The Republic has succeeded far beyond the dreams of the avaricious oligarchs who founded it in order to prevent democracy and retain all real power in their own trustworthy hands.

See my The USA is an Oligarchy at the Greanville Post and Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky (pp. 132-133) cited in my footnotes (ibid.)

The principles of the Founding Fathers were rather nicely expressed by John Jay, the head of the Constitutional Convention and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His favorite maxim was, "The people who own the country ought to govern it"--that's the principle on which the United States was founded.

The major framer of the Constitution, James Madison, emphasized very clearly in the debates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that the whole system must be designed, as he put it, "to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority"--that's the primary purpose of the government, he said. Now, Madison had kind of a theory behind that, which was that the "minority of the opulent" would be elevated Enlightenment gentlemen, who would act like some kind of ancient Roman republicans of his imagination--benevolent philosophers who would use their opulence to benefit everybody in the country.

But he himself quickly recognized that that was a serious delusion, and within about ten years he was bitterly denouncing what he called the "daring depravity of the times" as "the minority of the opulent" were using their power to smash everyone else in the face."

h/t MofA -- Hermit | Oct 21 2022 4:24 utc | 126