And you have all this insider information how, Dr. Who?
Jeff M
On Feb 10, 2009, at 6:43 PM, Eric S. Sande wrote:
Was Ben Franklin conservative? Thomas Jefferson? James Madison?
>Not hardly.
Very different men. Two Southern slaveholders (although Jefferson
saw the contradiction with his thought) and a Northern Puritan (that
wasn't all that pure).
The uniting factor was distrust of a strong Federal government and
a dislike of being subjects of a distant King.
Madison and Jefferson were aristocrats born and bred and Franklin
was largely a self-made man. All were of the Enlightenment, but
that didn't make them Liberals in the modern sense of the word.
They gambled and they won. At least a third of the people were
on their side to some extent, a third didn't care one way or the
other, and the rest were perfectly happy to be British subjects
(Brinton, 1965).
None of them had any immediate interest in sticking their heads
in a noose and none of them except the extreme radicals had any
vested interest in changing the status quo ante other than removing
what had then become a business inconvenience.
Please consider the roles an increasing commerce and consequent
taxation played in setting the conditions for the American Revolution
and I think you'll agree that the movers and shakers thereof were no
more Liberals than the government of George III was sane.
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