It has become commonplace to note that the 2016 election campaign is unlike any America has seen before. Whether it is the issues brought to the fore, the number of scandals, or the intensity of the personal invective, it is hard to believe we are now within the bounds of what our founders had in mind.
In fact, we can make that statement going back more than half a century before our founding. The reason is that one of the greatest influences on colonial American political thought was Cato’s Letters, in which John Trenchard and Robert Gordon echoed John Locke in the early 1720s. According to Ronald Hamowy, its
arguments against oppressive government and in support of the splendors of freedom were quoted constantly and its authors were regarded as the country’s most eloquent opponents of despotism…[and] frequently served as the basis of the American response to the whole range of depredations under which the colonies suffered.
Of particular note in regard to our current election choices are Cato’s Letters 69 and 70, which addressed British voters about the choice of representatives they faced in their fiercely fought general election of 1722. Those letters bring us back to how far we have moved from what George Washington described as “the sacred fire of liberty…staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People,” making some of its insights worth reconsideration today:
No comments:
Post a Comment