The American Dream (Part One)

On Local Governance

It's been said that all politics is local. Granted, the implication is usually a cynical threat to keep the pork coming home, or else. But it's perhaps more true that all politics should be local. After all, and average citizen is infinitely more likely to run into his county commissioner or school board representative in the grocery store than he is to meet the President or even the Secretary of Education on a downtown stroll. The battle cry of this nation's founders was No Taxation Without Representation, and as the base of power is more local, that representation is more truly representative.

After a long election year in which two upper-crust Yalies, both with strong familial connections to power, duked it out for the Presidency, it is all the more evident that an average American is about as likely to rise to some national office as he or she is to find an ice rink in Florida. That is to say, the possibility exists, but only in the most extreme of circumstances.

The first true democracies are said to have existed in Ancient Greece. The Greeks often extolled the virtues of a system in which each person had a direct and equal say in the way his city-state was run. But the reason it worked as such is because the starting population was so small. Seeking to sway and then counting the votes of 500 is obviously much easier than trying to do the same for 5 million. Additionally, by simple rule of percentage, an individual in the smaller group holds orders of magnitude more power than the individual in the larger.

At the birth of this nation, the Framers sought to ensure this principle remained intact. They knew that to ensure peace and security among the various and several states, certain standards must be maintained: namely a universal currency and standard regulation and maintenance of interstate commerce. Additionally, a united and mutual defense against the meddling of colonial European powers was a necessity of the day. The first confederacy, as we all know, proved too weak and ineffective to fund and maintain itself. The requirements of the central government to regulate interstate commerce and to maintain national defense withered under the whims of the miserly and petty state governments.

In order to save what was left of a union, the leaders of the day got together again in an attempt to give more teeth to a federal government between the states. There was much wrangling over what was to be included among the powers; more often than not that was manifested in a concern that any gain may be a gain too far. In fact, in a few cases that concern over the final product nearly led to its end. In order to ensure the rights of the people were explicitly protected, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. In order to convince the people of New York that a federal system would be safe, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote a series of editorial papers they called The Federalist. Even then, in ratifying the new Constitution, the people not only of New York but also of Virginia and Rhode Island were wary enough to explicitly reserve the right of secession should the new government ever overstep its bounds.

They had reason to worry. After all, the natural tendency has been for power to consolidate, not separate. The democracy of Athens gave birth to Alexander's Hellenistic Empire. The Roman Republic became the Empire of the Caesars. The authors of the Constitution saw accountability as a chief defense against this consolidation. It's easier to keep tabs on a local mayor whom you see on a regular basis than some chief executive hundreds of miles away whom you've never met.

Nevertheless, it was also obvious that at least some government was required. As students of the Enlightenment, they knew that the purpose of power was the protection of the rights of man, not the granting of them. But, implicit in that statement is that those rights need protecting in the first place. There is a precarious balance between government maintaining the rule of law and becoming the law. To keep one from becoming the other, they separated the different facets of what comprises the rule of law into three separate and adversarial bodies - the law makers, the law enforcers, and the judges of law. But the greatest check on them all was the electorate themselves.

Thus, the purpose of this federal system was to be a guardian of and arbitrator among the several states. It was not to be another form of popular government, but rather a government of the governments. The Constitution spent more words on how the states would build and also be subject to the government than it did naming the things it did for the people. The Senate was to be appointed by state legislatures and the President elected by a group of electors appointed again by the state. In the end, the say of the people in the Constitutional government lay in the election of local Congressional Representatives and even more local state legislatures.

Some today claim this was made so by some inherent distrust of the people. To the contrary, it was a function of ensuring that local government retained the most power. By placing one large political power as subject to many smaller ones, the idea was to encourage many jealous states to keep the federal power in check. And, as it is easier for an average citizen to obtain and yield more sway in a district or even a state government than in the national, the political power base can be kept closest to the people in even a large and populous republic.

However, this concept of separation of power to create more individual influence in it doesn't just apply to government, but also to education. More on that later.