Phoenix Rising BBS/phoenixrising.zip/phoenixrising/patriot/freneau.txt

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Volume (?)

1784-1796

Organizing the New Nation

THE ANNALS OF AMERICA
---------------------
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

100

                         Philip Freneau:
                       Rules for Changing
       a Republic [into a Democracy, then] into a Monarchy

Those who had opposed the constitution thought their fears
justified by the conduct of the government that began to function
in 1789.  Under the aggressive leadership of Alexander Hamilton,
the secretary of the treasury, economic measures were taken that
favored the few, while a effective party machine was organized
and the army strengthened in such a way as to suggest an intent
to control rather than to represent the many.  The whole tone of
Washington's administration was aristocratic, favoring as it did
the educated, the wealthy, the clergy, and the press, who were
fearful of "mob rule" and preferred to see what Hamilton called
"gentlemen of principle and property" in command.  As Hamilton
had at his service a newspaper - John Fenno's Gazette of the
United States - to support his policies, his opponents, led by
Jefferson and Madison, decided to establish a rival newspaper,
the National Gazette.  Philip Freneau, an experienced journalist
of known democratic leanings, was chosen to edit the paper.  The
editorial, reprinted here, is typical of those in which Freneau
criticized the Hamiltonian program from 1791 to 1793.

Source: American Museum, July 1792: "Rules for Changing a Limited
Republican Government into an Unlimited Hereditary One."


Rules for changing a limited republican government into an
unlimited hereditary one.

1.  It being necessary in order to effect the change, to get rid
of constitutional shackles and popular prejudices, all possible
means and occasions are to be used for both these purposes.

2.  Nothing being more likely to prepare the vulgar mind for
aristocratical ranks and hereditary powers than titles, endeavor
in the offset of the government to confer these on its most
dignified officers.  If the principal magistrate should happen to
be particularly venerable in the eyes of the people, take
advantage of that fortunate circumstance in setting the example.


3.  Should the attempt fail through his republican aversion to
it, or from the danger of alarming the people, do not abandon the
enterprise altogether, but lay up the proposition in the record.
Time may gain it respect, and it will be there always ready, cut
and dried, for any favorable conjuncture that may offer.

4. In drawing all bills, resolutions, and reports, keep
constantly in view that the limitations in the Constitution are
ultimately to be explained away.  Precedents and phrases may thus
be shuffled in, without being adverted to by candid or weak
people, of which good use may afterward be made.

5.  As the novelty and bustle of inaugurating the government will
for some time keep the public mind in a heedless and unsettled
state, let the press during this period be busy in propagating
the doctrines of monarchy and aristocracy.  For this purpose it
will be particular useful to confound a mobbish democracy with a
representative republic, that by exhibiting all the turbulent
examples and enormities of the former, an odium may be thrown on
the character of the latter.  Review all the civil contests,
convulsions, factions, broils, squabbles, bickering, black eyes,
and bloody noses of ancient, middle, and modern ages; caricature
them into the most frightful forms and colors that can be
imagined, and unfold one scene of horrible tragedy after another
till the people be made, if possible, to tremble at their own
shadows.  Let the discourses on Davila then contrast with these
pictures of terror the quiet hereditary succession, the reverence
claimed by birth and nobility, and the fascinating influence of
stars, and ribands, and garters, cautiously suppressing all the
bloody tragedies and unceasing oppressions which form the history
of this species of government.  No pains should be spared in this
part of the undertaking, for the greatest will be wanted, it
being extremely difficult, especially when a people have been
taught to reason and feel their rights, to convince them that a
king, who is always an enemy to the people, and a nobility, who
are perhaps still more so, will take better care of the people
than the people will take of themselves.

6.  But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough
of it can be got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients.
If by good fortune a debt be ready at hand, the most is to be
made of it.  Stretch it and swell it to the utmost the items will
bear.  Allow as many extra claims as decency will permit.  Assume
all the debts of your neighbors - in a word, get as much debt as
can be raked and scraped together, and when you have got all you
can, "advertise" for more, and have the debt made as big as
possible.  This object being accomplished, the next will be to
make it as perpetual as possible; and the next to that, to get it
into as few hands as possible.  The more effectually to bring
this about, modify the debt, complicate it, divide it, subdivide
it, subtract it, postpone it, let there be one-third of
two-thirds, and two-thirds of one-third, and two-thirds of
two-thirds; let there be 3 percents, and 4 percents, and 6
percents, and present 6 percents, and future 6 percents.  To be
brief, let the whole be such a mystery that a few only can
understand it; and let all possible opportunities and
informations fall in the way of these few to cinch their
advantages over the many.

7.  It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative
body are to have a deep stake in the game.  This is an essential
point, and happily is attended with no difficulty.  A sufficient
number, properly disposed, can alternately legislate and
speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy and sell, and
sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their
constituents has passed into their hands to give them an interest
against their constituents, and to ensure the part they are to
act.  All this, however, must be carried on under the cover of
the closest secrecy; and it is particularly lucky that dealings
in paper admit of more secrecy that any other.  Should a
discovery take place, the whole plan may be blown up.

8.  The ways in which a great debt, so constituted and applied,
will contribute to the ultimate end in view are both numerous and
obvious.  (1) The favorite few, thus possessed of it, whether
within or without the government, will feel the staunchest fealty
to it, and will go through thick and thin to support it in all
its oppressions and usurpations.  (2) Their money will give them
consequence and influence, even among those who have been tricked
out of it.  (3) They will be the readiest materials that can be
found for a hereditary aristocratic order, whenever matters are
ripe for one.  (4) A great debt will require great taxes; great
taxes, many taxgatherers and other officers; and all officers are
auxiliaries of power.  (5) Heavy taxes may produce discontents;
these may threaten resistance; and in proportion to this danger
will be the pretense for a standing army to repel it.  (6) A
standing army, in its turn, will increase the moral force of the
government by means of its appointments, and give it physical
force by means of the sword, thus doubly forwarding the main
object.

9.  The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system
of taxes will afford a plea, not to be neglected, for
establishment of a great incorporated bank.  the use of such a
machine is well understood.  If the Constitution, according to
its fair meaning, should not authorize it, so much the better.
Push it through by a forced meaning and you will get in the
bargain an admirable precedent for future misconstructions.

In fashioning the bank, remember that it is to be made
particularly instrumental in enriching and aggrandizing the elect
few, who are to be called in due season to the honors and
felicities of the kingdom preparing for them, and who are the
pillars that must support it.  It will be easy to throw the
benefit entirely into their hands, and to make it a solid
addition of 50, or 60, or 70 percent to their former capitals of
800 percent, or 900 percent, without costing them a shilling;
while it will be difficult to explain to the people that this
gain of the few is at the cost of the many, that the contrary may
be boldly and safely pretended.  The bank will be pregnant with
other important advantages.  It will admit the same men to be, at
the same time, members of the bank and members of the government.
The two institutions will thus be soldered together, and each
made stronger.  Money will be put under the direction of the
government, and government under the direction of money.  To
crown the whole, the bank will have a proper interest in swelling
and perpetuating the public debt and public taxes, with all the
blessings of both, because its agency and its profits will be
extended in exact proportion.

10. "Divide and govern" is a maxim consecrated by the experience
of ages, and should be familiar in its use to every politician as
the knife he carries in his pocket.  In the work here to be
executed, the best effects may be produced by this maxim, and
with peculiar facility.  An extensive republic made up of lesser
republics necessarily contains various sorts of people,
distinguished by local and other interests and prejudices.  Let
the whole group be well examined in all its parts and relations,
geographical and political, metaphysical and metaphorical; let
there be first a northern and a southern section, by a line
running east and west, and then an eastern and western section,
by a line running north and south.  By a suitable nomenclature,
the landholders cultivating different articles can be
discriminated from one another, all from the class of merchants,
and both from that of manufacturers.

One of the subordinate republics may be represented as a
commercial state, another as a navigation state, another as a
manufacturing state, others as agricultural states; and although
the great body of people in each be really agricultural, and the
other characters be more or less common to all, still it will be
politic to take advantage of such an arrangement.  Should the
members of the great republic be of different sizes, and subject
to little jealousies on that account, another important division
will be ready formed to your hand.  Add again the division that
may be carved out of personal interests, political opinions, and
local parties.  With so convenient an assortment of votes,
especially with the help of the marked ones, a majority may be
packed for any question with as much ease as the odd trick by an
adroit gamester, and any measure whatever carried or defeated, as
the great revolution to be brought about may require.

It is only necessary, therefore, to recommend that full use be
made of the resource; and to remark that, besides the direct
benefit to be drawn from these artificial divisions, they will
tend to smother the true and natural one, existing in all
societies, between the few who are always impatient of political
equality and the many who can never rise above it; between those
who are to mount to the prerogatives and those who are to be
saddled with the burdens of the hereditary government to be
introduced - in one word, between the general mass of the people,
attached to their republican government and republican interests,
and the chosen band devoted to monarchy and Mammon.  It is of
infinite importance that this distinction should be kept out of
sight.  The success of the project absolutely requires it.

11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall
have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to
the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on
another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional
landmarks.  Here the aid of the former encroachments and all the
other precedents and way-paving maneuvers will be called in of
course.  But, in order to render the success more certain, it
will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular
name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped.  It
may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the
public good, or, "the general welfare."  If the people should not
be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing
effect.  It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the
same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in
all cases whatsoever."  To oppose the power may consequently seem
to the ignorant, and be called by artful, opposing the "general
welfare", and may be cried down under that deception.

As the people, however, may not run so readily into the snare as
might be wished, it will be prudent to bait it well with some
specious popular interest, such as the encouragement of
manufactures, or even of agriculture, taking due care not even to
mention any unpopular object to which the power is equally
applicable, such as religion, etc..  By this contrivance,
particular classes of people may possibly be taken in who will be
a valuable reinforcement.

With respect to the patronage of agriculture there is not indeed
much to be expected from it.  It will be too quickly seen through
by the owners and tillers of the soil, that to tax them with one
hand and pay back a part only with the other is a losing game on
their side.  From the power over manufactures more is to be
hoped.  It will not be so easily perceived that the premium
bestowed may not be equal to the circuitous tax on consumption
which pays it.  There are particular reasons, too, for pushing
the experiment on this class of citizens.

(1) As they live in towns and can act together , it is of vast
consequence to gain them over to the interest of monarchy.  (2)
If the power over them be once established, the government can
grant favors or monopolies, as it pleases; can raise or depress
this or that place, as it pleases; in a word, by creating a
dependence in so numerous and important a class of citizens, it
will increase its own independence of every class and be more
free to pursue the grand object in contemplation.  (3) The
expense of this operation will not in the end cost the government
a shilling, for the moment any branch of manufacture has been
brought to a state of tolerable maturity the exciseman will be
ready with his constable and his search warrant to demand a
reimbursement, and as much more as can be squeezed out of the
article.  All this, it is to be remembered, supposes that the
manufacturers will be weak enough to be cheated, in some
respects, out of their own interests, and wicked enough, in
others, to betray those of their fellow citizens; a supposition
that, if known, would totally mar the experiment.  Great care,
therefore, must be taken to prevent it from leaking out.

12. The expediency of seizing every occasion of external danger
for augmenting and perpetuating the standing military force is
too obvious to escape.  So important is this matter that for any
loss or disaster whatever attending the national arms, there will
be ample consolation and compensation in the opportunity for
enlarging the establishment.  A military defeat will become a
political victory, and the loss of a little vulgar blood
contribute to ennoble that which flows in the veins of our future
dukes and marquesses.

13. The same prudence will improve the opportunity afforded by an
increase of military expenditures for perpetuating the taxes
required for them.  If the inconsistency and absurdity of
establishing a perpetual tax for a temporary service should
produce any difficulty in the business, Rule 10 must be resorted
to.  Throw in as many extraneous motives as will make up a
majority, and the thing is effected in an instant.  What was
before evil would become good as easily as black could be made
white by the same magical operation.

14. Throughout this great undertaking it will be wise to have
some particular model constantly in view.  The work can then be
carried on more systematically, and every measure be fortified,
in the progress, by apt illustrations and authorities.  Should
there exist a particular monarchy against which there are fewer
prejudices than against any other, should it contain a mixture of
the representative principle so as to present on one side the
semblance of a republican aspect, should it, moreover, have a
great, funded, complicated, irredeemable debt, with all the
apparatus and appurtenances of excises, banks, etc., upon that a
steady eye is to be kept.  In all cases it will assist, and in
most its statute books will furnish a precise pattern by which
there may be cut out any moneyed or monarchical project that may
be wanted.

15. As it is not to be expected that the change of a republic
into a monarchy, with the rapidity desired can be carried through
without occasional suspicions and alarms, it will be necessary to
be prepared for such events.  The best general rule on the
subject is to be taken from the example of crying "Stop thief"
first - neither lungs nor pens must be spared in charging every
man who whispers, or even thinks, that the revolution on foot is
meditated, with being himself an enemy to the established
government and meaning to overturn it.  Let the charge be
reiterated and reverberated till at last such confusion and
uncertainty be produced that the people, being not able to find
out where the truth lies, withdraw their attention from the
contest.

Many other rules of great wisdom and efficacy might be added; but
it is conceived that the above will be abundantly enough for the
purpose.  This will certainly be the case if the people can be
either kept asleep so as not to discover, or be thrown into
artificial divisions so as not to resist, what is silently going
forward.  Should it be found impossible, however, to prevent the
people from awaking and uniting; should all artificial
distinctions give way to the natural divisions between the lordly
minded few and the well-disposed many; should all who have common
interest make a common cause and show a inflexible attachment to
republicanism in opposition to a government of monarchy and or
money, why then.....