- Joined
- Mar 20, 2012
- Messages
- 22,704
- Reaction score
- 9,469
- Location
- okla-freakin-homa
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
The constitution didnt do that until 1925 based on an amendment ratified in 1868. So the founders didnt exactly create that document. The founders didnt like a centralized tyrannical power but they were certainly ok with a local tyrannical one. You have "separation of church and state" Jefferson authoring a religions based state law that castrates gay people. What does that tel you about how the founders thought the bill of rights applied? Federalist 10 advocates against the danger of the tyranny of the majority but the solution wasnt individual rights but a representative govt.
I'd opine the Founders couldn't get the States, who until the creation of the present Constitution saw themselves as separate but equal rather than subordinate to a Central power, to sign on to a strong central government the dangerous world requires. One only needs to look at how poorly the State Militias did on the Bladensburg Plain to see how a strong central government was needed.
Now as the nation matured and faced more complex social,economic and international problems the relationship between central vs state power has been altered. The much quoted Founders abhorred a standing professional Military as the tool of a tyrant (some right wing loonies see today's domestic military maneuvers as just that) but now more rational CONs see a large and well equipped (expensive) standing army as a lynchpin in the defense of freedom.
So the old argument of what would our Founders think of a contemporary issue is rather specious. They were mostly very privileged anglo-saxon brahmin and slavery was indeed alive and well. Women were second class citizens. Voting rights highly restricted. State militias were the backbone of our national defense.
These days such arguments are apples to oranges.
Our nation is going from an exclusive society were rights were highly restricted to an inclusive society where rights are broadened as widely as possible.