<CENTER>Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men</CENTER>
Political parties were not mentioned in the original Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The only possible reference I can find is in the 27th Amendment, which was ratified in 1964, 173 years after the Bill of Rights. It put a stop to poll and other taxes as requirements for voting in "any primary or other election." Because of the way our system works, the word "primary" could be construed as an indirect reference to political parties. Parties are undeniably a very important part of our political system, but they are not part of our Constitutional System. Many people think political parties are good—just ask the man who owns one. On the other hand, my grandmother once told me that political parties "are not worth the powder it would take to blow them up."
So we have two views of political parties, one good, the other, bad. In their textbook, The Logic of American Politics, Samuel Kernell, Gary C. Jacobson, and Thad Kousser tell us that some others also have had contrasting views of political parties:
Scholars have proposed a variety of formal definitions of political party. Two of the most prominent stand in clear contrast to one another (except in their conventional sexism). Edmund Burke, an eighteenth-century British politician and political philosopher, defined a party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." Anthony Downs, in his modern classic An Economic Theory of Democracy, defined a party as "a team of men seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election." Although rhetorical references to principle are a staple of party politics, the American parties have displayed a shared appetite for public office a good deal more than they have for the pursuit of shared principles.
Working as a team in principled pursuit of the national interest sounds like a good thing to me. "Seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office," sounds bad to me. It could be good, of course, but that depends on who gains "control" doesn’t it? If liberti should control then principle will rule, if tyranni control then it will not rule. Thus we have liberto-parties and tyranno-parties, and as Messrs. Kernell, Jacobson, and Kousser indicate, our national parties are too often unprincipled and therefore, according to my definition, are too often tyranno-parties. The character of a political party matches the character of the humans who control it.
<CENTER>The Framers and Political Parties</CENTER>
The Framers recognized this problem, and they did everything they could to defeat tyranno-parties. They understood that any political party could become controlled by tyranni and thereby become a tyranno-party. No political party was immune then, when they were just getting organized, and none are immune today after more than two centuries of refinement. This applies to any party, Gentle Reader, including yours. But in spite of the fact that the Framers warned us about "cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men," and in spite of the fact that they omitted political parties from any functional role in the new Constitution, and in spite of the fact that the predictions of the Framers have come true, people today, including ordinary citizens, the media, political scientists and other scholars, predominantly think that political parties are a good thing, or at least a necessary thing. And some think that the Framers did not understand political parties, that they were simply wrong, or that the Framers were "dumb" and "stupid."
It is almost quaint in our modern political dialogue to hear someone called "dumb" or "stupid." Typically, more incendiary terms are used as an aid to illuminate debate. And it seems unusual for a Yale professor of law to use those two words in describing some of the Founding Fathers, in particular the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the group of Framers which, as you recall, included the illustrious Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George Washington – three men who were once thought to be about as far from "dumb" and "stupid" as it is humanly possible to be. But Bruce Ackerman, at the time Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University, did use those words in his book, The Failure of the Founding Fathers, and to complement the "Failure" from the title he threw in the following:
There was no miracle at the Philadelphia [Constitutional] Convention. In designing the presidency, the Framers made blunder after blunder – some excusable, others not.
There are some serious design flaws in the Constitution. It was split into a tyranno-Constitution and a liberto-Constitution because the liberto-Framers yielded to the demands of the pro-slavery, tyranno-Framers. But if these flaws were "blunders" they were not due to the "dumbness" or "stupidity" of the Framers. They made calculated choices and no one today can determine if they were right or wrong. Shortly after the Constitution was submitted to the states for ratification, Mr. Washington wrote his nephew, Bushrod, and said that the Constitution contained "imperfections" that would require correction by those generations who would inherit the Framers’ bequest. In the design of systems it is often impossible to do everything you would like from the very start. You usually have to make choices and do the best you can. That is what the Framers did.
But all of us today, who find ourselves ensconsed in the protections and rights that the Framers designed for us, are free to say anything we damn well please. And it must have pleased Professor Ackerman to say that the Framers were "dumb" or "stupid." Of course the Professor did not write an entire book just to insult great men. His larger purpose was to allege that the Framers failed to anticipate the Two-Party System, and that alleged failure led them to design features in the Constitution that, while ingenious to an extent, did not work well at all when put to the test in the election of 1800. In that election Thomas Jefferson won the popular vote and tied Aaron Burr in the Electoral College. Professor Ackerman uses these events to reveal how parties and the three branches of the national government were quickly evolving into the roles we now take for granted. He says:
I will be viewing the crisis [the electoral tie] as symptomatic of a much deeper constitutional transformation in American history, and one that reverberates to the present day. ... The great engine for change was the invention of recognizably democratic political parties – with Federalists and Republicans ferociously competing with each other for electoral supremacy.
I disagree with Professor Ackerman on this point. The "deeper constitutional transformation" he talks about was not "constitutional" but was extra-constitutional. Political parties were forced on the People with not so much as a "by your leave" or a constitutional amendment. We never had an election to decide if we wanted to rely on political parties indulging the evolved natures of the humans who control them. Parties simply grew up out of the natural (evolved) "propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities," and to "vex and oppress each other" rather than "to co-operate for their common good." Professor Ackerman’s phrase "ferociously competing" has a certain Darwinian ring to it, don’t you think? Wouldn’t one expect that to happen when two organizations, each led by V. tyrannis, are struggling to defeat each other? Evolution by Natural Selection is always on the job. In another place Professor Ackerman speaks of the Constitutional Convention:
I begin with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and its failure to foresee the development of democratic party competition. Following the teachings of classic republican thought, the convention equated parties with factions and considered them unmitigated evils. Two-party competition is at the core of modern democracy, but the Convention had a very different aim. It sought to create a republic that transcended faction, not a democracy in which parties rotated in office. Its complex constitutional machine aimed to encourage the selection of political notables to govern in the public interest, and to disdain the arts of faction.
His words are clear. He believes that the Framers failed in a serious way. He believes that our special form of democracy, with parties rotating in office, is superior to a republic in which parties are not in control. To the Professor, political parties are essential. Please note that the Professor is making a clear distinction between "parties" and "factions." He says that they are not the same thing.
Larry J. Sabato, founder of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, had this to say about the Framers and their attitude toward political parties:
Once avoided in their entirety by the founders and the Constitution, political parties have become the sine qua non [essential ingredient] of American democracy.
Mr. Sabato then agrees with Woodrow Wilson’s idea that political parties are "utterly essential to the operation of both elective branches." He does however observe:
Along the way, though, the constitutionally ungoverned parties have also changed to serve their own needs better—and some of these selfish purposes have begun to override those of the citizenry’s.
Mr. Sabato does point out that parties are not part of the Constitutional System. He clearly makes the point that political parties have different goals, "needs," from those of the People. He seems to be saying that the "selfish purposes" of political parties are only just now emerging, but I will wager that if he were a black man living in Georgia or Alabama in the 19th century, he would have a different idea.
Messrs. Ackerman, Sabato, and Wilson all misunderstand the Framers’ understanding of political parties. I will use references from the Federalis essays and from George Washington’s Farewell Address to give us insight into the attitude of the Framers toward political parties. The Federalist is a series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in an effort to explain the thinking behind key aspects of the proposed new Constitution in an effort to persuade the citizens of New York to ratify it. Mr. Washington published his Farewell Address in 1796 at the end of his two terms as President. He took the occasion to give future generations of Americans the benefit of his experience and wisdom. He was serious, and he should be taken seriously.
The authors of the Federalist and Mr. Washington used the term "party" in the same way that we do today. Sometimes they were talking about a "party" to a contract or a treaty and at other times they were talking about "political parties." From my standpoint a political party can be good or bad depending on its leaders. A party that is led by liberti works for the common good and is a liberto-party. A party that is led by tyranni works against the common good and is a tyranno-party. The Framers, including Mr. Washington, recognized tyranno-parties but they called them "factions." The term "faction" means the same thing now that it meant then. In Federalist 10, James Madison was kind enough to give us the definition of "faction" as it was used in the late 18th century:
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
My late 20th century dictionary has this definition for "faction":
A party, combination, or clique (as within a state, government, or other association) often contentious, self-seeking, or reckless of the common good.
So it is obvious to me that a faction is a special kind of political party: a tyranno-party. And I like Mr. Madison’s wording very much. A tyranno-party is "adversed to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." According to Mr. Madison a faction can be large or small, it can even be a majority of an entire party, thereby making it a tyranno-party.
President Washington, in his Farewell Address, predicted that political parties would eventually hurt us. Professor Ackerman called parties "engines" of change, as if change is always good. President Washington called them "engines" that could be used to do great harm. He said:
... they [tyranno-parties] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people...
Professor Ackerman accused the Framers of failing to design a "democracy in which parties rotated in office." But President Washington explains why such a design would be likely to destroy democracy. He said:
The alternate domination of one faction [tyranno-party] over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, [tyranno-party] more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
So while Professor Ackerman’s assertion that "two party competition is at the core of modern democracy" may be true, it is not the whole truth. The man who identified the Framers’ blunders has made a blunder of his own. He has failed to recognize that the core of our modern democracy is rotten. Perhaps he will someday write a new book, The Failure of Scholars to Recognize that the Founding Fathers Were Right about Political Parties.
In Federalist 10 James Madison warned us what political parties are capable of and he told us that their propensity for acting against the common good is caused by the nature of man. He said:
The latent causes of faction [tyranno-parties] are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
I think Mr. Madison was describing political parties under the control of V. tyrannis. And I think that our political parties have been controlled by V. tyrannis almost from the beginning. "Mutual animosity" describes perfectly the interplay between Republicans and Democrats today. A "zeal" for religion affects much of our political life now. "Contending for power" is what political parties, and tyranni, do, and should they win power, they immediately work to keep and increase it, and they are free to choose the method.
So it is not hard to see why the Framers did not include political parties in the Constitution. They hoped we would avoid them. In the Federalist essays the authors used "faction" more than fifty times by my count. The following quotations are from various essays and they illustrate how well the Framers understood this special form of political party. I think it will be clear that the Framers regarded "factions" as a great threat to our liberty.
I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind—those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions [tyranno-parties] and convulsions.
The army under such circumstances may usefully aid the magistrate to suppress a small faction [tyranno-party], or an occasional mob, or insurrection; ...
A FIRM [sic] Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction [tyranno-parties] and insurrection.
... to suppress faction [tyranno-parties] and to guard the internal tranquility of States
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction [tyranno-parties].
But the most common and durable source of factions [tyranno-parties] has been the various and unequal distribution of property.
The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction [tyranno-parties] in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction [tyranno-party] ...
A spirit of faction [tyranno-party], which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.
A successful faction [tyranno-party] may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law, ...
The history of almost all the great councils and consultations held among mankind for reconciling their discordant opinions, assuaging their mutual jealousies, and adjusting their respective interests, is a history of factions [tyranno-parties], contentions, and disappointments, and may be classed among the most dark and degraded pictures which display the infirmities and depravities of the human character.
The people of America may be warmly attached to the government of the Union, at times when the particular rulers of particular States, stimulated by the natural rivalship [sic] of power, and by the hopes of personal aggrandizement, and supported by a strong faction [tyranno-party] in each of those States, may be in a very opposite temper.
Though this latter supposition may seem harsh, and might not be likely often to be verified, yet it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction [tyranno-party] will, at certain seasons, extend his scepter over all numerous bodies of men.
... calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction [tyranno-party], precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, ...
... fear that the pestilential breath of faction [tyranno-party] may poison the fountains of justice.
The foregoing is only fifteen of the more than fifty references to "factions," or tyranno-parties, to be found in the Federalist essays. If one takes the time to read the full discussion of these examples and the other such references in the Federalist I think it will be impossible to conclude anything other than that the Framers understood the significance of political parties, and they knew them to be dangerous. It is just that simple. Some scholars who I have read seem to dismiss "faction" as something other than a political party. But that is not what the Framers had in mind. All one has to do is read and think – and have an open mind. The blind assumption that political parties are the best way, or even a good way, to organize our democracy is, to use the words of Professor Ackerman, "dumb" and "stupid."