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The Men Who Destroyed the Constitution
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Forum moderated by: Henrietta Bowman
Henrietta Bowman
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The Men Who Destroyed the Constitution
Professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo is one of my
favorite authors. In his latest article, he discusses Judge Andrew
Napolitano's new book, "The Constitution in Exile." Napolitano, in
my mind is the best judge in America today when it comes to
constitutional issues and the Founding Father's original intent.
Original intent is not that difficult to
discern. All that is necessary is to read the Founder's writings in
the Federalist and Anti-federalist Papers and the voluminous
private correspondence of the Founders that has been preserved for
posterity. Without the Anti-federalists, there would have been no
Bill of Rights -- without which several states refused to ratify
the Constitution.
What follows is a compilation of snippets
from various historical sources and the link to the DiLorenzo article.
--Henrietta
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Dueled to
the Death
July 11, 1804
On the morning of July 11, 1804, Alexander
Hamilton and Aaron Burr raised their dueling pistols and took aim.
Hamilton, the former secretary of the treasury, and Vice President
Burr were longstanding political rivals and personal enemies. Burr
might have been the president instead of vice president, had it not
been for Hamilton's interference. When Burr's term as vice
president was almost over, he ran for governor of New York.
Hamilton, once again, prevented Burr from winning by opposing his
candidacy. Burr retaliated by challenging Hamilton to a duel.
See "Duel At Dawn, 1804" ( http://
www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/duel.htm )
Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first
Secretary of the Treasury, was the chief author of The Federalist
papers advocating a strong central government. Burr represented the
old Republican Party. His greatest accomplishment was achieved in
1800 when he was elected Vice President to Thomas Jefferson.
Hamilton considered Burr an unprincipled rogue. The antagonism
between the two came to a head in 1804 when Hamilton thwarted
Burr's attempt to gain re-nomination for Vice President as well as
his bid to win the governorship of New York. Burr responded by
challenging his antagonist to a duel, an invitation Hamilton felt
compelled to accept.
There is no doubt Hamilton was right in
considering Burr an unprincipled rogue, but it was more an issue of
the pot calling the kettle black. Both men were driven by a lust
for power and it was a instance of irresistable force meeting an
immovable object. In the end, it was fortuitous for the fledgling
nation that one meglomaniac was killed and the other destroyed
politically by the duel. Either man becoming president would have
put in motion the eventual demise of the Republic.
In the presidential election of 1800, Burr
and Thomas Jefferson each had seventy-three votes, and the House of
Representatives on the thirty-sixth ballot elected Jefferson
President and Burr Vice President.
Jefferson, however, distrusted both the
proposals and the motives of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander
Hamilton. He thought Hamilton's financial programs both unwise and
unconstitutional, flowing "from principles adverse to liberty."
Jefferson suspected Hamilton and others in the emerging Federalist
Party of a secret design to implant monarchist ideals and
institutions in the government. The disagreements spilled over into
foreign affairs. Hamilton was pro-British, and Jefferson was by
inclination pro-French, although he directed the office of
secretary of state with notable objectivity. The more Washington
sided with Hamilton, the more Jefferson became dissatisfied with
his minority position within the cabinet. Finally, after being
twice dissuaded from resigning, Jefferson did so on Dec. 31, 1793.
"From the moment of my retiring from the
administration," he later wrote, "the Federalists got unchecked
hold on General Washington." Jefferson thought Washington's
expedition to suppress the Whiskey rebellion (1794) an unnecessary
use of military force. He deplored Washington's denunciation of the
Democratic societies and considered Jay's Treaty (1794) with
Britain a "monument of folly and venality."
Federalist leaders remained adamantly
opposed to Jefferson, but the people approved his policies.
Internal taxes were reduced; the military budget was cut; the Alien
and Sedition Acts were permitted to lapse; and plans were made to
extinguish the public debt. Simplicity and frugality became the
hallmarks of Jefferson's administration. The Louisiana Purchase
(1803) capped his achievements. Ironically, Jefferson had to
overcome constitutional scruples in order to take over the vast new
territory without authorization by constitutional amendment. In
this instance it was his Federalist critics who became the
constitutional purists. Nonetheless, the purchase was received with
popular enthusiasm. In the election of 1804, Jefferson swept every
state except two--Connecticut and Delaware. Jefferson's second
administration began with a minor success--the favorable settlement
concluding the Tripolitan War (1801-05), in which the newly created
U.S. Navy fought its first engagements. The following year the
Lewis and Clark Expedition, which the president had dispatched to
explore the Louisiana Territory, returned triumphantly after
crossing the continent. The West was also a source of trouble,
however. The disaffected Aaron Burr engaged in a conspiracy, the
details of which are still obscure, either to establish an
independent republic in the Louisiana Territory or to launch an
invasion of Spanish-held Mexico. Jefferson acted swiftly to arrest
Burr early in 1807 and bring him to trial for treason. Burr was
acquitted, however.
Aaron Burr was a central figure in American
public life for nearly three decades, but is remembered mainly for
two episodes in his life: his duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1804
and his schemes of empire-building that formed the basis for his
1807 treason trial.
Burr joined Colonel Benedict Arnold's
crusade against Quebec. His courage and success on the battlefield
earned him a place on General Washington's staff.
By 1791, Burr had become a powerful
political figure, having been elected United States Senator from
New York. Burr's politics were marked by his liberal instincts and
his expansionist dreams. In the election of 1800, Burr tied Thomas
Jefferson in the electoral college. Burr became Vice President
when the House of Representatives selected Jefferson as President
in a contest that left the two men bitter enemies.
Burr's ambitions in conventional politics
came to an end in 1804 when he was defeated in his bid for the
governorship of New York. Burr blamed opposition leader Alexander
Hamilton for his defeat, and challenged the famous Federalist to a
duel. On July 11, 1804 in Weehawken, New Jersey, Burr mortally
wounded Hamilton and was forced to flee New York and New Jersey
when warrants were issued for his arrest.
After the duel, Burr's thoughts turned to
the West. Historians disagree as to whether Burr's dealings with
figures such as General James Wilkinson, former senator Jonathan
Dayton and others constituted treason, or simply reflected the
expansionist sentiments shared by many patriotic settlers west of
the Alleghenies. If Burr's correspondence with the foreign
ministers of Great Britain (Merry) and Spain (Yrujo) are taken at
face value, Burr indeed was bent on securing a treasonous
separation of the West from the Union, one that might have left him
as the leader of a new western empire. On the other hand, it is
possible that Burr's letters to the foreign ministers were only an
attempt to capitalize on Great Britain's and Spain's hatred of the
new American Republic, and to secure for himself the funds that
would enable him to mount an expedition against the Spanish
territory of Mexico. Whatever the precise nature of this scheme,
it is clear that expansion and conquest were at its heart.
Burr's dreams, of course, went unrealized,
and he became the defendant in an 1807 treason trial that is the
focus of this website. Largely owing to a favorable interpretation
of the law of treason by Chief Justice (and trial judge) John
Marshall, Burr was acquitted. Nonetheless, the prosecution left
Burr disgraced and facing constant harassment by creditors.
No person played a bigger role in the
outcome of the Burr treason trial than did the Chief Justice of the
United States, sitting in Richmond as trial judge, John Curtis
Marshall. His narrow construction of the law of treason ended the
prosecution's case and gave little room for the jury to do anything
but find Burr "not guilty."
President Thomas Jefferson made the
conviction of Aaron Burr his personal mission. In the end, he
would blame his defeat on his old nemesis, Chief Justice John
Marshall, whose rulings frustrated the prosecution at every turn.
Jefferson complained in a letter written in September of 1807: "The
scenes which have been acting at Richmond are sufficient to fill us
with alarm. We supposed we possessed fixed laws to guard us
equally against treason and oppression; but it now appears we have
no law but the will of a judge."
Jefferson began to take a keen interest in
Burr's western activities in late 1806. After receiving a letter
from General Wilkinson detailing Burr's scheme, he signed a
proclamation stating that "sundry persons...are
conspiring...to...set on foot...a military expedition against the
dominions of Spain." He urged all military and other government
officials to devoted their attentions to "searching out and
bringing to condign punishment all persons engaged or concerned in
such enterprise." The president also sent west a confidential
agent, a State Department clerk named Graham, to investigate the
Burr plot.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/
dilorenzo105.html
The Men Who Destroyed the Constitution
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
In his 1850 Disquisition on Government, John
C. Calhoun argued that a written constitution would never be
sufficient to contain the plundering proclivities of a central
government. Some mechanisms for assuring consensus among the
citizens of the states regarding "federal" laws would be necessary.
Consequently, Calhoun proposed giving citizens of the states veto
power over federal laws that they believed were unconstitutional
(the "concurrent majority"). He also championed the Jeffersonian
idea of nullification. To Calhoun (and Jefferson), states’ rights
meant that the citizens of the states were sovereign over the
central government that they created as their agent, and could only
be so if such mechanisms – including the right of secession – existed.
Without these political mechanisms the
forces of nationalism, mercantilism, and political plunder would
relentlessly reshape the Constitution with their rhetoric, and
their efforts would eventually overwhelm the strict
constructionists. At that point the Constitution would become a
dead letter.
In his new book, The Constitution in Exile,
Judge Andrew Napolitano explains in very clear language just how
prescient Calhoun was. The biggest special-interest group of all –
the federal government itself – has "seized power by rewriting the
supreme law of the land," as Judge Napolitano says in the subtitle
to his book. Just as Calhoun predicted. The purpose of the book,
says the judge, is to tell "the unhappy story of liberty lost,
federalism trampled, and Big Government run amok." How did we get
to the point, he asks, of where the "federal" (i.e., central)
government defines for us the drinking age for alcohol, how much
wheat farmers can grow, the ability of terminally ill cancer
patients to medicate themselves with marijuana, the amount of sugar
that can be used in ketchup, and even the size of toilets?
SNIP!
-----
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great bargains
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