Laws and men
In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.
John Adams, Massachusetts Constitution (1780)
… in America, THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Now the rule of law has two defects, each of which suggests the need for one-man rule. The first is that law is […] inferior to the living intelligence of a wise man on the spot, who can judge particular circumstances.
The other defect is that the law does not know how to make itself obeyed. Law assumes obedience, and as such seems oblivious to resistance to the law by the “governed,” as if it were enough to require criminals to turn themselves in. No, the law must be “enforced,” as we say. There must be police, and the rulers over the police must use energy (Alexander Hamilton’s term) in addition to reason. […]
The best source of energy turns out to be the same as the best source of reason–one man.
Harvey C. Mansfield, “The Case for the Strong Executive:
Under some circumstances, the rule of law must yield to the need for energy.”
Wall Street Journal Editorial page (2007)
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
James Madison, Federalist, number 47.
The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, [a ban on torture] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power […]
[The President] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a U.S. congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.
Associated Press, April 26, 2007
The framers of the Constitution had learned the lesson. They were not only students of history, but victims of it; they knew from vivid, personal experience that freedom depends on effective restraints against the accumulation of power in a single authority. And that is what the Constitution is: a system of restraints against the natural tendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism.
Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
American conservatism has completely lost its way. It is no longer about reason; it is about fervor. It is no longer about principle; it is a personality cult. It is no longer about country; it is about faction. It is a big problem.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Don’t confuse conservatism with the Republican party. Remember that political parties are in the business of winning more elections than the other party, not defending ideals. Besides, if I was a power-grabbing enemy of of the little guy’s liberties, why wouldn’t I name my movement something that sounded like I loved the little guy? How many countries with “democratic” in their name are democratic?
For an alternative perspective on traditional American conservative values, check out:
http://www.amazon.com/Look-Homeward-America-Reactionary-Radicals/dp/1932236872
I don’t agree with everything in it, but any conservative book that “saints” a Democratic Senator (D. Patrick Moynahan) and lauds the virtue of Mother Jones is worth looking into.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Granted. I have a rock-ribbed conservative friend who floored me by telling me he’d donated money to Hillary Clinton as a tolerable alternative to Republicanism. However, the word “liberal” has shifted its (American) meaning twice in the past hundred years (first from a classical liberalism not horribly different from the editorial position of The Economist, next from Roosevelt/Truman liberalism). Old-style conservatives may have to rebrand themselves, just as liberals have become “progressives” to distinguish themselves from the talking-points bogeyman.
Alternately, if those people who claim to hold to old-style Burke/Chesterton conservatism continue to do no more than complain only in whispers and only in private about Bushism/DeLayism, they’ll just have to get used to being lumped in with betrayers of what’s good about conservatism.
For conservatives to take the word back, they’ll have to take their Party back, and they’re too cowed to do that.