Article is at http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=548&FS=Calhoun+Foresaw+This
Cliff
---
Calhoun Foresaw This
By Thomas J. DiLorenzo
[Posted November 13, 2000]
The county-by-county electoral map
published by USA Today showing that
George W. Bush carried 2,434 counties
covering 2.4 million square miles,
compared to Al Gore’s 677 counties
covering about a half million square
miles, suggests that the worst fears of
one of America’s greatest statesman and
political philosopher, John C. Calhoun, may have finally come true.
Calhoun is considered to be the last of the founding fathers. From
1810 to his death in 1850 he served as a member of Congress,
secretary of war, vice president under presidents John Quincy Adams
and Andrew Jackson, U.S. Senator from South Carolina, and secretary
of state under President John Tyler.
Calhoun’s posthumously published essay, "A Disquisition on
Government," summarized his thoughts on politics and government
and is a true masterpiece in political economy. It also has ominous
implications for America in light of the recent election.
Calhoun hailed the right of suffrage as "the indispensable and
primary principle in the foundation of a constitutional government,"
but warned that in order for suffrage to serve this purpose the public
must be sufficiently enlightened to understand their own rights under
the Constitution and "the interests of the community," and "to
appreciate the motives and conduct of those appointed to make and
execute the laws." On these grounds the American public is failing
miserably.
Knowledge of most parts of the U.S. Constitution is almost
nonexistent in American society, which has allowed a full-scale
assault on individual liberty by government; the statist, lapdog
media; the state-funded universities; and the cultural elites.
The government schools not only fail to teach about the Constitution;
they undermine it by brainwashing children with politically-correct,
statist propaganda. Consequently, an incredible number of Americans
remain unbelievably naive about the "motives and conduct of those
appointed to make and execute the laws." The fact that the
television show "The West Wing," which portrays the executive
branch of government as comprised of a benevolent, even saintly,
band of do-gooders motivated only by "the public interest," speaks
volumes about the childish mentality of many Americans when it
comes to government. As Joseph Schumpeter observed in 1950, the
average citizen "expends less disciplined effort on mastering a
political problem than he expends on a game of bridge."
Our governmental rulers understand this, which is why they bury us in
an avalanche of lies and propaganda about their motives and
programs. As Gore adviser Paul Begala recently stated in frustration:
"All this insistence on truthfulness on the part of both candidates
[Gore and Bush] is getting out of control."
Public ignorance, combined with a massive governmental propaganda
machine, renders the right of suffrage almost useless in safeguarding
liberty and assuring that government benefits primarily the ruled and
not the rulers. Even worse, Calhoun wrote, is the tendency of
democratic governments to divide the population into two groups:
taxpayers and tax consumers, with the latter group employing the
apparatus of the state top plunder the former group.
"When once formed, the community will be
divided into two great parties -- a major and
minor -- between which there will be incessant
struggles on the one side to retain, and on the
other to obtain the majority . . . " Consequently,
"some portion of the community must pay in
taxes more than it receives back in
disbursements; while another receives in
disbursements more than it pays in taxes." The
community is thus divided into "two great
classes; one consisting of those who . . . pay the
taxes...and the other, of those who are the
recipients of their proceeds..."
This is exactly what the USA Today county-by-county electoral map,
and other post-election data, show. Gore’s core support was in the
inner cities, dominated by welfare recipients (including "affirmative
action" welfare); the state capitols, around which reside thousands of
state and local government bureaucrats dependent partly on federal
largesse; the statist intellectual class which resides largely on the
east coast, especially in New England; the leftist cultural elite on the
California coast (the rest of California was solidly Republican); hordes
of welfare-seeking immigrants, many of whom are illegal, along the
Texas border; and the environmental zealots of the Pacific Northwest
and elsewhere. Families earning more than $50,000 annually strongly
supported George W. Bush, whereas those earning under $30,000
were strong supporters of Gore.
Government has grown so unimpeded that the U.S. is on the precipice
of being divided almost equally between the taxpaying and
tax-consuming classes. As Calhoun warned, this could lead to "one
class or portion of the community [being] elevated to wealth and
power, and the other depressed to abject poverty and dependence,
simply by the fiscal action of the government." This, too, seems to
have come true in some regards. Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway
have shown that wages tend to be 25-40 percent higher in and
around state capitols than in other areas of the country, a measure of
the extent to which the governing class plunders the governed. And
the tax burden makes it increasingly difficult for lower middle-class
families to ascend the economic ladder.
The power to tax in a democracy, warned Calhoun, will inevitably be
used "for the purpose of aggrandizing and building up one portion of
the community at the expense of another," which will "give rise to . .
. violent conflicts and struggles" between the two competing parties."
There hasn’t been any violence in Florida as of this writing, although
the Gore campaign has been doing its best to start a race war there
with Jesse Jackson organizing mobs of blacks and telling them that
racist Republicans have conspired to "disenfranchise" them. Riots are
now apparently an "acceptable" electoral tactic (and have been since
the 1960s).
Calhoun was also prescient in foreseeing that the enemies of liberty
would say anything -- anything -- to dilute the power of the
Constitution. It is "a great mistake," Calhoun wrote, to suppose that
a mere written Constitution would be sufficient to protect individual
liberties because the party in power will always "have no need of
[constitutional] restrictions" on governmental powers.
Naive defenders of the Constitution will initially believe that it can be
protected by "an appeal to reason, truth, justice, or the obligations
imposed by the Constitution," whereas power-hungry statists will
wage a perpetual political war against the Constitution with "cunning,
falsehood, deception, slander, fraud, and gross appeals to the
appetites of the lowest and most worthless portions of the
community" until "the restrictions would be ultimately annulled, and
the government be converted into one of unlimited powers." Does
anyone deny that this is essentially the situation that U.S. citizens
now find themselves in?
Calhoun’s suggested antidote to the evil of unlimited government
was what he called the "concurrent majority." Under this system any
community of citizens, including a state or some other group, would
be given the right to veto federal legislation that it believed was
unconstitutional and destructive of its constitutional rights. Calhoun
believed that the concurrent majority would stop political plunder in
its tracks and limit government to its constitutional functions.
The concurrent majority is a form of nullification, which existed in the
U.S. until 1861 and was championed by Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
We had better begin seriously considering nullification, peaceful
secession, and every other means possible of checking the ability of
the federal government to loot the taxpaying population. For if the
Left succeeds in achieving open borders, combined with a growing
welfare state, then every penny of every American’s wealth and
income will be up for grabs to be distributed not only to other
Americans, but to welfare leaches from all corners of the globe.
Cliff
---
Calhoun Foresaw This
By Thomas J. DiLorenzo
[Posted November 13, 2000]
The county-by-county electoral map
published by USA Today showing that
George W. Bush carried 2,434 counties
covering 2.4 million square miles,
compared to Al Gore’s 677 counties
covering about a half million square
miles, suggests that the worst fears of
one of America’s greatest statesman and
political philosopher, John C. Calhoun, may have finally come true.
Calhoun is considered to be the last of the founding fathers. From
1810 to his death in 1850 he served as a member of Congress,
secretary of war, vice president under presidents John Quincy Adams
and Andrew Jackson, U.S. Senator from South Carolina, and secretary
of state under President John Tyler.
Calhoun’s posthumously published essay, "A Disquisition on
Government," summarized his thoughts on politics and government
and is a true masterpiece in political economy. It also has ominous
implications for America in light of the recent election.
Calhoun hailed the right of suffrage as "the indispensable and
primary principle in the foundation of a constitutional government,"
but warned that in order for suffrage to serve this purpose the public
must be sufficiently enlightened to understand their own rights under
the Constitution and "the interests of the community," and "to
appreciate the motives and conduct of those appointed to make and
execute the laws." On these grounds the American public is failing
miserably.
Knowledge of most parts of the U.S. Constitution is almost
nonexistent in American society, which has allowed a full-scale
assault on individual liberty by government; the statist, lapdog
media; the state-funded universities; and the cultural elites.
The government schools not only fail to teach about the Constitution;
they undermine it by brainwashing children with politically-correct,
statist propaganda. Consequently, an incredible number of Americans
remain unbelievably naive about the "motives and conduct of those
appointed to make and execute the laws." The fact that the
television show "The West Wing," which portrays the executive
branch of government as comprised of a benevolent, even saintly,
band of do-gooders motivated only by "the public interest," speaks
volumes about the childish mentality of many Americans when it
comes to government. As Joseph Schumpeter observed in 1950, the
average citizen "expends less disciplined effort on mastering a
political problem than he expends on a game of bridge."
Our governmental rulers understand this, which is why they bury us in
an avalanche of lies and propaganda about their motives and
programs. As Gore adviser Paul Begala recently stated in frustration:
"All this insistence on truthfulness on the part of both candidates
[Gore and Bush] is getting out of control."
Public ignorance, combined with a massive governmental propaganda
machine, renders the right of suffrage almost useless in safeguarding
liberty and assuring that government benefits primarily the ruled and
not the rulers. Even worse, Calhoun wrote, is the tendency of
democratic governments to divide the population into two groups:
taxpayers and tax consumers, with the latter group employing the
apparatus of the state top plunder the former group.
"When once formed, the community will be
divided into two great parties -- a major and
minor -- between which there will be incessant
struggles on the one side to retain, and on the
other to obtain the majority . . . " Consequently,
"some portion of the community must pay in
taxes more than it receives back in
disbursements; while another receives in
disbursements more than it pays in taxes." The
community is thus divided into "two great
classes; one consisting of those who . . . pay the
taxes...and the other, of those who are the
recipients of their proceeds..."
This is exactly what the USA Today county-by-county electoral map,
and other post-election data, show. Gore’s core support was in the
inner cities, dominated by welfare recipients (including "affirmative
action" welfare); the state capitols, around which reside thousands of
state and local government bureaucrats dependent partly on federal
largesse; the statist intellectual class which resides largely on the
east coast, especially in New England; the leftist cultural elite on the
California coast (the rest of California was solidly Republican); hordes
of welfare-seeking immigrants, many of whom are illegal, along the
Texas border; and the environmental zealots of the Pacific Northwest
and elsewhere. Families earning more than $50,000 annually strongly
supported George W. Bush, whereas those earning under $30,000
were strong supporters of Gore.
Government has grown so unimpeded that the U.S. is on the precipice
of being divided almost equally between the taxpaying and
tax-consuming classes. As Calhoun warned, this could lead to "one
class or portion of the community [being] elevated to wealth and
power, and the other depressed to abject poverty and dependence,
simply by the fiscal action of the government." This, too, seems to
have come true in some regards. Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway
have shown that wages tend to be 25-40 percent higher in and
around state capitols than in other areas of the country, a measure of
the extent to which the governing class plunders the governed. And
the tax burden makes it increasingly difficult for lower middle-class
families to ascend the economic ladder.
The power to tax in a democracy, warned Calhoun, will inevitably be
used "for the purpose of aggrandizing and building up one portion of
the community at the expense of another," which will "give rise to . .
. violent conflicts and struggles" between the two competing parties."
There hasn’t been any violence in Florida as of this writing, although
the Gore campaign has been doing its best to start a race war there
with Jesse Jackson organizing mobs of blacks and telling them that
racist Republicans have conspired to "disenfranchise" them. Riots are
now apparently an "acceptable" electoral tactic (and have been since
the 1960s).
Calhoun was also prescient in foreseeing that the enemies of liberty
would say anything -- anything -- to dilute the power of the
Constitution. It is "a great mistake," Calhoun wrote, to suppose that
a mere written Constitution would be sufficient to protect individual
liberties because the party in power will always "have no need of
[constitutional] restrictions" on governmental powers.
Naive defenders of the Constitution will initially believe that it can be
protected by "an appeal to reason, truth, justice, or the obligations
imposed by the Constitution," whereas power-hungry statists will
wage a perpetual political war against the Constitution with "cunning,
falsehood, deception, slander, fraud, and gross appeals to the
appetites of the lowest and most worthless portions of the
community" until "the restrictions would be ultimately annulled, and
the government be converted into one of unlimited powers." Does
anyone deny that this is essentially the situation that U.S. citizens
now find themselves in?
Calhoun’s suggested antidote to the evil of unlimited government
was what he called the "concurrent majority." Under this system any
community of citizens, including a state or some other group, would
be given the right to veto federal legislation that it believed was
unconstitutional and destructive of its constitutional rights. Calhoun
believed that the concurrent majority would stop political plunder in
its tracks and limit government to its constitutional functions.
The concurrent majority is a form of nullification, which existed in the
U.S. until 1861 and was championed by Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
We had better begin seriously considering nullification, peaceful
secession, and every other means possible of checking the ability of
the federal government to loot the taxpaying population. For if the
Left succeeds in achieving open borders, combined with a growing
welfare state, then every penny of every American’s wealth and
income will be up for grabs to be distributed not only to other
Americans, but to welfare leaches from all corners of the globe.