Secondly, the people were induced to believe that these serious aberrations of Constitutional principles would provide a shortcut to economic prosperity, thereby lifting the people out of the depression. Unfortunately, it was successful only politically. It gave the people the illusion that by spending vast quantities of borrowed money they would prosper, when, as a matter of fact, the outcome was exactly the opposite, just as the Founders had predicted.
Dr. Milton Friedman points out that after the federal government had spent many billions of dollars and had seriously meddled with the Constitutional structure of the nation, the unemployment rate was higher in 1938 than it had been in 1932. Had not the crisis of World War II suddenly emerged, which required the spending of many additional billions of borrowed dollars and also resulted in absorbing the unemployed work force, the fiscal failure of the New Deal experiments would be better remembered by the American people.
Splurge Spending Is Habit-Forming
It is highly significant that the political formula which Harry Hopkins recommended to keep a particular administration in power was "tax, tax -- spend, spend -- elect, elect." Once the people have been encouraged by their political leaders to indulge in splurge spending, the result is like a snowball rolling downhill -- it increases in size and gains in speed. This is dramatically demonstrated in the charts. It will be noted that the national budget was less than a hundred billion dollars in 1960. Today we spend almost that much just for interest on the national debt. And that is more than the entire cost of World War I in real dollars! Since 1970 the national debt has tripled.
Today We Are Spending the Next Generation's Inheritance
The figures in these charts are astonishing, but not nearly as significant as the trend of thinking among the American people which the figures represent. For the first time in the entire history of the United States, a generation of Americans is squandering the next generation's inheritance. With the national debt at one trillion dollars, there is no way in the foreseeable future whereby this generation could possibly liquidate such a mountain of accumulated debt.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that this generation has also committed itself to pay off additional liabilities in the future amounting to approximately eleven trillion dollars. Since 1972 an effort has been made to compute precisely how extensive these commitments really are, but it is feared that they may turn out to be even more than the eleven trillion which present tabulations indicate.
The Problem of the "Fix"
Of course, the Founders would understand exactly what this generation is doing to itself. It is the very essence of human nature to pursue this disastrous course once the appetite has been created to demand it. As a result, American taxpayers now discover themselves playing a role almost identical to that of an addict on hard drugs. The addict denounces his "habit" and despises the "pusher" who got him into it, but when he is confronted with the crisis of needing a "fix" he will plead with tears of anguish for the narcotic remedy.
The "fix," of course, is not a remedy at all. The real remedy is "withdrawal." The addict must escape from the tortuous cycle of vicious repetition which is not solving his problem but compounding it. If withdrawal is painful, at least it is not prolonged. The problem is primarily a matter of will power -- the determination to change.
Every aspect of this reprehensible example applies to the mood of the American masses during recent years. Polemics against the government's profligate spending are vehement. The denunciation of high taxes is virtually universal. From banker to ditch-digger it is eloquently explained how this entire syndrome of big spending, high taxes, oppressive government regulations, and mountainous debt is stifling the economy, inhibiting the rate of production, and stagnating the wholesome development of the traditional American life-style. Yet, with all of that, any Congressman will verify that it has been, at least until recently, almost political suicide to try to change the trend. When it comes to cutting programs and reducing costs, balancing the budget, and eliminating deficit spending, it is amazing how few will make the necessary adjustment without the most violent outcries of protest when it affects them personally. But then, this would come as no surprise to the Founders. It is called "human nature." They would know that the only solution is to develop the will power to make the change. This is not easy, but it can be done.
How Can the United States Return to the Founders' Formula?
In recent years, the number of Americans who have become reconciled to the inescapable necessity of returning to the Founders' formula has risen to millions. The very circumstances in which the American taxpayer finds himself are sufficient to awaken many to recognize the fiscal bottomless pit into which the nation is sinking. The vivid shock of that realization is precisely what is needed to arouse the majority of the people to the point where they are willing to go through fiscal withdrawal and kick the habit of splurge spending.
However, Congressmen, the President, and the taxpayers are all asking the same question: "Is there any way this can be accomplished without our going through the wringer of a deep depression?"
This writer believes that there is. By returning to the fundamental principles espoused by the Founding Fathers, we can reverse the trend and get America back to a formula of prosperity economics without a major crunch or depression. The outline for such a plan has already been submitted to the appropriate channels in Congress, and these proposals will be included in a forthcoming book entitled The Healing of the Nation.
Twenty-Eighth Principle: The United States has a manifest destiny to be
an example and a blessing to the entire human race.
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening
of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and
the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." (John Adams)
All historians agree that a most singular and important feature of the settlers of America was their overpowering sense of mission -- a conviction that they were taking part in the unfolding of a manifest destiny of divine design which would shower its blessings on all mankind. As historian John Fiske writes:
"They believed that they were doing a wonderful thing. They felt themselves to be instruments in accomplishing a kind of "manifest destiny." Their exodus [from Europe] was that of a chosen people who were at length to lay the everlasting foundations of God's kingdom upon earth.... This steadfast faith in an unseen ruler and guide was to them a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. It was of great moral value. It gave them clearness of purpose and concentration of strength, and contributed towards making them, like the children of Israel, a people of indestructible vitality and aggressive energy." 297
This sense of manifest destiny has continued from that day to this and will be found expressed in nearly all of the inaugural addresses given by the presidents of the United States.
However, it is extremely important to distinguish between a sense of mission and the spirit of perverted chauvinism associated with the idea of "racial superiority." The former is a call to exemplary leadership and service. The latter is the arrogant presumption of a self-appointed role to conquer and rule. The distinction between the two is readily perceived in the writings of the Founders. For example, John Adams wrote:
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." 298
Thomas Jefferson looked upon the development of freedom under the Constitution as "the world's best hope," and wrote to John Dickinson in 1801 that what had been accomplished in the United States "will be a standing monument and example for the aim and imitation of the people of other countries." 299
It was not uncommon for the Founders to stress the responsibility which had been placed upon them to perform a mighty task. As John Adams
wrote from England while the Constitution was in preparation:
"The people of America have now the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands that Providence ever committed to so small a number." 300
Alexander Hamilton emphasized the same point as the Constitution was presented to the people for their approval. He wrote:
"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." 301
Failure Considered Treason Against the World
John Jay Considers America to Be a Providential Blessing
Conclusion
Failure Considered Treason Against the World
He went on to say that if the people of the United States failed in this mission, it would operate to "the general misfortune of mankind." 302 John Adams later stated that if the people abandoned the freedom gained by the adoption of the Constitution, it would be "treason against the hopes of the world." 303
John Jay Considers America to Be a Providential Blessing
After the task of structuring a constitutional government had been completed for the first free people in modern times, one of the Founders, John Jay, thought he saw in it a manifestation of divine approbation which was too obvious to be denied. He wrote:
"It has often given me pleasure to observe that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected, fertile, wide-spreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions and watered it with innumerable streams for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities."
John Jay continued:
"With equal pleasure I have often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general liberty and independence."
He then concluded as follows:
"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties." 304
Jay's estimate of the unique blessing of the land they had inherited proved correct. The Founders felt that ultimately their boundaries would extend to the western sea, as several of the original colonial charters had provided. When this had been accomplished, the vast Mississippi drainage basin, extending as it does from the Rockies in the west to the Appalachians in the east, turned out to be the most fertile and productive piece of real estate on this planet.
Conclusion
The Founders knew they were sailing into uncharted waters, and they knew their ship of state was entirely different from anything else on the face of the earth. True, they had examined every kind of political operation known to man, and they had abstracted from history every lesson and precaution they could learn, but their own product was unique, bold, and filled with the promise of a better day. Probably no one summed it up better than James Madison when he wrote:
"Is it not the glory of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?
"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 theater 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."
Then he concluded:
"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." 305
Footnotes
1. To Thomas Jefferson, 24 October 1787, in The Papers of James Madison, ed. William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, and Robert A. Rutland, 15 vols. by 1985 (Chicago and Charlottesville: University of Chicago Press and University Press of Virginia, 1962-), 10:207-8.
2. Remarks in Pennsylvania ratifying convention, 26 November 1787, in Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 2d ed. rev., 5 vols. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1907), 2:422.
3. Ibid., p. 426.
4. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (1788; New York: Mentor Books, 1961), No. 14 (30 Nov. 1787), pp. 104-5.
5. Notes of remarks in Pennsylvania ratifying convention, 12 December 1787, in John Bach McMaster and Frederick D. Stone, eds., Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 1787-1788 (1888; reprint ed., New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), p. 420.
6. "The Landholder,” Connecticut Courant, 17 December 1787, in Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, rev. ed., 4 vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937), 3:168.
7. To Rufus King, 26 December 1787, quoted in a letter From King to Theophilus Parsons, 20 February 1788, in The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. C.R. King, 6 vols. (New York, 1894-1900), 1:320-21.
8. To the editor of the Federal Gazette, 1788, in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert Henry Smyth, 10 vols.(New York: Macmillan Company, 1905-7), 9:702 3.
9. The Federalist Papers, No. 37 (11 Jan. 1788), pp. 230-31.
10. To the Marquis de Lafayette, 7 February 1788, in The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, 39 vols. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931-44), 29:409.
11. Letter in the State Gazette of South Carolina, 2 May 1788, Farrand 3:301.
12. To the Marquis de Lafayette, 28 May 1788, Fitzpatrick 29:507.
13. The Federalist Papers, No. 85 (16 Aug. 1788), p. 527.
14. To Sir Edward Newenham, 29 August 1788, Fitzpatrick 30:73.
15. To David Humphreys, 18 March 1789, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert Ellery Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907), 7:322.
16. Proposed address to Congress (never delivered), April? 1789, Fitzpatrick 30:299.
17. Inaugural address, 4 March 1797, in James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 13 vols. (Washington: Bureau of National Literature, 1911-25), 1:219.
18. To Philip N. Nicholas, 11 December 1821, Bergh 15:352.
19. “Outline” of the relationship between state governments and the general government, September 1829, in The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt,
9 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1900-1910), 9:357.
20. “Preface to Debates in the Convention of 1787,” unfinished draft written in 1835 or 1836, Farrand 3:551.
1. Letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, 19 July 1791; John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington, 39 volumes, United States Government Printing Office, 1931-1944, Washington, D.C., 31:316-317.
2. John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington, 39 volumes, United States Government Printing Office, 1931-1944, Washington, D.C., 31:318-319.
3. Gilbert Chinard, Thomas Jefferson: The Apostle of Americanism, 2nd edition, revised, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1975, pp. 86-87.
4. See Colin Rhys LoveIl, English Constitutional and Legal History, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962, pp. 3-50.
5. See Gilbert Chinard, Thomas Jefferson: The Apostle of Americanism, p. 86.
6. The Federalist Papers, Mentor Books, New York, 1961, No. 9, p. 71.
7. Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 26:489.
8. Albert Henry Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 10 vols., The Macmillan Company, New York, 1905-1907, 9:593; modern spelling.
9. The Federalist Papers, No. 45, pp. 292-293.
10. Albert Ellery Bergh, editor, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 20 volumes, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, Washington, D.C., 1907, 3:319.
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