5000 Year Leap (8 page)

   The Founders recognized human nature for what it is -- a mixture of good and evil. They reasoned that if people are to govern themselves and have the best possible government, then a political process should be developed through which the wisest, the most experienced, and the most virtuous can be precipitated to the surface and elected to public office. Actually, mankind has no sensible option. As Madison said:

   "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
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   Unfortunately, that utopian dream will never be possible in view of the obvious limitations of human nature. The next best thing is to take the most promising element in society and draft them into public service. What the Founders hoped to do was develop a spirit of public virtue by having leaders of strong private virtue. It would be a new kind of "freemen aristocracy" or "natural aristocracy" which would be open to all, but inheritable by none. Every leader would have to rise to his high office on personal merit, not the wealth and reputation of his ancestors.

   Thomas Jefferson typified the Founders' philosophy of social responsibility. They strongly believed that the best citizens should accept major roles in public life. They believed people with talent and demonstrated qualities of leadership should have the same sense of duty as that which Washington exhibited when he allowed himself to be called out of retirement three separate times to serve the country. Jefferson referred to such people as the nation's "natural aristocracy." He said it was an aristocracy of virtue, talent, and patriotism without which the nation could not survive.

   In contrast to the natural aristocracy, he said there was an "artificial" aristocracy which dominated the elite ruling class of Europe. These were those who obtained their high offices because of wealth, their station in life, or some special influence which had been brought to bear in their behalf. He wanted no artificial aristocracy in America. Jefferson wrote in 1813:

   "There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.... There is, also, an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed, it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say, that that form of government is the best, which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural
aristoi
into the offices of government?"
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   Jefferson felt it should be the goal of the whole nation to use education and every other means to stimulate and encourage those citizens who clearly exhibited a special talent for public service. He felt one of the greatest threats to the new government would be the day when the best qualified people refused to undertake the tedious, arduous, and sometimes unpleasant task of filling important public offices. In 1779 he said:

   "For promoting the public happiness, those persons whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens; and they should be called to that charge without regard to ... birth, or other accidental condition or circumstance."
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   The natural tendency of nearly all people is to encourage others to run for office, but not get involved themselves. The Founders knew we could never enjoy strong self-government unless this general perspective were changed. They wanted it to be counted an honor to be drafted into "politics." A popular quotation from Cicero emphasized this theme. He had said:

   "For there is really no other occupation in which human virtue approaches more closely the august function of the gods than that of founding new States or preserving those already in existence."
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   American history will show that both Samuel Adams and his younger cousin, John Adams, sacrificed their fortunes to serve in politics. They both considered politics to be a "divine science."

   John Adams had this to say about the high calling of a servant of the people in politics:

   "Politics are the divine science, after all. How is it possible that any man should ever think of making it subservient to his own little passions and mean private interests? Ye baseborn sons of fallen Adam, is the end of politics a fortune, a family, a gilded coach, a train of horses, and a troop of livery servants, balls at Court, splendid dinners and suppers? Yet the divine science of politics is at length in Europe reduced to a mechanical system composed of these materials."
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   Some might feel inclined to smile at such a puritanical ideology in a practical politician such as John Adams, but he had a ready answer for the skeptic. Said he:

   "What is to become of an
independent
statesman, one who will bow the knee to
no
idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you; he will be regarded
more
by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country."
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   John Adams, like so many of the Founders, laid great stress on the importance of broad, in-depth preparation for a career in public service. Early in his professional life, John Adams wrote to his wife explaining what he felt he must do to prepare himself for leadership in the "divine science" of politics. He wrote:

   "The science of government is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take place of, indeed to exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
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   John Adams was never very popular as an individual, but the people knew he could be trusted. He was elected over and over again, finally becoming President of the United States. Years later, he wrote:

   "I do not curse the day when I engaged in public affairs.... I cannot repent of any thing I ever did conscientiously and from a sense of duty. I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice, or ambition, or even the desire of fame. If any of these had been my motive, my conduct would have been very different. In every considerable transaction of my public life, I have invariably acted according to my best judgment, and I can look up to God for the sincerity of my intentions."
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   If one is astonished by the level of idealism which Founders such as Adams and Jefferson attached to the role of political public service, it cannot be more surprising than the supreme desire they expressed to prevent those offices from becoming monetary attractions. Benjamin Franklin remonstrated both in Europe and America against extravagant compensation for positions of public service.

   As Benjamin Franklin traveled in Europe, he noted that there was a violent struggle for appointments to public offices because they paid so well. He felt this was a serious mistake.

   In the early history of the United States, community offices were looked upon as stations of honor granted to the recipients by an admiring community, state, or nation. These offices were therefore often filled by those who performed their services with little or no compensation. Even when an annual salary of $25,000 was provided in the Constitution for President Washington, he determined to somehow manage without it. Some might think that this was no sacrifice because he had a large plantation. However, the Mount Vernon plantation had been virtually ruined during the Revolutionary War, and he had not yet built it back into efficient production when he was called to be President. Washington declined his salary on principle. He did the same thing while serving as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces during the Revolutionary War. Not all could afford to do this, but it was considered the proper procedure when circumstances permitted it.

   While in Europe in 1777, Franklin explained to a friend the widespread support for the American attitude concerning public service:

   "In America, salaries, where indispensable, are extremely low; but much of public business is done gratis. The honor of serving the public ably and faithfully is deemed sufficient. Public spirit really exists there, and has great effects. In England it is universally deemed a nonentity, and whoever pretends to it is laughed at as a fool, or suspected as a knave."
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   Franklin fervently hoped this policy could be perpetuated in America from generation to generation. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he gave a discourse on the need to fix the course of American public service so that it would always attract men of public virtue and repel scoundrels scrambling for a soft job. He said:

   "Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambitions and avarice; the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall at the same time be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace."
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   Franklin had seen enough of the world to make a general observation to the Constitutional Convention which the members could not help but hear with deep respect. The men at the Convention were there at great personal sacrifice; some, like Madison, on borrowed money. Franklin warned that high salaries for government offices are the best way to attract scoundrels and drive from the halls of public office those men who possess true merit and virtue. He asked:

   "And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will
not
be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government, and be your rulers. And these, too, will be mistaken in the expected happiness of their situation; for their vanquished competitors, of the same spirit, and from the same motives, will perpetually be endeavoring to distress their administration, thwart their measures, and render them odious to the people."
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   Peering down through the corridor of time, Franklin proclaimed his prophetic judgment as to what could be expected if future generations of Americans permitted the Jure of high salaries to be associated with public offices. Here are the remarkably profound insights from the "Sage of Philadelphia" to the members of the Constitutional Convention:

   "Sir, though we may set out in the beginning with moderate salaries, we shall find that such will not be of long continuance. Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations; and there will always be a party for giving more to the rulers, that the rulers may be able in return to give more to them. Hence, as all history informs us, there has been in every state and kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing and the governed, the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the princes or enslaving of the people. Generally, indeed, the ruling power carries its point, and we see the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes, the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans, and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure."
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   Franklin foresaw the possibility of profit in public office becoming the means by which an American monarchy could eventually arise; not called a monarchy, of course, but an executive with monarchial powers. He continued his speech as follows:

   "There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh -- get first all the people's money, then al] their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever. It will be said that we do not propose to establish kings. I know it. But there is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government. It sometimes relieves them from aristocratic domination. They had rather have one tyrant than 500. It gives more of the appearance of equality among citizens; and that they like. I am apprehensive -- therefore -- perhaps too apprehensive -- that the government of these states may in future times end in a monarchy. But this catastrophe, I think, may be long delayed, if in our proposed system we do not sow the seeds of contention, faction, and tumult, by making our posts of honor places of profit. If we do, I fear that, though we employ at first a number and not a single person, the number will in time be set aside; it will only nourish the fetus of a king (as the honorable gentleman from Virginia very aptly expressed it), and a king will the sooner be set over us."
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