Thursday, January 02, 2020

Declaration of Candidacy

My fellow citizens:

“A popular government, without popular information,” James Madison reminds us, “or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps, both.  Knowledge will forever govern ignorance:  And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

     In preparation for the Federal Convention, Madison gathered together the constitutions of the ancient republics.  They taught an important lesson.  Foreign influence was the consistent cause of their demise, and it is why we have an emoluments clause—a constitutional conflict of interest provision.

     Fear of foreign influence was such a deep concern for the Framers that it affected the method of       choosing the President of the United States.  The emoluments clause was not enough.

     The misunderstood, misrepresented, and misused Electoral College has two functions.  They are popular choice and national security.

     At the time, there was no way to reduce, as Madison noted, “the different qualifications in the different States to one uniform rule.”  (The Federalist Papers, No. 52)  A scholar elaborated:  “The electoral voting system was adopted instead of a direct voting system only because it seemed the most practicable way to give equal weights to equal masses of persons in a country where the suffrage laws varied from state to state.”  (The Electoral College by Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., xi)  But as Madison said at the Convention, the Executive “is now to be elected by the people” and as Alexander Hamilton later noted, “The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people…”  (LW, 3 & 19 and Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 69 respectively)  Thus, the original intention is clear, although the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution continues due to confusion.

     Popular choice was to be protected—for reasons of national security.

     “Nothing was more to be desired,” according to Hamilton, “than that every practicable obstacle      should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.  These most deadly adversaries of republican      government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one          quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our          councils.  How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the Chief          Magistracy of the Union?”  (The Federalist Papers, No. 68)

     “With all the infirmities incident to a popular election, corrected by the particular mode of          conducting it, as directed under the present system, I think we may fairly calculate,” said James          Madison in the House, “that  the instances will be very rare in which an unworthy man will receive    that mark of the public confidence which is required to designate the President of the United States.”  (Emphasis added.)

     “One advantage of Electors is,” Madison later explained, “although generally the mere mouths of  their constituents, they may be intentionally left sometimes to their own judgment, guided by further information that may be acquired by them: and finally, what is of material importance, they will be able, when ascertaining, which may not be till a late hour, that the first choice of their constituents is utterly hopeless, to substitute in the electoral vote the name known to be their second choice.”  (LW, 180-181)
    
     The contemporary focus on popular choice must not obscure the necessity of national security and the need to reinforce the emoluments clause.  Thus, the much maligned Electoral College is an idea whose time has come.  With the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments, there is “one uniform rule”; and with public education, the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution will be complete.  Then the Electoral College can perform the two functions for which it was designed—popular choice and national security—through the National Popular Vote.  Then  an institution that is the final check on fraud can suppress “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils…by raising a creature of their own to the Chief Magistracy of the Union.” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 68)

     President Washington reinforced the importance of the emoluments clause in his Farewell Address.

     “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the 
jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful woes for republican government.”

     National security, properly understood, is the issue.

     “It is vain,” as James Madison reminds us, “to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust those clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good.  Enlightened statesmen    will not always be at the helm.”  (The Federalist Papers, No. 10)

     While stationed overseas, a teacher asked me to speak to her high school about my proposal to 
improve our political system.  It had been made shortly before going on active duty and was inspired by Hamilton’s observation that “a power over a man’s support is a power over his will.”  (The Federalist Papers, No. 73)   Therefore three things were needed to remove the shackles—public financing of campaigns, free air time, and a strong conflict of interest provision that required officials to place their holdings in Treasury securities.  That was nearly a half century ago, and it would have reinforced the emoluments clause.  But now an adjustment is necessary—restoration of the fairness doctrine.

     I am a nobody.  But I have had enough.  I am done biding my time and biting my tongue, for I did not take the oath to witness the liquidation of the American Constitution.  Therefore I am announcing my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

     This will be a campaign unlike any other.  It costs nothing to lay out my views on the office and the issues, so send no money.  Instead, get an absentee ballot and write-in Marvin Dwayne Jones.

     To do the job, one must know the job.  And the standard is clear:  All the powers of the Presidency are to be used for the benefit of the Republic.  The Preamble lays out markers by which we measure our progress toward a shared destiny.  Ultimately, this is the end—to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

     The hour of maximum danger is upon us.  And we cannot fail to respond.  We must rise to the occasion.

     National security is about survival, and so “an improper ascendant in our councils” must be cast aside.  Then, once again, we must have a policy our allies can support and our adversaries will respect.

     America is a child of the Enlightenment, not the Dark Ages.  Knowledge is the foundation of the American Republic.  By remembering who and what we are, this nation can complete the mission Alexander Hamilton described on the first page of The Federalist Papers.

     “It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.  If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.”  (The Federalist Papers, No. 1)

(c)2020 Marvin D. Jones.  All rights reserved. 


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