On Statesmen And Scoundrels
From our vantage point in 2021, it’s apparent the federal government is heading toward a precipice. Sadly, it obscures the profound wisdom of the fifty-five men who sat in the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. They understood that a new constitution had to be crafted to provide for a national government with balanced power. They disagreed about the form of the institutions that would properly exercise that power. The fiercest controversies revolved over two major issues: distribution of power between the state governments and the national government, and the composition of the national legislature. Could they have envisioned the brutal power …