Timothy Michel
May 22, 2006
I would like to begin this section by taking a look at the inspiration for the original Constitution of the United States as expressed by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in excerpts from speeches they wrote while they were attempting to convince the Continental Congress to adopt a unified United States rather than break apart into three or four confederacies. Alexander Hamilton debates in what is called "Federalist No. 1."
"AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."
I have to ask at this point, is there any of you who think that any of our elected officials approach their job like these statesmen did back in 1788? Mind you I don't agree with everything that Hamilton, Madison and John Jay penned back then, but contrast their sense of responsibility with what you read, hear and watch today as expressed across the board by our politicians on the hill. Next I turn to James Madison who is equally motivated and willing to devote his full attention to the task of great responsibility please read:
"To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this was the work most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been new modeled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide."
I have to ask here; what does it mean to be American? Does it mean following a despot who has seized control of this country through the corruption of the very principals of those brave men willing to risk so much to embark on a brave new experiment to secure liberty for all. I understand that no alliances were ever formed with the nations of people that lived in this country before the coming of the disaffected from Europe to the shores of America. And Jefferson never followed through with the enfranchisement of the Africans who were already here as he so eloquently pleaded to King George III in 1774. But contrast their hopes for mankind then with what you see today. I say, to be an American is to embrace the Republican form of government as set forth by these men back in 1788 who saw their place in history as hopefully a blessing to all mankind. Can we make improvements on their design? Yes we can, and they understood this as they were crafting that constitution 218 years ago. Maybe what we need to do is to go back and look at the design they had in mind and then set down with representatives from all the peoples of this nation and consider all the wisdom of all our forefathers and craft a new government that will in fact secure our life, health, lands, air, water and happiness against any and all who might find it expedient to defile them.
I want to include one more narrative from Polybius of 140 B.C.E Rome to add some understanding of the history of constitutions in general and how each new constitution succeeded until the flaws in its design were exposed by time necessitating the crafting a new Constitution. Below is Polybius the cycle of constitution from their formation to their final demise:
"For no sooner had the knowledge of the jealousy and hatred existing in the citizens against them emboldened someone to oppose the government by word or deed, than he was sure to find the whole people ready and prepared to take his side. Having rid themselves of these rulers by assassination or exile, they do not venture to set up a king again, being still in terror of the injustice to which this led before; nor dare they entrust the common interests again to more than one considering the recent example of their misconduct. Therefore, as the only sound hope left them is that which depends upon themselves, they are driven to take refuge in that, and so change the constitution from an oligarchy to a democracy and take upon themselves the superintendence and charge of the state. And as long as any survive who have had experience of oligarchical supremacy and domination, they regard their present constitution as a blessing and hold equality and freedom as of the utmost value. But as soon as a new generation has arisen, and the democracy has descended to their children's children, long association weakens their value for equality and freedom, and some seek to become more powerful than the ordinary citizens; and the most liable to this temptation are the rich. So when they begin to be fond of office and find themselves unable to obtain it by their own unassisted efforts and their own merits, they ruin their estates, while enticing and corrupting the common people in every possible way. By this means, when in their senseless mania for reputation they have made the populace ready and greedy to receive bribes, the virtue of democracy is destroyed, and it is transformed into a government of violence and the strong hand. For the mob, habituated to feed at the expense of others and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbors, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honors, produces a reign of mere violence. Then come tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments, and re-divisions of land until, after losing all trace of civilization, it has once more found a master and a despot. This is the regular cycle of constitutional revolutions, and the natural order in which constitutions change, are transformed, and return again to their original stage. If a man have a clear grasp of these principles, he may perhaps make a mistake as to the dates at which this or that will happen to a particular constitution; but he will rarely be entirely mistaken as to the stage of growth or decay at which it has arrived, or as to the point at which it will undergo some revolutionary change. However, it is in the case of the Roman constitution that this method of inquiry will most fully teach us its formation, its growth, and zenith, as well as the changes awaiting it in the future; for this, if any constitution ever did, owed, as I said just now, its original foundation and growth to natural causes, and to natural causes will owe its decay. My subsequent narrative will be the best illustration of what I say."
The fact that Polybius is speaking to us from 140 B.C.E. is haunting. It is almost like he is predicting the rise and fall the United States itself. However, we're not a democracy, we are a republic which is a representative form of government rather than a direct government with the checks and balances described by Polybius built into our Constitution. So how is it that we are experiencing the exact form of decline that he ascribes to democracies? Has our republican form of government been corrupted to the point where wealthy individuals in our society can subvert the functions of government to their own will just as in the mob rule described by Polybius? What happened to our checks and balances? I should mention here that a republican form of government requires that the people remain educated enough to guard against abuses. If the people fall asleep, the hounds of opportunity will visit them and leave them destitute and bewildered. What follows below is my first thoughts on what might become a draft for a new constitution.
This is only a preliminary thought, but since something like this takes time to develop, I wanted to at least establish an outline of a possibly more workable organization than the de-facto NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA and the WTO and all it's sibling organizations. In order to protect and support diversity, government needs to be implemented at the very local level. That is why I have mentioned the watershed as the most likely candidate for local level government. People living within the same valley, would know what is most important to their well being. For instance, Tucson, Arizona in the Santa Cruz River Basin is made up of several tributaries. The people of Tucson would know much better how to manage their resources than someone that lives in Everett Washington which is irrigated by the Snohomish River. The needs of these two areas are so different as to make it impossible for a member of one to know how to manage the resources of the other. Lets focus on the Santa Cruz River Basin which includes Tucson Arizona. It would be within their jurisdictional rights to formulate policy on agriculture in the region as well as water usage, mining, school curriculum that involves knowledge of their particular environmental needs, and all other policies that affect the well being of their particular fragile environment. Now surrounding the Santa Cruz River Basin, is The Salt River Basin, The Upper Gila River Basin, The Lower Gila River Basin, Rio Sonoyta River Basin, and The San Pedro River Basin. Along with the Santa Rosa Wash, The San Simon Wash, Wilcox Playa and White Water Draw Basin, this entire area could be thought of as the next level governable area. This level of government would provide a template for the constitutions of each watershed government with regard to exigencies for the entire area in order to establish consistency of policies. At each level of government certain rights of the sublevel government need to be established as well. rather than having arbitrary states like we currently have, the watershed model provides a more natural division. I think we might learn a lot from the Native Americans. I have read about the Cahuilla Indians that lived in Southern California when the European conquistadors arrived and they had already establish a model of government that worked along these principles. The highest level of government would be the most general of all the governments establishing broad guidelines and rights at each subsidiary level. We have to ensure that we establish a system that protects diversity at all levels while at the same time creating general guidelines that affect the interaction of all levels of organization so that contention is minimized. The Republic that was considered by the drafters of the United States Constitution was really conceived as a Republic of Republics. What I am proposing is to extend that model to be a Republic of Republics of Republics of Republics with judicial jurisdictions at each level. We establish as many levels as necessary to ensure diversity, establishing basics rights and moderating those rights in each watershed where restriction would be necessary for survival. For instance in the Santa Cruz River Basin, it would not be the right of anyone to waste the precious resource of water, because it is so necessary for survival in that area. It would also not be the right of anyone to discharge known toxins into any water system as there is not much water to dilute the toxins which would again endanger the lives of all who live in those watersheds. Like I said this is just a preliminary consideration, but in light of the growing menace of trade organizations, I think it is time that we start looking at ways to improve on the designs of the American Constitution in such a way that all peoples in all affected lands are protected from commercial abuse. Because I believe that as we have in the past we will in the future need to form into a union of people for our better protection from each other. We need a system that is sensitive to all without neglecting any. May I refer you to a couple of good articles. Greed Is Good and Global Climate Change: International Agreements and Economics, Michael Edesess These articles point to the need for change. What direction that change will take is what needs to be considered. Just allowing markets to decide that direction will not bring us to an equitable solution. Markets always need to operate within the confines of the well being of the people they serve in other words, you can't destroy the habitat of one people to bring product to another people. Markets need always to operate with the constraints of the public good. Send any ideas to: timothy@stateofthepeople.org