Prescient. Objections to the Constitution.

[Horse with no Name]

http://www.gunstonhall.org/documents/objections.html
>>>snip
George Mason's Objections to the Constitution

In September 1787, during the final days of the Constitutional Convention, George Mason wrote the reasons for his refusal to sign the Consitution on the back of a Committee of Style report. Manuscript copies of this document were circulated and Mason sent copies to various individuals, including George Washington. On November 22, the objections were printed in the Virginia Journal at the behest of Washington's secretary Tobias Lear in order that he could publicly refute them. The original manuscript is in the Chapin Library at Williams College.

>>>snip
The President of the United States has no Constitutional Council, a thing unknown in any safe and regular government. He will therefore be unsupported by proper information and advice, and will generally be directed by minions and favorites; or he will become a tool to the Senate--or a Council of State will grow out of the principal officers of the great departments; the worst and most dangerous of all ingredients for such a Council in a free country; From this fatal defect has arisen the improper power of the Senate in the appointment of public officers, and the alarming dependence and connection between that branch of the legislature and the supreme Executive.

Hence also spuring that unnecessary officer the Vice- President, who for want of other employment is made president of the Senate, thereby dangerously blending the executive and legislative powers, besides always giving to some one of the States an unnecessary and unjust pre-eminence over the others.

The President of the United States has the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.

[Horse with no Name]

1. Thanks for the rec.

Gonna give it a bump.

[Kool Kitty]

2. K & R.

:kick:

[MissMarple]

3. Prescient, how applicable.

Would we had heeded. But everything we endevour is open for corruption. All we have are human constructs, and they are rife with human imperfection. Yet, even so, we carry on courageous and optimistic. And a good thing that is.

[tech3149]

4. My political education is rather recent and Jefferson centric

but I could not disagree with Mason's central points. I would not feel safe in having today's populous accomplish the changes needed to correct those problems. Most of the public does not have the awareness of the pertinent facts or the reasoning skills to make a wise decision.

[AntiFascist]

5. God, how much more on target can you get for our current situation....

"The President of the United States has the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt."

[Horse with no Name]

6. kick for the am crowd.

[originalpckelly]

7. Hloy fuck, three cheers for George Mason, he figured this crap out long ago.

It's not just us, it's this US Constitution, it's a flawed document.

[blondeatlast]

8. Further down--they knew the bastard was coming:

This government will set out a moderate aristocracy: it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its operation, produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy; it will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other.

We're living the nightmare that they risked so much to prevent. Thanks, Founding Fathers, it was wonderful while it lasted. I weep for what's been done to your ideals and work.

[Horse with no Name]

9. Notice that he foresaw the end of the Republic

But...it is like he knew there would be a George Bush and Dick Cheney coming down the pike. All those years ago.

[Gregorian]

10. I thought presidential pardons didn't include treason. Damn!

Long ago I must have misread something somewhere. I made an effort to go over the constitution regarding this subject. Shoot. Now I'm off to go looking again. But it appears from first glance at Wiki that I was wrong.

I hate the ability to pardon. I can't see any good coming from it. Although we have been locking up people without due cause recently.

[TheBaldyMan]

11. all the more reason to support impeachment, removal from office

[eppur_se_muova]

12. WOW. No wonder they named a law school after him.

According to Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary" a "lawyer" is "one who is skilled in circumventing the law". Mason shows that a good legislator is one who anticipates how a well-intentioned law might be circumvented by the unscrupulous, or even subverted to cause the injury it was meant to prevent.

[Horse with no Name]

13. Bingo. n/t