Conservatives see the health care bill’s passage as a major failure. Many of them have a particular view of the way the country should be run, and think that the Constitution supports this view. The Founding Fathers, some say, wanted a small federal government. They would shake their heads in frustration and anger at the health care bill, just like the Tea Party activists are doing now, and long for some way to put the country back on the right track.
Among the confused babble of historical support these types bring to the table, you might hear them mention the Federalist Papers. These were a series of editorials that were published in New York after the Constitutional Convention during the ratification process. They were disseminated throughout the American Confederacy, which is an accurate description of the young nation at the time.
Written mostly by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the editorials advocated the new republic. Today, these are often used in legal studies to help ascertain the “original intent” of the founders of the Constitution. They are also used by political commentators, usually conservative ones, to give credence to their arguments for smaller government.
That may have been what other founders wanted, but it’s definitely not what Hamilton and Madison wrote when they penned this great piece of philosophical propaganda. They were writing to expand the federal government to a level that had never before been achieved.
One of the most repeated words they use is “union.” They say the union is better at defending the states than if they were left to their own devices. They say the union should be able to raise taxes, and cite benefits such as better management of national resources and a stable economy. They say the union should regulate commerce. They say the union guarantees equality, defends the individual and increase his liberty as the union’s power increases.
Despite being beautiful political prose, we should not lose sight of what the federalists who wrote these editorials wanted. Their party was one of a strong, national government, whose very purpose was to convince people that this was the right way for the country to go. The democratic-republicans, whose leadership consisted mostly of southern slaveholders like Thomas Jefferson, wanted something more like the hideously inept Articles of Confederation.
Contrary to the idyllic, small government paradise some imagine the Constitution to embody, the document is really a compromise between two parties having basically the same argument we are having today. The need for persuasive pieces like The Federalist Papers shows this. Today, there are plenty of persuasive arguments for and against smaller government, and they need no seal of approval from the past.
In reality, it’s difficult to know what anyone alive in 1789 would say about taxation, health care, the Internet, aircraft carriers, global warming or Mesopotamia (what they might call Iraq). Keep in mind these people didn’t even know germs existed; what would they care about a government option? At least some of them, had they lived through what was to occur in our nation and around the world, might even call themselves democrats.
