Thanks for the recommendation. I just read the link and I think I might need to pick that one up.

http://www.javelinpress.com/hologram_of_liberty.html

Steve – I really need to question your use of the phrase “out-of-balance capitalism”. The cause of this entire mess we find ourselves in has been Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two entities of government whose mission has been to “un-learn” the lessons of credit and the Great Depression. To the extent that our capitalist system is ill and out-of-balance, it is so because we failed to heed the warnings of the Anti-Federalists.

The right solution would be to now heed their advice and find away to transition to a post Fannie/Freddie economy. Sadly, with the two parties in charge now, this won’t happen. Of course, that’s another warning from the Founding Fathers we failed to heed…

The Constitution is a pretty good document. I would point out, though, that Madison and Hamilton both envisioned the end of individual state sovereignty. They wanted a national government that had wide-ranging powers that would allow such things as the federal government to flat out veto state laws, etc. Many of the positive features of the Constitution were wrought by those who were trying desperately to retain the powers and character of individual States while still centralizing some functions. As an example, Madison’s original plan asked for direct election of Senators, as well as for them to be apportioned via population rather than equally. He didn’t want the States to be a brake on the power of the central government. Hamilton, in my opinion, was even farther down the line. He was a national-greatness empire builder.

In addition, the 9th and 10th Amendments, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, were pushed by the anti-Federalists and the Constitution likely wouldn’t have been adopted without an explicit Bill of Rights.

Would liberty today be better or worse? I’m not sure. Some would argue that the Articles of Confederation would have made it impossible for us to fight off Europe or open the west, or even that it would have eventually led to wars of conquest between the States. We won’t know if that’s the case. We could have ended up like Europe, a collection of individual statist localities instead of a combined statist nation spanning ocean-to-ocean. Of course, now Europe has the EU, which seems to be attempting to follow the lead from Articles of Confederation to a more Constitution-like setup…

Henry did raise some very good objections to the idea of a strong federal government, however. Much of his concerns have been realized in the 221 years since the Constitution’s approval by the convention. I do not for a moment believe that Madison et al would be happy with how incredibly huge the federal government currently is.

I would also point out though, that had Henry had his way, the state of liberty today would probably be as bad, if not worse, than it is now (though this is something we could never know for sure). I think that Jefferson said it best: “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” This is true no matter how carefully a government is organized or however many checks and balances are put into place.