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Vanishing Landmarks. Shaw Leslie Mortier
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Автор произведения Shaw Leslie Mortier
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CHAPTER IV
EXPECTATIONS REALIZED
The capacity of the people to select representatives wiser than their constituents illustrated by historic facts.
America has passed through several crises, and each time has been saved because the people’s representatives were wiser than the people. In this respect, the expectation of the Fathers has been realized. I will mention but three instances.
During the Civil War the government resorted to the issuance of paper currency, commonly called greenbacks. While conservative people assumed that these greenbacks would be redeemed whenever the government was able, nevertheless, there being no express provision for their redemption, they went to depreciation, and passed from hand to hand far below par. All this resulted in inflation which inevitably led to a period of depression.
In this connection it is well to remember that whenever we have had a period of depression, and whenever we shall have such a period, there always has been and ever will be a group of people with a panacea for our ills. During the period referred to, a political party, calling itself the “Greenback Party,” came into existence and advocated the issuance of an indefinite volume of irredeemable paper currency which, in their ignorance, they called “money.” The specious argument was to the effect that when “money” can be made on a printing press, it is silly to have less than enough. They expressly advocated issuing all the currency the people could use without making any provision for its retirement. Whenever the people wanted more, they proposed to print more.
Fully seventy-five percent of the American people, without regard to political affiliation, favored some phase or degree of “greenbackism.” While much of this sentiment failed of crystallization, quite a number of congressmen were elected on that issue. If the direct primary law, with which most of the states are now cursed, had been in force at that time, it is probable that no man could have been nominated for Congress, by any party, who was not avowedly in favor of inflation by some method. But the people were saved from themselves exactly as the Fathers had anticipated. The representatives of the people, being wiser than the people, refused the people what most of them desired and gave them what they needed, resumption of specie payment.
Again, in the ’90’s we had a period of depression, and the panacea then recommended was the free and unlimited coinage of silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1 with gold. The difference between “greenbackism” and “free silverism” was simply one of degree. The greenbacker desired the government to print the dollar mark on a piece of paper, thus producing currency one hundred percent fiat, while the free silverite asked that the government stamp the dollar mark upon a piece of silver, thus producing currency fifty percent fiat.
Fully nine-tenths of the American people desired the free and unlimited coinage of silver. William McKinley, willing as he was to run for president on a gold standard platform in 1896, when in Congress had voted for a clean-cut free silver measure. The lower house of Congress actually passed a free silver bill. But, exactly as the Fathers expected, the people’s representatives in the Senate, wiser than the people who had placed them there, refused the people what ninety percent of them wanted and gave them what one hundred percent needed – sound money.
Outside of Russia, there is scarcely a man in all the world who would now recommend the issuance of irredeemable paper currency, what three-fourths of the American people wanted in the ’70’s; and there is not more than one man in all the world who would now recommend the free coinage of silver, what four-fifths of the American people wanted in the ’90’s.
The direct primary in 1896 would have nominated a free silver republican, and a free silver democrat in each and every congressional district of the United States, and we would have had a solid free silver House. If the United States senators had been then elected by the people, preceded by a direct primary, the Senate of the United States would have been solidly for free silver; and we would have passed, as everyone now recognizes, to financial ruin. We were saved, because the United States of America was a republic and not a democracy – because, if you please, we had representative and not direct government.
More recently, Germany and the Central Powers made war upon the United States. This they continued for more than two years. Finally, the President, in his message of April 2, 1917, advised Congress to “declare the course of the Imperial German Government to be, in fact, nothing less than war against the country and the people of the United States.” A resolution to that effect was thereupon passed on April 6, 1917.
If the proposition of going to war with Germany had been submitted to a direct vote of the American people, under a referendum, they would have voted against it, two to one, and in many localities and cities, four to one. Again we were saved, because we had a republican and not a democratic form of government. We were saved because our representatives proved wiser than their constituents.
CHAPTER V
INDEPENDENCE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE
The effect of popular instructions to representatives discussed and illustrated.
The Fathers never intended that the people should legislate, interpret the laws or administer justice. They did provide, however, that the people should choose their legislators, their judges and their executives. They sought also to render impossible any interference with the independence of these representatives. Judges are not expected to inquire of bystanders how questions of law shall be decided, or what decrees shall be rendered, or what punishments imposed.
The Fathers did not anticipate that executives would hold their ears so close to the ground as to become nests for crickets. I do not mean to be understood, however, as intimating that the buzzing of insects has never been mistaken for the voice of the people. Members of the House and the Senate were not supposed to conform to Dooley’s definition of a statesman: “One who watches the procession until he discovers in which direction it is moving and then steals the stick from the drum major.” The Fathers expected officials to be as independent of the voters who select them as officers of a corporation are independent of stockholders.
In proof that Washington did not consider the delegates to the Constitutional Convention bound to follow the wishes of the people they represented I cite what Gouverneur Morris quotes him as saying: “It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.”
Suppose the state should engage in banking. A doorkeeper, a bookkeeper and a president would be necessary. But if the president sought instruction from the street, the bank would be short-lived. If a body of stockholders were to enter a bank, as now operated, and demand a loan without security, either for themselves or for some needy fellow creature, the president would probably say, “You can have another president any day you please, but while I am president, you will furnish collateral.” Otherwise, there would be no bank.
L. Q. C. Lamar used to say to his constituents: “If you desire me to represent you in Congress, I will do so.” Then, with becoming dignity and in absolute harmony with the principles of the republic, as established by the Fathers, he would add, “But do not, for a moment, suppose you can stand between the plow handles during the day and tell me how to vote.” Evidently Mr. Lamar expected to study public questions and to be better informed than his average constituent.
Later, the legislature, recognizing his ability, sent him to the United States Senate. Here he opposed greenback legislation which was favorably considered by the people of Mississippi. Thereupon the legislature passed a resolution demanding either that he vote in harmony with the sentiment of his state, or resign. He refused to do either, but continued to speak, and to vote his convictions based on knowledge. Before his term expired, the wisdom of his course was recognized and he was re-elected to the Senate by the very men who had sought to direct his action in a matter wherein they had no jurisdiction and he had supreme responsibility, and concerning which they knew nothing, while he knew much.
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