"The Only Path to a Subversion"

Alexander Hamilton, Objections and Answers Respecting the Administration, 18 August 1792:

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

It has aptly been observed that Cato was the Tory-Cæsar the whig of his day. The former frequently resisted—the latter always flattered the follies of the people. Yet the former perished with the Republic the latter destroyed it.

No popular Government was ever without its Catalines & its Cæsars. These are its true enemies.

Venerating the Constitution, Taking the Oath of Citizenship

Federalist 49 discusses " that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without wh"ich perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability.

At The New York Times, political scientist Yascha Mounk, a native of Germany, writes about taking the oath of citizenship.

One of the things I most admire about the United States is its fierce attachment to the Constitution. Americans have as deep a commitment to democratic institutions, and as active a civil society, as the citizens of any other country in the world. If the defenders of democracy don’t make it here, it is doubtful that they will make it anywhere.

But one of the things I most fear about the United States is that the veneration of the Constitution is always in danger of turning into complacency. While the country’s system of checks and balances gives Americans the tools to safeguard their freedoms, the Constitution cannot defend itself. The defenses it puts in place will work only if citizens are prepared to use them.

As this realization dawned on many Americans in the past months, and a valiant fight for the soul of the country got underway, I felt increasingly self-conscious about my status as a “resident alien.” While I had plenty of opportunity to speak to Americans, I could not speak as an American. And that is why the election of a dangerous demagogue to the presidency of the United States made me more, not less, determined to take on citizenship. Now more than ever I want to be a fully paid-up member of this society — and fight for the survival of liberal democracy alongside my new compatriots.

The oath of citizenship moved me more than I had expected. For a moment, I choked up and found it difficult to get the words out. But then my voice took on a new resolve: proud and determined, I swore to “defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

After the ceremony, I did not go to a park with friends. I did not have any champagne. I did not try to get a cop to give me a ticket in celebration of my newfound freedom. Instead, I did something that millions of others cannot do without fear: I joined a protest in Boston against the revised executive order on immigration.

The couple of dozen people who had assembled on a clear, cold afternoon, holding signs like “No More Families Torn Apart” and “Immigrants Are America,” did not make for a very impressive crowd. The police barely paid us any attention. Nor did anybody else.

The moment felt no less meaningful to me. For the very first time, I was standing up to the unjust actions of my government. And for the very first time, I could say, as an American, that the executive order — and the larger worldview it represents — violates our values.

The Founders Warned Us Against People Like Trump

Peter Wehner writes at The New York Times:

Before the Constitutional Convention, Madison undertook an extraordinarily thorough study of various forms of government. How might the Constitution protect us from what Aristotle called “the insolence of demagogues”?

Among the defects of ancient and modern republics, Madison wrote, were “popular assemblages, so quickly formed, so susceptible of contagious passions, so exposed to the misguidance of eloquent and ambitious leaders, and so apt to be tempted by the facility of forming interested majorities, into measures unjust and oppressive to the minor parties.”

Which brings us back to Donald Trump. No one would mistake Mr. Trump for eloquent, but he is a highly effective communicator in a political culture that is now almost indistinguishable from the reality TV culture from which he emerged. But the Trump phenomenon isn’t just about coarsening and stupidity: His political practices are precisely what the founders feared and Lincoln warned against.

...
The founders, knowing history and human nature, took great care to devise a system that would prevent demagogues and those with authoritarian tendencies from rising up in America. That system has been extraordinarily successful. We have never before faced the prospect of a political strongman becoming president.

Until now.

The Donald and the Founders

Michael Gerson writes at The Washington Post:

Trump is the guy your Founding Fathers warned you about. “The question is not ‘Why Trump now?’ ” argues constitutional scholar Matthew J. Franck, “but rather ‘Why not a Trump before now?’ Perhaps some residual self-respect on the part of primary voters has driven them, up to now, to seek experience, knowledge of public policy, character, and responsibility in their candidates. The Trump phenomenon suggests that in a significant proportion of the (nominally) Republican electorate, this self-respect has decayed considerably.”

With the theory of a presidential nominee as a wrecking ball, we have reached the culmination of the founders’ fears: Democracy is producing a genuine threat to the American form of self-government. Trump imagines leadership as pure act, freed from reflection and restraint. He has expressed disdain for religious and ethnic minorities. He has proposed restrictions on press freedom and threatened political enemies with retribution. He offers himself as the embodiment of the national will, driven by an intuitive vision of greatness. None of this is hidden.

The founders may not have imagined political parties as a check on public passions, but that is the role the GOP must now play — as important as any in its long history. It is late, but not too late. If he loses in Ohio and Florida onMarch 15, Trump may well be held below a majority of delegates at the Cleveland convention. And then this chosen body of citizens should play its perfectly legitimate role and give its nomination to a constructive and responsible leader.