Lest we should forget, the history of, and perennial need for, the Second Amendment. Thank you, James Madison!
How different would America and the world be if Aaron Burr had lost his duel with Alexander Hamilton? I shudder to imagine! It is possible, perhaps probable, that Hamilton would have succeeded Washington or Adams as President, and America would have become the first Soviet Union, or worse. Thank you, Aaron Burr!
Barack Obama is not the first imperialist to occupy the executive office. In fact, that distinction goes to a man who wasn’t even president, but who was the first president’s Secretary of Treasury: Alexander Hamilton. George Washington was a remarkable general, assembling and training a disparate group of frontiersman, farmers, shop owners, and tradesman into an effective army, and defeating the leanest, meanest, toughest imperial army of the time, the Brits.
But George was not as strong a president as he was a general; and, in fact, he allowed a fatal cancer to infect his presidency and the government, in the form of monarchist Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was the very first Alinskyite, using every cynical method at his disposal to install and expand a huge central government, to squash the independence and authority of the states, and to subject citizens throughout the realm to rule by a central authoritarian government.
James Madison, known as the author of the constitution, vehemently opposed at every opportunity Alexander Hamilton’s efforts to create a despotic central government. Madison once remarked that Hamilton had a hidden agenda “of the glories of a United States woven together by a system of tax collectors,” who would be ruthless in both their collection and punishment efforts. Madison authored the 2nd amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, specifically as an answer to Hamilton’s urge to create a national army which would enforce tax laws and subject the state citizens to the tyrannical rule of the central government. Hamilton dreamed of a large military to enforce the will of federal tax collectors, district attorneys, and judges on the populace, and to enforce unpopular laws.
Therefore, Madison presented the 2nd amendment to the Constitution as the guarantee of the right of both citizens and states to fend off an invasion of the sovereign states by the federal government, and Madison’s intent can be clearly seen in the plain language of the 2nd amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” Madison was addressing Hamilton’s and the monarchists’ desire to impose a central government authority as tyrannical as that of King George III, and Madison made it clear that both the “free states” and individual people had the right to bear arms against such invasive central government authority.
James Madison was prophetic, as just such an invasion of the states by the federal government actually occurred only 6 years after the ratification of the constitution, and only 3 years after the right to keep and bear arms was ratified in the Bill of Rights.
As Secretary of Treasury, Hamilton convinced Congress to enact federal excise taxes, a national property tax, and a whiskey tax. Whiskey was used in Pennsylvania and other areas as currency in a barter system, and Hamilton wanted that taxed. In July of 1794, when Pennsylvania farmers refused to pay the tax, Hamilton urged President Washington to invade Pennsylvania with a 13,000 strong federal army, accompanied by chief tax collector Hamilton.
Brutal treatment of the tax protestors resulted, with protestors being shackled and chained and taken to various lock-ups to await Hamilton’s interrogation. Washington, having become disgusted with the whole affair, left the army under Hamilton’s control and returned to his home in the then national capital of Philadelphia. Hamilton, freed from any Presidential constraints, then took on the unconstitutional roles of judge, jury, and executioner, and openly ordered local judges to reach guilty verdicts in the cases of each “whiskey rebel”, and demanded the perpetrators be hanged.
There was insufficient evidence to find any but two of the whiskey rebels guilty, and they were then pardoned by President Washington. (Thomas Jefferson repealed the whiskey tax in 1802).
Alexander Hamilton, not Saul Alinsky or Karl Marx, is the real role model for Barack Obama, whose agenda is eerily similar to Hamilton’s big government agenda of 240 years ago (as revealed in the excellent book Hamilton’s Curse, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo). Our current president sees the same need for a federal “civilian military force”, and already has demonstrated his willingness to use the militarized arms of agencies such as the BLM to threaten citizens and attempt to remove long-held rights (think Cliven Bundy); and Obama’s strong arm thug is his Attorney General, whose disregard for the law has been apparent for some time.
Alexander Hamilton was a power-hungry thug who used threats, bullying, insults, lies, intimidation, defamation, and subterfuge to achieve his goals. In other words, he was a Progressive. And his main goal was rule by the east coast aristocracy, promoted by an indomitable, huge central government.
Truly, one of America’s greatest heroes was Aaron Burr, who shot and killed Hamilton in a duel in New Jersey, July 11, 1804. (Hamilton had used a campaign of lies and defamation to thwart Burr’s goal of becoming New York governor; thus, Burr’s challenge to the duel). But Hamilton had already done irreparable harm to the country, using a weak president to establish a federal right to invade states not acceding to central government rule.
Other presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and FDR, have focused the theme of centralized control onto the Presidency, and indeed created an imperial executive. The lawlessness of Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are simply the latest and greatest manifestations of that trend.