“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”—Alexis de Tocqueville
What de Tocqueville said here seems to be a rather obvious truism. All we need to do is look at the current Congress—both parties—and most state and even local governments, to realize that “superior men” do not dominate any sector of America’s governmental structure. It’s not that all the people serving in government are Adolf Hitler reincarnated, degenerate, evil people, not even all Democrats. Not every Democrat always does “evil” things; they just believe evil things. Now, I suppose, one could define such a person as “evil,” and I wouldn’t argue the point. But there are some “decent” Democrats who don’t eat (or kill) babies. They just believe other people have the right to do so. That’s bad enough, obviously.
I’m trying to be as nice as I can here, folks.
America does have, and always has had, many decent people. But running a government requires more than just “decent” people. James Madison wrote, “The truth is all men having power ought to be mistrusted.” And he also told us why: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society, and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” Very few people can be trusted with political power because very few people in government have godly wisdom and virtue. And, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that very few people have godly wisdom and virtue, period.
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John Adams succinctly nailed the problem: “Individuals have conquered themselves; nations and large bodies never.” There have been, down through history, even in America, men who have “conquered themselves.” But, as Adams indicated, they are in a distinct minority among humanity. Plato gave us a pretty good clue why this is so: “The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.”
Let’s be perfectly honest here: how many people truly, consistently, “conquer themselves”? Now, again, that doesn’t necessarily make them “bad” people or that everything they do is “evil.” But it certainly doesn’t put them in the class of “superior men” that de Tocqueville said rarely run for office, or among the “wise” and “virtuous” Madison said a nation needs to rule it.
And given the fact that so few people can “conquer themselves” and possess the wisdom and virtue necessary “to pursue the common good of society,” then, yes, to re-quote Madison, “All men having power ought to be mistrusted.” For, “if man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?” That’s Madison, too.
And he couldn’t have nailed it more accurately. But, good Lord, what has America become? Graham Platner? Eric Swalwell? Bill Clinton? And Americans elected this latter degenerate cur to the Presidency. Twice! And how many other such “superior” examples of human rot—on both sides of the aisle—could we name? It is horrible that our country has deteriorated to this level of decadence.
The de Tocqueville quote again: “I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”
And that was over 100 years ago.
Madison wrote, “I go on the great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us?” And his last sentence is most significant: “Is there no virtue among us?”
Is there?
Well, he apparently wasn’t optimistic, and his statements about “all men having power ought to be mistrusted,” and only men of “wisdom and virtue” should be elected. Couple that with John Adams’ “nations and large bodies” have “never” conquered themselves, and we begin to understand why our Founders established a very limited government, specifically defining in the Constitution what it could and could not do. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other” (Adams). A people with no self- control, an irreligious people, a people who believe a woman can murder her own baby, a people who allow children to be butchered for sexual purposes, who don’t know the difference between a man and a woman, who don’t know what marriage is, who won’t protect their borders from a barbarian invasion...methinks it would be hard to argue that such a people have elected a “wise,” “virtuous,” “superior” leadership.
De Tocqueville also wrote, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” Madison warned us about this kind of government, i.e., the government that exists in America today: “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. This being the end of government…that is NOT a just government, nor is property secure under it, when the property which a man has is violated by arbitrary seizure of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.”
“Superior men,” men (women) of “virtue and wisdom,” men who can practice self-control for the “common good of the society” (not for specific groups of constituents), well, they probably do exist somewhere in America. But, apparently, they didn’t run for office in de Tocqueville’s day, and he wasn’t sure if Americans would have voted for them if they had. They don’t run now, either, and it’s pretty clear Americans today wouldn’t vote for them, either, if they did.
Check out my Substack: “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com), and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Read my great tales of the Old American West, available on Amazon and Kindle: Whitewater, River Bend, Return to River Bend, Allie’s Dilemma, and Kendrick and other stories. Follow me on “X”: @thailandmkl.
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