To: Steve Lokness who wrote (148457 ) 10/30/2010 12:58:38 PM From: Sam Read Replies (1) | Respond to me--> Washington, Dickinson, and others would have shaken their heads in dismay if they had come in contact with the Tea Party governing. Indeed, that is why the Annapolis conference in 1786 was called and led to the Constitutional Convention the next year. The central govt wasn't strong enough, it wasn't governing as it should, and the states were gradually becoming a fractious group of power mongers that would in time become like the European states had been--at constant war with each other because without good governance, with bickering and disputes that ought to be resolvable don't get resolved and at some point blow up into full scale war, and warfare can and does become a habit between states just as peace can. trusted government. But it would be more accurate to say that they mistrusted power and what having unopposed power can do to a person or a group of people. They knew that power corrupts anyone who has it. Jefferson even knew that power corrupted the slaveholder, although he could never bring himself to give up the slaves that made his life of luxury possible. Above all, the mistrust of power was why they were opposed to each of the individual forms of government--monarchy, oligarchy and democracy, and why they wanted the type of government that Aristotle first invented, mixed government. Mixed govt blends all three types together, and counters one power with another, one group with another. That is the essence of the Constitution that Madison wanted and that came together during the convention (albeit not using the vast majority of Madison's specific suggestions).
