Corrupt Nature of the Founding Fathers

It was John Adams who noted that "men in general, in every society, who are wholly destitute of property, are also little too acquainted with public affairs for a right judgment, and too dependent upon other men to have a will of their own."1 This shared attitude guided the Founding Fathers in their establishment of what has become America's modern day political system. When today's modern day student is asked just what sort of system that was, it seems the answer is always "democracy." In reality, the House of Representatives is the nearest idea in accordance with a system of democracy that this country would ever reach.2 Washington, Adams, and Jefferson were the wealth and success of their time, and coincidentally, it was these same men that fashioned a structure in which wealth and success were the ultimate judges of where power was to fall. The Founding Fathers did not seek democratic reform, but rather sought personal gain in the form of ultimate power. The Founding Fathers did not seek democratic form partially due to a fear of democracy. It was their belief that "democracy, unchecked rule by the masses, is sure to bring arbitrary redistribution of property, destroying the very essence of liberty."3 Jefferson especially feared the label of "democrat," and it can be seen in American books of the time that "democrat" was a "swear-word, by which persons were designated against their will, usually falsely, like persons falsely called communists today."4 Ideas of democracy are most like to occur among the "oppressed and discontented, disinherited aristocracy, and the rising middle class."5 Democracy does not appeal to a privileged class whose privileges are ever increasing.6 On the subject of power, Adams stated that it "naturally grows...because human passion are insatiable. But that power alone can grow which already is too great; that which is unchecked; that which has no equal power to control it."7 Without a government of the people yet

Bibliography: Koch, Adrienne. Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers: Essays in the Interpretation of the American Enlightenment. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1961. Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. Maier, Pauline. American Scripture and the Making of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Palmer, Robert Roswell. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1964. Vidal, Gore. Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.