Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics The Debate: Is America’s future capitalist or socialist?

I let my frustration show. I thoroughly dislike deception and misstatement in pursuit of ideological goals. It is one of the reasons I sometimes rail against "The Federalist Society" that hides behind the label to disguise their anti-federalist roots and goals, and why I detest claims of fidelity to "classical liberalism" to miscast conservative ideas with "liberal" roots. (Just like pretending "constitutional republic" is different than "representative democracy".) logtroll refers to it as ROT - rule of the opposite thing - and I heartily agree.

The U.S. Constitution created a new form of government with a strong central government in response to the failure of the Articles of Confederation that preceded it. There was opposition to this conception by a group called the "anti-federalists". They lost. But their influence and ideology survived in the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson and Madison. Now their descendants pretend they have history (and the founders) on their side, which is a blatant and brazen lie.

What is most frequently misstated or elided is that Madison's views changed radically over his life, most significantly between when the Constitution was drafted and when the D-R party was formed. At the time the Constitution came into being, the "founders" were imbued with a spirit of promise over their creation. They proselytized for it, and sometimes overstated its merits while minimizing its acknowledged faults to get it ratified. They knew it had defects and were confident that amendments would correct them. One of the compromise/defects was the Electoral College. (Another was the 3/5ths compromise.)

Some things were changed immediately. Two occurred within the decade after ratification. Then there was a half-Century-plus hiatus where this expectation was deferred. But the 13th-15th Amendments were the most significant in our history, and radically reformed the conception of "The United States", and the balance of authorities the Constitution contained.