The authors of the US Constitution gave detailed account of the purposes and the bases of the governmental structure which they had proposed for adoption by the People of the United States. They did this in a series of 85 essays, later collected as “The Federalist Papers.” Characteristic of their account are these remarks of James Madison in the 37th Paper:
“Among the difficulties encountered by the [Constitutional] convention, a very important one must have lain in combining the requisite stability and energy in government with the inviolable attention due to liberty and to the republican form.” And a little further on, speaking to “the vital principles of liberty”:
“[T]he genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people by a short duration of their appointments.” And elsewhere in the same paragraph:
“Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.”
In the 45th Paper the same Mr. Madison wrote:
“It is too early (this was January, 1788!) for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of govt. whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.”
In the 57th Paper Mr. Madison offered:
“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue told their public trust.” (emphasis added)
Alexander Hamilton wrote in the 27th Paper:
“I believe it may be laid down as a general rule that [the people’s] confidence in and obedience to a government will commonly be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration.”
In the very 1st Paper he warned:
“[A] dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.”
Madison, again, advised in the 41st Paper:
“[I]n every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused. … [T[herefore, … in all cases where power is to be conferred, … the next [decision to be made] would be [how] to guard as effectually as possible against a perversion of the power to the public detriment.” And in the 43rd he stated:
“In a confederacy founded on republican principles, and composed of republican members, the superintending government ought clearly to possess authority to defend the system against aristocratic or monarchical innovations.”
These statesmen, committed as they were to the project of advancing the happiness by liberty and the security by union of that portion of humanity living within the United States by means of a well-considered yet flexible constitutional structure based on the authority of the people themselves, nevertheless frontally faced the character-corrupting passions of ambition, avarice, envy, jealousy, and other forms of self-pride that infect human nature.
Although shocking, and apparently surprising, to us, the storming of the Capitol on January 6th would not have surprised them. Shay’s Rebellion, for example, was still fresh in their minds. They anticipated such incidents. They tried as best they could to barricade the country from such an uprising. They provided every motivation for the people, for the State governments, and for the national government to withstand such threats to personal liberty and governmental order: “The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the [country], provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.” (Hamilton, 28th Paper, emphasis added)
Our expectation must be that we not let this literal breach of our government remain untended. Many of the citizenry who partook of that day’s excitement likely were no more than what the counter-intelligence community refers to as witless dupes. Many others fall into the category described this way by Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, in the 43rd Paper:“I take no notice of the unhappy species of population abounding in some States, who, during the calm of regular government, are sunk below the level of men; but who, in the tempestuous scenes of civil violence, may emerge into the human character, and give a superiority of strength to any party with which they may associate themselves.” Inasmuch as they have emerged into the human character, they should be prosecuted to the extent possible.
But as to the third category of participants, elected officials of whatever party and of whatever branch or level of government, whether national, state, or local, who willingly contributed to the occurrence of the usurpative violence inflicted on the People of the United States, they should suffer the political consequence of violating their oath of office and their duty to the Constitution and to the People.
The concept that Majority Will should prevail carries with it these two caveats: that the effects of that Will be not adverse to the equal rights of other citizens; and that the privilege of all be reserved to ongoing disagreement and debate.
High public office bestows high honor and trust, and entails high responsibilities to faithfully serve—to serve not just the voters and funders who put you into office, but to serve “the permanent and aggregate interests of the community,” in the words of Madison. To “faithfully execute the office of President. . .and. . .preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Betrayal of the high honor, trust, and responsibility of high public office is the very definition of high crime and misdemeanor. That betrayal may, probably will, involve one or another statute of the very large Code of US Criminal Law. But that is a matter for the Judicial branch of government. The Constitution is the supreme Law of the land (Article VI). Betrayal of the oath of office breaches that law and is a crime against the Constitution, against the Government, against the sovereign People. That is a matter for the People’s representatives in Congress through the process of Impeachment and Trial, in the case of the President and certain others; or through the process of expulsion in cases of the two legislative houses.
That sort of betrayal rarely appears as a single act. Rather it develops as a pattern of behavior that elevates personal interest above public interests. At a point, the pattern becomes the crime, not the individual acts. The oath is a promise to do the work that will form a more perfect union, not weaken and divide it; that will establish justice, not corrupt it; that will ensure domestic tranquility, not stir up anxiety, animosity, and anger; that will provide for the common defense, not degrade our respect and authority on the world stage; that will promote the general welfare, not lay heavier chains on the poor, the sick, the downtrodden while abetting the greed and ambition of the fewest of the few; that will secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, not, in the name of profit, chew up, suck dry, lay waste, and poison this solitary home to every living creature, human or not, citizen or not, this planet Earth. At a point, We the People have to instruct our serving elected officials, “Enough is enough! This is not what we signed you up for.”
The Long Clasp 