--- Ok, Dorkafork. You win. I spent yesterday trying to muster up
enough enthusiasm to go through the Federalist Papers to refute your
assertions and I just couldn't get there. I concede to you, oh,
magnificent eating utensil.
But...I'm going to get in one swipe about quoting the Federalist
Papers. They are not
the be all, end all, holy of holies as to what the writers of the
Constitution were going for. This would be blasphemy, I know, but let
me explain. You have three writers of the Federalist Papers. John Jay,
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who, one could easily say were
not the least popular members of the Constitutional Congress. Three
dudes who were there from the beginning, yes, but they are also three
guys who were from large, well populated states: Jay and Hamilton were
both from New York; and Madison was from Virginia. Their interests
would have---naturally---been different from those of the Carolinas or
Rhode Island. Despite their well-populated state origins, they also
manage to disagree with one another quite a few times, particularly
about the level of federalism that should be imposed with the
Constitution. The Federalist Papers were written and published in
various newspapers at the time to give the average, literate individual
an idea of the issues they were wrestling with and were an explanation
of why they were taking the tack that they took. They were never
intended to be the sole source of Constitutional intent that they have
become---meaning that they were written to put forward certain issues
with the intention of influencing the direction of the Constitutional
Congress. They're policy papers---in essence, political theory---hence
I take them with a grain of salt. Think of it this way: supposing that
some sort of Fountain of Youth serum is invented in the next fifty
years that allowed you to live for another two hundred: would you take
George Kennan's "X Article"
as the sole source of information as to why the United States took the
stance that it did against the Soviet Union, knowing that this is the
document that made people in Washington finally stand up and take
notice of what Stalin was doing and what the Soviets were all about?
Probably not, despite the fact Kennan coins the phrase "containment"
within its general wordiness. Remember, this is two hundred years from
now---there's going to be a lot of information out there for you to
refer to when you're lecturing your great-great-great grandkids about
how you lived through the Cold War (this of course is providing you
weren't born in 1989---at which point you can point your finger at me
and shout "ANCIENT HAG!") You'd use Kennan with other anecdotal
evidence---the Soviets ruthless take over of what would become the
Eastern Bloc; Stalin's purges; their defense capabilities, particularly
since they'd just been put on fresh display in WWII. Political theory
is just that: theory. The Federalist Papers are a brilliant example of
political theory---and some would argue the single, best example of
American political theory ever written. But theory, by its very nature,
is a fleeting thing; an idea about the way things work, put down with
pen and ink, to push the argument along until the next guy expands on
it. The Federalist Papers are just one more example of theory. They
pushed the argument along until the next guy expanded on it. And I
think that guy's name would be de Tocqueville, but it's been a long
time since my heady polisci days, so you'll forgive me if I've
forgotten someone, eh? This isn't to say the Federal Papers are not a
valuable resource. They are. But they're to be taken as a part of a
whole, as any political theory should be.