Man . . . too, which is transferred into his political and economic, social and cultural structures. Hence the perpetual conflict between the Haves and Have Nots, as offered by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
[11] See page 5, “Report: American Founders, America is a Republic, Not a Democracy,” The Heritage Foundation, by Bernard Dobski, Ph.D, June 19, 2020.
[12] See pages 143 and 144, “Democracy and War in Ancient Athens and Today,” Greece and Rome, The Classical Association, by David M. Pritchard.
[13] See page 1, “Introduction,” The Fall of the Roman Republic, by David Shotter.
[14] “Consul . . . Two consuls elected annually by the comitia centuriata (one of the voting assemblies), both had imperium or executive power, and were recognized as the chief military and political executives of the state, the tenure of consulship generally being regarded as the apex of a political career (save perhaps for the censorship). The consuls would command armies in the field, preside over the comitia and the senate, and they proposed laws to the people. They theoretically had rights of jurisdiction, though in criminal cases this was generally delegated, and civil jurisdiction was taken over by the praetor urbanus. Each was attended by twelve lictors. (After 367 B.C., at least one consul had to be a plebeian.)
“Praetor . . . elected each year with special responsibility for civil jurisdiction. Later, during the imperium, could expand their power to command armies in the field, preside over assemblies and introduce business to them.
“Censor . . . Two elected by the comitia centuriata, generally every five years. Their primary task was to revise the list of citizens, ensure their proper registration, and assess the value of their property and their ‘moral worth.’” See pages 102-104, “Appendix II: Magistracies of the Roman Republic,” Shotter.
[15] The Centuries of Rome proved an inspiration for the Founders, for the electoral college harkens back to the centurial system of elections. If candidates running for president do not have the required amount of electoral votes to earn the Oval Office, then according to the XII Amendment, the election will be decided in the House of Representatives, where no matter the size of the state or the number of its electors, based on the amount of senators and representatives, each state delegation gets a single vote. See page 2, “The Electoral College,” by William C. Kimberling.
[16] See page 64, Chapter XI, “Of Man: Of the Difference of Manners,” Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes.
[17] See page 195, “Republican Ideas By a Member of a Public Body,” II, Voltaire: Political Writings, edited by David Williams.
[18] See page 5, Book II: Of Laws Directly Derived From the Nature of Government, Chapter 2, “Of the Republican Government, and the Laws in relation to Democracy,” The Spirit of Laws, by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.
[19] See page 6, Baron de Montesquieu.
[20] Article 48 of the constitution of the ill-fated Weimar Republic, enabled the President of Germany to wield political control at the expense of the Reichstag in event of emergencies, be they political, economic, perhaps invasion by a foreign power. President Paul von Hindenburg will assume central political control following the Depression of October 1929.
Text of Article 48: “If a Land fails to fulfill the duties incumbent upon it according to the Constitution or the laws of the Reich, the Reich President can force it to do so with the help of the armed forces.
“The Reich President may, if the public safety and order in the German Reich are considerably disturbed or endangered, take such measures as are necessary to restore public safety and order. If necessary to restore public safety and order, if necessary he may intervene with the help of the armed forces. For this purpose he may temporarily suspend, either partially or wholly, the Fundamental Rights established in Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 151.” See pages 162 and 163, reading No. 39, “The Weimar Constitution of the German Reich, August 11, 1919,” The Basic History of Modern Germany, by Louis L. Snyder.
[21] Conspiracy tales and confusion reigned in the United States among the public and pundits following the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
[22] See page 52, Chapter 3, “Republicanism and Democracy,” Democracy, by Bernard Crick.
[23] See page 77, Chapter 5, “The Incorruptible,” Maximilian Robespierre, by S.L Carson.
[24] This reminds us, of course, of the birther argument waged in the United States as to Barak Obama’s origins. Hardly a recent conundrum. For besides Napoleon, Stalin was a Georgian, Hitler was an Austrian and Joseph Tito was a Croat from the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire.
[25] See page 120, Chapter XII, “Of the Legislative, Executive and Federative Power of the Commonwealth,” Of Civil Government, by John Locke.
[26] See pages 120-123, Locke.
[27] See page 125, Chapter XIII, “Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth,” Of Civil Government, by John Locke.
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