🚀 go-pugleaf

Maddox wrote:

> > RobInteresting comments, Rob.  I'd like to know more.  Can you lead me to a
> decent site on the web where there are articles on this issue.  And are
> the Federalist Papers found up here someplace?  I'd love to find an
> indexed set where I can read in them what they have to say about
> particular subjects.

Project Gutenburg has its edition of the Federalist papers. Bear in mind
that not all editions are identical, but theirs is all right.

Remember especially when reading them that the Federalist point of view
was only one of the two leading ones of the time, viewpoints the
unresolved tension between which still plays a powerful role in our
political wars today, 1994 being a notable case in point. The Papers
were written to enhance the chances of ratifcation of the main body of
the Constitution and form our best record of the arguments of those who
supported the establishment of a strong national state. Despite having
hijacked the Convention and even the name "Federalist," they couldn't
get quite what they wanted; note, revealingly, that forms of the word
"nation" appear in the Constitution only with reference to foreign
sovereignties, not the U.S., even though it was perhaps the one term
most important to the Federalists. The Federalists also argued against
the inclusion of any provisions recognizing individual rights (one of
their points was that none was needed because the Constitution does not
delegate any authority over individual rights to the United States
government); they in the end were forced to accept the Bill of Rights in
order to gain ratification, and it consequently is generally regarded as
an integral division of the original Constitution. Knowing the
Federalists for the closet statists many of them were the
Antifederalists insisted on the subsequently much ignored 9th and 10th
Amendments as a part of it.

The point, however, is that the Federalist Papers, while invaluable,
provide only a minor portion of the background essential to gaining a
well-rounded picture of the Constitution's intent. It is necessary to
take into account the views of the Antifederalists and the States as
well, and once one has done so he often will find his eyes unexpectedly
opened to the issue of the Constitutionality of the concentration of
political power we have permitted the United States government to
accumulate. An informed discovery of how far we've gone in that
direction can be quite a shock, so if you're serious about doing some
industrial-strength study on this score brace yourself.

_________________________________________________________________
     Stephen Worley Anderson,  Rocky Mount,  North Carolina
                       swa@interpath.com