by Bob Mayer
Everyone in the Blazer leaned closer to read.
Dearest Evie:
I gathered most of the information that follows from the secret notes I uncovered in the Archives of the American Philosophical Society, although the known historical information in this report is readily available.
In every country, of course, the ruler is most important. For many people around the world not blessed with a democratic republic such as the United States enjoys, ‘the ruler’ is not just the head of a government, often people’s very lives depend on his whims. There are few philosophical kings, and even fewer ‘benign’ rulers. And, of course, the title despot implies little if any benevolence. In most countries, the people live to serve the ruler.
In the few thousand years of recorded history, the limited power of the American Presidency and government over the last two plus centuries has represented the best of our country and is unique in history. Free elections, constitutional safeguards put in place by reasoning men at an unreasonable time, seem almost an improbability. Yet it happened in 1787.
Fifty-five men of rather dubious background carved out something unique: a document both flawed and designed to correct its own flaws- at least initially. It appeals to the logical mind that those who invented this government recognized their own limitations and put in place protections against those limitations. At the same time, they sought to achieve lofty goals for the individual while ignoring large portions of their country’s population. The same intriguing combination of logic and awareness of human limitations. They were philosophers who were very understanding of the reality and precariousness of their situation.
It is often forgotten among many Americans that the fifty-five men who signed the Declaration of Independence were breaking the law and traitors to their government and king. One could say they were extremely “unpatriotic”. Five of them paid with their lives; captured by the British, tortured and executed. Two had sons killed during the war. Most lost their houses, their fortunes, and their reputations. Quite a few died in poverty; such is the gratitude of a free nation. At the very end of the Revolution, the British General Cornwallis had his headquarters in the home of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who urged General Washington to open fire on it. His house was destroyed and the man died homeless and penniless.
Perhaps it was part of the flaws inherent in their genius and what they brought forth. Still, one wonders how many Americans today would give their lives for freedom—from a tyranny imposed by their own government?
Ducharme glanced at Evie. “What did McBride mean by that?”
Evie shrugged. “Think how the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be treated today. Frankly, I believe they would be outcasts, political heretics. Much as if Jesus came to a modern church to preach, he would most likely be cast out as a heretic.”
“Woman’s got a point,” Kincannon said. “They weren’t very open-minded in my old Bible study class.”
“You were a kid,” Ducharme told his partner.
“I was wise beyond my years,” Kincannon said. “And the one’s running it were adults.”
“Let’s keep reading,” Ducharme suggested.
Think about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Imagine to declare all men free and able to self-govern, yet ignore women and count African-Americans as three-fifths of a human being? And the three-fifths applied only to use that population for representation in Congress, not to allow them to vote, thus giving the slave states a greater proportion of representatives as opposed to true voting population. Plus the Founding Fathers, an odd choice of words, added an article vowing never to change by Amendment that slaves would continue to be imported for 20 years.
Why? To make a compromise. To appease the slave states offended the non-slave states. But to outlaw slavery would have forced the slave states out. There would have been no union, no United States. Instead they formed a Union that would have to face the immorality of slavery in the future. The fifty-five men knew this and that they were sowing the seeds for an inevitable civil war. But one must have a country before a civil war, and they choose country.
The fact that the twenty-year article expired and no more slaves were imported into the United States after 1808 intrigued me and it surprised many I told it to. Most thought slaves continued to be brought into the United States right up until the Civil War. In fact, what further surprised people was that the War of 1812 with Great Britain was to an extent a result of the stoppage of the importation of slaves into the United States. That move crippled a significant economic interest of a country that pretended to be morally above slavery. The fact that Great Britain was the country that profited most from the slave trade has made a good topic for the cocktail circuit in Washington.
During all the wrangling over the form their new government would take, the Presidency seemed an afterthought because the perfection of he who they knew would be the first president—George Washington—eased their fears for the near future. Alexander Hamilton proposed that the President and Senators be elected for life. Jefferson, Madison and others saw a grave danger in this. Thus, another compromise. And that is what the Jefferson Allegiance is all about—compromise.
The electoral college, antiquated and flawed, was also a compromise. There have been candidates for the Presidency who received the majority of at-large votes, yet lost the election because they did not ‘swing’ crucial states for the electoral college.
But, like slavery, the inherent flaws in the Executive branch began to show almost immediately—in fact, as you will note in the First Section of my report, it was Thomas Jefferson, the third President, who exceeded his Constitutional limits and recognized the flaw and the potential for Imperialism in the future and brought into being the Allegiance.
That the President be above the law will be expounded by subsequent administrations as you will see in my other Sections based on when the APS intervened. Indeed, several Presidents have notably broken the law ‘for the greater good.’ Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was one such case. Illegal, but moral. And smartly, yet also deviously, Lincoln only freed the slaves in the rebelling Southern states, not those in border states he needed to keep in the Union.
The role of the Society of the Cincinnati was also a large issue. It was a very divisive issue among the Founding Fathers. Indeed, it was the reason the American Philosophical Society was redirected from its original purpose to counter the Cincinnatians. And, as you will see, the Cincinnatians pushed Presidents at time to break the law to further their own objectives.
So let us delve into history and see how the Jefferson Allegiance, or in most cases, the threat of the Jefferson Allegiance kept the country from sliding completely into an Imperial President and stopped the Cincinnatians from gaining the control they desire up to the present day:
McBride’s Report: The Imperial Presidency and the Jefferson Allegiance
Section One. Jefferson & Hamilton
Section Two. Polk & John Quincy Adams (and Lincoln)
Section Three. Lincoln & Grant
Section Four. Teddy Roosevelt & Alice Roosevelt
Section Five. Franklin Roosevelt & General Marshall
Section Six. Kennedy & Hoover and Mary Meyer
Section Seven. Nixon & McBride
They finished reading the short summaries of the times the American Philosophical Society had intervened—and even the report about Hoover and the Cincinnatians.
“Damn,” was Kincannon’s summary.
“They only had to actually pull out the Allegiance out twice,” Evie noted.
“But they sure used it like Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick,” Ducharme said. “And they often used someone close to the President to deliver the warning. Effective.”
“Hold on a sec—“ Evie. “I just realized something.” She scrolled back to the Kennedy section. “Mary Meyers. She was killed around a year after Kennedy was assassinated.” She looked up at Ducharme and Kincannon. “A single round
at close range in the head and another in the heart.”
“A message,” Ducharme said, “from the Cincinnatians.”
Evie nodded. “There’s more in the report,” she said, scrolling down.
Nixon was put out of office by the pressure of the Jefferson Allegiance, pre-empting the need for him to be impeached (strangely, many believe, wrongly, that Nixon was actually impeached). But his legacy had profound effects on shifting the balance of power from the legislative to the executive branch to the point where the Founding Fathers would barely be able to recognize our current form of government. He was stopped, but many of the precedents he set have lived on.
Nixon, in various ways, took more control of the power of the purse than had been envisioned when our country was founded. The Founding Fathers believed that having the Legislative control the money would keep the President in check and also keep him from allying with those wanted the purse directed their way—i.e. the Cincinnatians. Think of the military-industrial complex as warned of by Eisenhower. Nixon began the concept of calling any who opposed his fiscal policies “un-patriotic”. He used his powers to reward those economic areas he favored and hurt those he didn’t. He determined the level of spending, a right reserved for Congress.
He also trampled on Civil Liberties on a level not seen since FDR. He had the FBI, CIA and NSA investigate those who he deemed threats, real or imagined, regardless of what the law said those organizations were allowed to do.
The ability of the President to make decisions without having to not even inform Congress, never mind gain its approval, has echoed through every President since Nixon.
I was particularly interested in the Executive Branch and its power to take the country to war. As you can see from the previous historical sections, this power has evolved over the years to a form that would have been unacceptable to the Founding Fathers. I found an interesting piece of writing by James Madison that I wish to quote, because it seems to be something forgotten over the centuries since its writing:
“In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Besides the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man.”
Thus it was surprising for me to learn that the last time our country went to war under the strict guidelines laid out by the Founding Fathers, was in 1941. That was the last time Congress properly declared war.
Ducharme looked up from the screen. “Wait a second. Congress voted for the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Evie shook her head. “Read on.”
For every armed conflict the United States participated in since FDR and the Second World War—and there have been quite a few—the Chief Executive has gotten Congress to vote to suspend the Constitutional requirements for Congress itself to declare war, a strange paradox making an end run around the basic law set down by the Founding Fathers. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq—twice—Afghanistan. I imagine I might even have missed some conflicts or interventions in there that were not even voted on by Congress voting itself out of voting on it—such as Grenada, Lebanon, Somalia, the Balkans, Libya etc. All were done not in the manner, which the Founding Fathers set forth for the conduct war, and use military might. And there is no doubt war profiteering by Cincinnatians plays a large role in many of these conflicts.
Dangerous times, as we are still wrapped up in two un-declared wars.
“That’s it?” Ducharme asked, scrolling down and finding nothing more. He knew he was being sharper than he intended, but the prospect of the coming conflict was making him edgy. And there was one glaring omission: “What exactly is the Allegiance?”
“We’re going to have to find it to figure that out,” Evie said as she closed the laptop.
Kincannon frowned. “All these wars since World War II—we really didn’t win any of them. And not a single one of them was fought against a direct threat to our country. You could say after the first 9-11 we did, but we sure didn’t need to invade Iraq to go after the fuckers who took down the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon.”
Ducharme stirred uncomfortably in the driver’s seat because all of this was touching on things he’d discussed with his Uncle, the General. “Maybe that’s exactly why we haven’t won any of them.”
Everyone in the Blazer turned to look at him. “I don’t like admitting it, being a career soldier,” he said, “but we haven’t done too well since World War II. And I don’t think it’s the military’s fault. We’ve had the best military in the world for a long time—best equipped, best trained, best led. Volunteers since the end of Vietnam. I’ve served with damn fine people.
“I think it’s these people—these fucking Cincinnatians and their ilk. They’ve sent us to fight bullshit wars for bullshit reasons to fatten their pockets. And it’s hard for men—and women—to put their all into a war they can’t believe in. That they actually didn’t sign up to fight in. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution, to defend the country. What the fuck did invading Iraq have to do with that? Even the ‘Stan. Yeah, Bin Laden trained his people there, but we should have just gone after Al Qaeda, not the whole damn country. Hell, Special Forces took out the Taliban in a couple of months. We should have packed our bags and come home. Not hung around to try to ‘build’ a country no one there really wants built. But there is an oil pipeline there.”
“Easy, Duke,” Kincannon said in a low voice.
Ducharme realized he’d raised his voice. He was surprising himself as much as the others in the vehicle. The beast was ruling, surging, but in a new direction. Ducharme forced himself to calm down, even though his head was throbbing. It wasn’t time yet for the beast to rule.
Evie leaned forward. “Can I ask you something?”
“Is it going to be a ‘did you know’?” Ducharme said.
“No.” She pointed toward his hand. “Where’s your West Point ring? You said graduates took their rings seriously. How come you don’t wear yours?”
Ducharme knew she was redirecting him, but she was behind the power curve. “Charlie LaGrange—the General’s son—and I left our rings at his family’s home outside of New Orleans when we deployed to Afghanistan. We had a little ceremony and we agreed we’d repeat the ceremony and put our rings on when we both got back home. We didn’t have that second ceremony. He made it back from the ‘Stan all right—before me. I buried both our rings with Charlie at Arlington just before I met you that night.”
“Why’d you bury yours?” Evie asked.
Ducharme started the Blazer and pulled out, to get back onto the Turnpike. “To be honest. I don’t really know. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time, like Kosciuszko refusing the sword. Now I know it was.”
*************
Inside the Anderson House, Lucius’ attention was on the chess set. Half the pieces were scattered about the board, the other half lost in conflict on the sides of the board, indicating a game in progress. He reached out and moved a black bishop three spaces diagonally with utter confidence.
“Who are you playing?” Turnbull asked.
Lucius looked up. “My opponent is a member of the Society far away from here. We have spent considerable time discussing the strategic situation in the world. If we can finally do away with the Allegiance and the Philosophers, there is much we can accomplish. How close are we to achieving that?”
“The Surgeon is ahead of them for once. She’ll get the disks at Adams’ grave. But I believe they now have the decryption thumb drive for McBride’s computer.”
“You ‘believe’?”
“Three contractors were killed at Monticello. We think the drive was buried at Jefferson’s tomb.”
“Not very efficient. And I’m beginning to hear rumblings. Too many deaths. Too much notoriety.”
“I’ll wrap it up quickly,” Turnbull promised.
“Ducharme and Tol
liver won’t give up their disks easily,” Lucius noted.
“Leverage,” Turnbull simply.
“And the last set of disks?”
Turnbull rubbed his scarred hands together. “We haven’t figured it out. Don’t know if they have. But if they have or they do—leverage will still be the key to forcing them to hand them over.”
Chapter Twenty
It was dark as Ducharme drove the Blazer past the sign indicating the town limits of Quincy, Massachusetts. Another sign proclaimed Quincy: ‘The City of Presidents.’
“Before the Bush’s, the Adams were the only father-son Presidential tandem,” Evie informed them as they entered the town.
“Great,” Ducharme said.
“John Hancock was also from Quincy.” She pronounced it Quin-zee, which irritated Ducharme.
“Fantastic.” Ducharme checked the GPS.
“Are you being sarcastic?” Evie asked.
“Ignore him,” Kincannon advised Evie. “He gets snarly on a mission.”
Ducharme stopped the truck. “There’s the church.”
They all looked ahead at the old building, which claimed the triangle in the center where three roads formed the exterior.
“It’s the only church that has two dead Presidents buried there,” Evie said, apparently undaunted. “The National Cathedral in Washington has one: Woodrow Wilson, although Eisenhower, Reagan and Ford had their funerals there.”
“Can we focus?” Ducharme asked.
“The disks aren’t going to be buried,” Evie said.
“Why not?” Kincannon asked.
“Because John Adams, his son John Quincy, and their wives, are in crypts in the basement of the church,” Evie said.
“OK.” Ducharme tapped Kincannon on the arm. “See any surveillance?”
“Negative, but I should do a sweep around the perimeter,” Kincannon replied, checking his MP-5.