Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 12:05:27 -0500
From: "Charles Brown" <charlesb-AT-CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Tyranny of the Minority




>>> Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us> 03/26 3:11 PM >>>

There's no question that pressure from below played some role in the
adoption of the BoR. But the story is more complex than the pop friont
version you are running. Concerns of small states played a big role
too--Delaware and Rhode Island insisted on the BoR. The biggest player in
pushing fot it was Mason, obviously from a big state (Virginia), but also
a memberof the elite. Madison did want the BoR. He couldn't just write
things in. He was very happy when it was proposed and ratified.

The main concern behind the BoR was not what we call democracy but what we
(though not the Framers) call federalism, states rights. It restrains a
strong federal government--that was the initial concern.

--jks


---------------
Charles replies,

    This overlaps with another exchange. Mason did not act out of bourgeois oblige. He was under pressure from farmers, yeomen, Revolutionary War veterans. The struggle in the small states and other states that forced the Bill of Rights in was not from proto-independent jurists, but regular folks.
     States rights was an issue and put in the Bill of Rights, but that's not the key civil libertarian issue. The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms. That comes from Minute Man pressure, the little guy who fought to war against the redcoats. Washington put down an armed rebellion during his presidency, the first eight years of the Republic. The masses were in motion, but bourgeois history books try to make it seem Big men did everything. We need more Marxist, class struggle interrogation of the Federalist Papers and all typical history on this. See Early Years of the Republic (1976; International) by Herbert Aptheker, a Marxist historian extrordinaire.  The people with their pictures on the money do not deserve all of the credit, though Ben Franklin was helluva.


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