The Impact of the U.S. Constitution on American Democracy Extra points for satisfaction!!!! Urgent !!!!!!

The U.S. Constitution - the most shameless myth ever perpetrated by mankind

A. From the myth makers

There have always been some "myths" surrounding the creation of the U.S. Constitution. At present, the domestic intellectual circles of the United States Constitution, those who are highly respected "inherited" and efforts to fabricate these "myths" are still.

The first "point of view", American constitutional historians call "Bancroft School", or "God and Goddess School". This school of people as long as the U.S. Constitution, immediately from the inner thoughts to the shape of the words are full of sacred meaning, that the U.S. Constitution "is due to a nation under the leadership of God's special spiritual endowment of the product". In Bancroft's words, the emergence of the U.S. Constitution can be seen as "the activity of the divine power that unifies the universe and brings order and relevance to events." Moreover, from the emergence of the U.S. Constitution, also proved that a "god and goddess": "No matter how many people force that there is no power over mankind, but history has proved that tyranny and injustice will come to an end, and freedom and justice, even if they are violently destroyed, will not be able to resist! ...... The Savior of the nations is alive."

The second view is what historians call the "Teutonic" school. This school of thought argues that the Teutonic people never had a unique political talent. After invading England and destroying the last vestiges of the old Roman and British culture, this people set a model for the world in the development of "liberal" politics; the heirs of this fine people went on to colonize the United States of America, and then to reapply their political genius to the creation of the U.S. Constitution. The current arrogance of Americans and the "favoritism" of foreign admirers of the U.S. Constitution is related to this view.

In the U.S., the devout "deists" and "Teutonists" of constitutional history are often the imperialists of interest groups, whose writings have been derided by historians in the U.S. as "not so much in the study of history as in the study of history, but rather in the study of history. Instead of studying history, they write religious hymns in church choirs, and you can't tell them the truth about what annoys them."

Of course there are politicians who write hymns about the U.S. Constitution. But they themselves simply don't believe what they themselves say in public. For example, Marshall, the first U.S. justice, filled his speeches on the Constitution with sanctimonious words, but in his masterpiece, "The Life of George Washington," he indirectly wrote that the Constitution was the most important part of the United States. Life of George Washington, he indirectly recognized that the Constitution of the United States is nothing more than a product of dirty and nasty political power struggles.

The secrets revealed by the pen of the American founders

So what kind of perspective should be used to examine the history of the U.S. Constitution? In fact, no one else knows more about the nature of the U.S. Constitution than Madison, the Founder of the U.S. Constitution and a former Confederate President. Madison in the "Federalist Papers" on the U.S. Constitution, said: "the human capacity for property as the source of the right to property this disparity of capacity is human tendency to the interests of the same an unsurpassed obstacle. The protection of these capacities is the first object of government. The protection of unequal capacities for acquiring property has at once given rise to different degrees and kinds of property ownership; and the effect of these things on the sentiments and perceptions of individual property owners has divided society into different interest groups and parties. ...... The most general and enduring cause of factionalism has been the difference and inequality in the distribution of property. inequality in the distribution of property. Those who own property and those who do not have it have always formed opposing interest groups in society. The reconciliation of these different and intricate interests has become the chief task of modern legislation, and has pervaded the spirit of partisanship which participates in necessary and unusual political activities."

According to Madison, the emergence of the U.S. Constitution must be explained through the lens of the struggle between interest groups. The renowned American historian Charles B. Beard captured this line of thinking of Madison and wrote An Economic View of the American Constitution. This book is committed to answering such a question: "in the United States behind the emergence of the Constitution, in fact, what interest groups in the struggle? What interests actually grew as a result of the struggle?"

Beard's work was so groundbreaking that it created a furor in the study of American constitutional history. There are those who favor it and those who oppose it. Whether for or against his point of view, all recognize the fact that Beard's results make the study of U.S. constitutional history from a number of "myths" freed, and really back to the position of realism.

As another constitutional historian, Bruce Ackerman, has written in The New Federalist Party, he is a great scholar of American constitutional history. As another constitutional historian, Bruce Ackerman, puts it in The New Federalists, "In the study of American constitutional history, Charles Beard, along with other Progressive historians, has been a major contributor. Beard, along with other Progressive historians, has cast a huge figure. For Beard tells us that 'whoever wants to set aside the pressures of economics in history or in the discussion of public **** issues is in mortal danger of substituting mystical reason for truth, of stirring up the issues rather than clearing them up.'"

Since the U.S. Constitution is the result of a struggle of interests between interest groups, it is natural that the regulation of property rights is a central issue of the Constitution. And since the Framers were all proletarians at the time, the property rights of the proletarians are inherently fragile in a country where "the majority will eventually become proletarians." (Madison's words), "This vulnerability became the focus of the Framers' attention to the threat of the tyranny of the majority," and so "the basic task of the Framers was to devise a form of government that was based on * * * and principle, but that ensured the security of the property of the minority."

Thus, the central question of the U.S. Constitution is how to protect the property of the propertied, a point that no true constitutional researcher can deny. In this regard, Beard says, "The U.S. Constitution is really an economic document, and the central issue is the regulation of property rights." Jennifer B. Nedelsky, in American Constitutionalism and the Paradox of Private Property Rights, also says, "The Framers' preoccupation with the question of the protection of property rights was the source of some of their deepest insights, as well as the source of the Constitution's major strengths and most serious weaknesses."

3. The Historical Truth About the Creation of the U.S. Constitution - A Blatant Coup Against Liberal Democracy by Interest Groups

1. The Interest Groups Desperately Needed a Highly Centralized and Powerful Central Government

(The most shameless lie of all: that the U.S. Constitution was designed to diminish the power of the government and to expand the power of private liberty)

During the American Revolution, the government financed part of the cost of the war by issuing bonds to the proles. According to a report by Hamilton, by the end of the war, the entire outstanding public debt amounted to a whopping $76 million. However, under the conditions at that time, the Central Government simply could not afford to repay the debt. Because under the "Constitution" of the time, the Articles of Confederation, the 13 states were only loosely connected, and the central government had only a unicameral legislature, no executive branch, and no judiciary. The central government had no power to regulate commerce in any way and no power to levy taxes directly. Precisely because of the lack of power of the central government, there is no possibility of raising money to pay the principal and interest of the bondholders.

The only way seems to be that the central government can directly levy taxes to pay the debt. Under the Articles of Confederation, this was not only illegal, but conflicted with the interests of the state legislatures. For under the Articles of Confederation, only the states had the right to levy taxes. But again, the states were apparently unwilling to pay off the national public debt, i.e., the Continental Bonds, even with respect to the public debt that should have been paid off by the states. Because state legislatures were elected by the states, legislators were more concerned with the attitudes of their constituents. If the burden is shifted to the citizens of the state because of the repayment of the public debt, making more citizens debtors, the legislators will face very serious consequences.

Watching the huge amount of bonds in their hands go up in smoke, the bondholders quickly organized themselves into an interest***somebody. Madison called it "creditor group". This interest group realized that the key problem of their private property could not be protected is the lack of a strong central government. To create a strong central government, the old Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, had to be repealed.

To achieve the goal of constitutional change, this huge group of interests engaged in various forms of lobbying and collusion. High-ranking Revolutionary War officers among them even started an organization, the "Cincinnati Society," which threatened to start a revolution by force if the Constitution was not changed soon.

The creditor groups also united with the rising business groups. This worked to the advantage of both sides. For the rising industrial and commercial groups, under the original Articles of Confederation, because of the weakness of the central government, unable to collect tariffs, and therefore unable to provide effective protection for the rising industrial and commercial groups in competition with British industry and commerce, and even their merchant ships on the sea voyage because of the absence of a strong government army to protect and repeatedly looted, therefore, the industrial and commercial groups themselves also look forward to a strong central government; and for the creditor groups, the central government will also be able to protect them. As for the creditor groups, if the central government under the new constitution adopts the policy of tariff protection, the tariff will become one of the great sources of finance for the central government, and thus the central government will be in a better position to pay off the public debt.

It is also worth mentioning the landowning class. Many of them were themselves the original holders of the public debt, who had exchanged it for land. And since land was also devalued by a weak central government under the Articles of Confederation, the landowners also wanted a strong central government through a change in the Constitution.

After a series of preparations, not without intrigue (which will be described later), the creditor elite finally succeeded in convening a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in February 1787, and then again, through "twists and turns," in getting a new Constitution adopted. And the new Constitution really reflects the interests of creditors, the state must be expropriated for the principle of full compensation for private property as the core principle of the protection of private property written into the Constitution, so that the new federal central government for the creditors to compensate enough to provide the highest legal basis. This is why the U.S. Constitution does not have a private property protection clause but only a forfeiture compensation clause.

To better illustrate that the new Constitution merely reflected the interests of the public-debt holders and related groups, it is useful to contextualize the interests of the 54 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, now known as the "Founding Fathers of the United States."

According to Beard, of the 54 delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, more than 40 are now documented as holders of public debt. Of these, 25 held large public debts or had relatives who held large public debts (more than $5,000), more than 14 owned large quantities of real estate, and more than 35 were emerging industrial and commercial magnates. Many of them have a triple identity.

An interesting fact in the distribution of delegates to the Constitutional Convention is that more than one delegate from each state owned large amounts of public debt. As a result, Biddle said, "so they could make a painful argument for a full repayment of the public debt above the Constitution."

It is necessary here to mention Madison, another key figure in the framing of the U.S. Constitution. From what is available, this strong advocate of federal government was the only Framer who has yet to be found to hold a public debt or to own land and other chattels. Ironically, however, in the new government formed after the adoption of the new Constitution, "the ingenuity of politicians and speculators made Madison abhor the party in power, and finally drove him into opposition." In a July 1791 letter to President Jefferson, Madison wrote angrily, "It is very plain that the class of men upon whom the national debt depends, are the same class of characters who hold the country in their hands, and by whom the people of the United States are to be governed. It is a matter of extreme human shame that the same class of legislators who have been most active in promoting this program are openly seizing its profits."

The efforts of the Framers were not in vain; not only did they receive, as expected, adequate compensation from the federal government for their public bonds under the new Constitution, but they also made a fortune because they used the anticipation of the new Constitution to buy and sell public bonds. According to a U.S. Treasury Department statistic, "As a result of the adoption of the Constitution and the establishment of a solid financial system, the holders of public bonds made a minimum of $40 million, and this does not take into account the large profits made from the manipulation of the securities after the formation of the government, and especially after the establishment of the New York Stock Exchange in 1792."

This history also touches on another myth about the U.S. Constitution created by some in the Chinese intelligentsia: that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution was designed to reduce the power of the government and expand the freedom of private individuals. In fact, on the contrary, the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended it to create a strong centralized government with a high degree of centralization.

2. The will of interest groups must be turned into the U.S. Constitution

(1), brutally depriving the people of their right to speak to the Constitution

A certain member of the Chinese intelligentsia once wrote passionately that "the U.S. Constitution guarantees that the federal government is a government of the people, and that its powers are delegated by the people, and that it naturally represents all the people, and is owned by the people. It naturally works on behalf of and for all the people, what Abraham Lincoln called government of the people, by the people, and for the people".

To say that the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom and democracy is a gross understatement. On the contrary, it guarantees the power of minority interests from the very beginning of the process, which corresponds to the interests of the group of holders of the public debt of the government of the day.

First of all, when the Federalists were discussing voting on the Constitution, they gave all sorts of reasons for excluding "the majority of the people".

Madison warned the framers of the Constitution that "the proletarians of the United States may be said to be the first safe trustees of * * * and of the liberties of the country for the sake of interest alone. And the majority of the people will have not only no property in land, but no property of any kind. They will be united under the influence of the * * * same circumstances; and on such occasions the rights of property and national liberty will not remain lambless in their hands. Or they will become the instruments of the rich or ambitious, which is the more probable; and on such occasions the danger is precisely the same."

Another key promoter of the constitutional movement, General Knox, holder of a huge public debt, wrote in an epistle to Washington, discussing Shays' Rebellion and the need for a constitution, "The people have never paid anything, but a very small tax at most. But they saw the weakness of the government; they felt their own poverty and their own strength directly in contrast to their wealth, and they determined to use their strength to save themselves from poverty. His creed was: 'The property of the United States was wrested from the English by the joint efforts of all * * *, and therefore it must become the property of all * * *.' Opposition to this creed is the enemy of equality and justice, and must be swept from the face of the earth.' In short, they are determined to cancel the debts of both public and private ...... such people as can form desperate and unscrupulous groups ...... As soon as they have gone so far, we shall not fail to meet with a revolt against reason, against all political principles, and even against the name of liberty! rebellion against reason, against all political principles, and even against the name of liberty. What can be done to avert the rapacity of the lawless, when this dreadful circumstance has threatened every principled and property-holding person in New England? Our government must be strengthened, reformed, or changed, if our lives and property are to be preserved."

Secondly, in order to exclude the "majority of the people" from the process of constitution-making, the leaders of the constitutional movement painstakingly devised an electoral system marked by property.

To avoid popular participation, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention -- the vast majority of whom were holders of the public debt -- operated in state legislatures, so that delegates would be appointed by the state legislatures rather than elected by the states. To limit public participation even further, the states, at the urging of the leaders of the constitutional movement, imposed a property restriction on voters and state legislators in 1787. This restriction set a minimum property limit for voters and state legislators to qualify. New Hampshire, for example, required that a person be a Protestant and own real estate valued at 200 pounds, while Massachusetts required that a person own real estate valued at 300 pounds or more or chattels valued at 600 pounds or more. The other states have similar property requirements for qualifying as a candidate for election to the legislature. States also have property requirements for voter eligibility. Massachusetts, for example, provides that only men with an annual income of ￡3 or more and real estate valued at ￡60 or more are entitled to vote; Connecticut provides that a voter must own real estate valued at 40 shillings or chattels valued at 40 pounds. New York State has the most stringent rule, providing that only men with real estate of 100 pounds or more are eligible to vote.

In addition to the property restrictions, there were other traditional qualification restrictions for voting eligibles. Through these restrictions, four interest groups were excluded from the constitutional movement: i) the majority of men who were ineligible to vote under the property standards set by state constitutions and laws; ii) indentured servants; iii) slaves; and iv) disenfranchised women who suffered legal discrimination. Thus, "about three-fourths of the adult men in the constitutional movement did not vote on the question," and "no more than one-sixth of the adult men may have voted."

How can such a constitutional process ensure that the Constitution represents the interests of all the people? Thus, says Beard, at best it reflected the interests of a few proletarians, but "they succeeded in cajoling the general populace into accepting a system of government designed to favor a prominent few."

(2) The Crude Exclusion of State Legislatures from the Constitutional Process

There is another issue at stake here, in that the leaders of the Constitutional Movement, in addition to excluding "a majority of the people," had to exclude the proponents of the old Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, as well. The leaders of the constitutional movement had to exclude, in addition to the "majority of the people," the proponents of the old Constitution, the Articles of Confederation. The biggest advocates were, naturally, the state legislatures, the beneficiaries of the greatest powers granted under the Articles of Confederation.

Under the Articles of Confederation at the time, any changes to the Constitution could only be made with the unanimous consent of the 13 state legislatures, the convening of a constitutional convention, and a unanimous vote of the 13 state legislatures. Obviously, under the Articles of Confederation, it was impossible for the leaders of the constitutional movement to achieve their goals. In order to avoid the constraints of the old Constitution, the leaders of the Constitutional Movement engaged in a series of "schemes". They first operated in the Virginia General Assembly, which invited the states to send delegates to the Annapolis Convention to discuss the trade and commerce system of the United States. After the meeting a proposal was made to Congress, under Hamilton's influence, to call another convention "for the purpose of consulting upon such further steps as may be necessary to contribute to the constitution of the federal government, and to overcome the crisis of the Confederacy." In response to this very modest proposal, Congress in February 1787 invited the states to send delegates to the Philadelphia Convention "for the sole and urgent purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation." And because of "the negligence, ignorance, and indifference of the masses, and the belief of the state legislatures that they could exercise the final decision by the power of ratification," enthusiastic members of the constitutional movement in the state legislatures turned out to be delegates to both of these conventions.

What the state conventions never expected was that the Philadelphia Convention would end on September 17, 1787, with the framers of the new Constitution stripping the state legislatures of their power of final decision. According to the delegates' recommendation to Congress, the Constitution was instead to be voted on by the delegates to the state conventions, who were reelected by the states, and not by the state legislatures. At the same time, the delegates went on to recommend that the new constitution be adopted if nine states ratified it. This entire procedure was a departure from the Articles of Confederation of the U.S. Constitution at the time.

(3) The use of the dirtiest, most despicable, and most criminal tactics to pass a new constitution

The leaders of the Constitutional movement did more than restrict the right to vote in order to eliminate the opposition of the majority of the people. There were other, even dirtier and nastier practices in the constitutional process.

First, the question of whether to call a constitutional convention was not put to a vote. Instead, the leaders of the constitutional movement, through the Virginia General Assembly, convened a meeting of state delegates to "discuss the trade and commercial system of the United States," known as the Annapolis Convention. From this conference came an initiative to call for another conference "to contribute to the constitution of the federal government by discussing further steps necessary to overcome the crisis of the Confederacy," the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention.

Second, the Constitution was not put to a vote of the people. It was not, of course, voted on by the state legislatures that opposed it, but by what the leaders of the constitutional movement called a "convention of state delegates". That is, voters elected delegates to a convention of delegates outside the state legislatures, who then voted on the Constitution.

The anti-constitutionalists initially still outnumbered the constitutionalists in the ratification vote by a convention of state delegates elected by less than one-sixth of the adult male population.

In order to achieve the goal of getting the Constitution adopted, the leaders of the Constitutional movement used a number of nefarious tactics that today would seem to be very dirty, nasty, and despicable in the extreme.

First, in the allocation of delegates, more delegates were allocated to districts where the "constitutionalists" outnumbered the "anti-constitutionalists"; and more delegates were allocated to districts where the "anti-constitutionalists" outnumbered the "constitutionalists". Districts in which "constitutionalists" outnumber "anti-constitutionalists" are allocated fewer delegates. For example, in New York State, New York City, with a population of only 33,000, was allotted nine delegates, while Columbia, with a population almost equal to that of New York State, was allotted only three delegates.

Second, election bribery was used. Based on the popular vote count, the anti-constitutionalists elected more delegates in New York State than the constitutionalists, even through the allocation of delegates favored the "constitutionalists." The popular vote was clearly unfavorable to the Constitutionalists. In this situation, the Constitutionalists bribed the Anti-Constitutionalists by allocating bonds. In New York State, the Constitution was finally adopted by a vote of 30 to 27, and three figures in the Anti-Constitutionalists-John B. DeWitt, John D. Bowie, and John D. Bowie-were not able to vote for the Constitution. DeWitt, John B. Smith and Melancthon B. Smith were the ones who became Constitutionalists by accepting huge bonds from the Constitutionalists.

In addition, it is important to take into account the reality that "talent, wealth and expertise belonged to the side of the constitutionalists". And these people were concentrated in the cities, where they could organize themselves well and build momentum in propaganda and public opinion. "They were fully aware of the value of the new Constitution, and only a small portion of the huge profits to be gained from the later multiplication of bonds would be enough to pay for propaganda and election bribery". The Anti-Constitutionalists, on the other hand, "had all the difficulties of knowing that the adoption of the new Constitution would be to their detriment, but they had to deal with the tricks of the Constitutionalists, and at the same time they had no money to spend on the campaign, and they were poor and unheard of - the strongest contingent was not on their side. And yet, strangely enough, they still almost beat the Constitution in terms of voting numbers."

On this point, Marshall, a Justice of the Confederation who had been involved in the entirety of the Constitutional movement and played a major role after the formation of the federal government, acknowledged in his Life of George Washington. The Life of George Washington, admits, "In some of the States the two factions were evenly divided, so that even after a considerable time of discussion the fate of the Constitution was not yet known. In many states, too, the 'majority' in favor was so small in number that there was good reason to believe that the Constitution would not have been adopted without human influence. There is no doubt that the majority of the people in the states that passed were also opposed to the Constitution. The many amendments proposed by the states show the extreme reluctance with which they accepted the new form of government."

IV. Commentary of American Historians - The Result of a Reactionary Coup Planned by Interest Groups

Historian John Burgess has said that the Philadelphia Constitution was the result of a reactionary coup d'état orchestrated by interest groups. Burgess once said that the Philadelphia Convention "was so bad that if Julius or Napoleon had done it, the delegates themselves would have declared it a coup d'état on the spot!"

Another political scientist, Bruce Ackerman, said, "It's a good thing that the delegates are not in the same boat. Ackerman, on the other hand, says, "After a summer of secret meetings, the architects of the Constitution not only declared that 'We the People' wanted to scrap the first U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, but also drew up for ratification, in a blatantly illegal manner, a new Constitution that they had made in the name of 'The People'. ' in the name of the new proclamation ...... What exactly justified the Framers in claiming that this unconstitutional practice might give them the right to represent the people in preference to the existing government? It now appears that the first great merit of the Federalist Papers is that it does not permit us to regard this authoritative declaration as the result of a reactionary coup d'état waged by a conspiracy."

Thus, the process by which the U.S. Constitution came into being was not only undemocratic and unrepresentative of the people, but also not "constitutional" at all, since it was an outright coup d'état against liberal democracy with respect to the original U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation.

V. The Big Lie: "The Sanctity of Private Property"

An interesting fact is that the U.S. Constitution does not have a specific "Property Clause", but only the so-called "Confiscation Clause" and "Confiscation of Property". There is only the so-called "Forfeiture Clause" and the "Compensation Clause". In the U.S. Constitution does not have the so-called "principle of the sanctity of private property" advocated by some people in the Chinese intelligentsia, but only in Article V of the Constitution, which provides that: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to prove his own guilt, nor be deprived of his life without due process of law, No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; and no private property shall be taken into public possession without just compensation." This provision is therefore also known as the "compensation clause".

So where did the "sanctity of private property" come into play? It was in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, issued at the time of the French Revolution in 1789, which summarized human rights as "liberty, property, security, and the right to resist oppression". Article 17 of the Declaration also declares that "property is a sacred and inviolable right". When some members of the Chinese intelligentsia criticized China for taking a zigzag course by "following the example of Russia and rejecting Europe and America" and claimed that "the legacy of the French Revolution is the root cause of all the evils of the twentieth century", they were advocating for the "right to freedom" and "the right to life". "When they advocate the constitutionalization of the protection of private property, they are actually inheriting the legacy of the French Revolution.

And the French also had a revision of this "legacy". 1793, June 24, France established a new constitution, known as the "French Constitution of 1793". This Constitution renamed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 as the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was the general outline of the Constitution and became part of the "French Constitution of 1793". However, the phrase "the sanctity of property" was deleted and replaced by the phrase "Article 19 of the Constitution", which reads: "Except when legally recognized as necessary for public needs, and under conditions of fair and prior compensation, the smallest part of any person's property shall not be used for the benefit of the public without the benefit of the public, or without the benefit of the public, or without the benefit of the public. shall not be deprived of the smallest part of his property without his consent." Rather like the Confiscation Clause in the US Constitution.

It is also worth pointing out that the interpretation and application of the U.S. Constitution's property rights protections are in flux. This has to do with the clause itself. In this regard, Jennifer B. Nedelsky has insight. She writes: "In the U.S. constitutional system, property rights draw the line between protected individual liberty and the legitimate scope of government power. But this line has manifested itself in practice in a constantly shifting permeability. The concept of property rights - as a symbol of stability and security - has undergone a near-dissolution. While the right to property still retains its core value as the foundation of American liberty, it has lost its traditional constitutional status." And the fundamental reason for the changing concept of property rights lies in the paradox of the Constitution itself: according to Federalist Madison's theory, three kinds of rights should be protected equally: property, personal and political rights. "And the inevitably unequal distribution of property means that property and human rights will not be equally protected if all people have political rights equally." It is also because of the quest for equality of political rights, the "principle of justice," that "the sanctity of private property is inevitably violated." Moreover, in constitutional trials of property rights violations in the United States, the conception of private property rights has tended to "incorporate more of the values of justice" the more prominent the social conflict has been.

In the United States, there is also a constant struggle for compromise between the principles of private property protection and social justice.