Political Philosophy

From time to time governance responsibilities impinge upon our retirement, providing an opportunity to reflect upon the wisdom of ages of sages, whose sagacity remains as applicable to modern human affairs as it did to their own times.

For example, Alexander Hamilton, writing in "The Federalist Papers" (1788), writes that opportunistic tensions always await their chance because "men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious." He adds:

The causes of hostility [between disputants] are innumerable [including] the love of power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion [e.g.] the jealousy of power, or the desire of equality and safety.... And there are others ... in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of leading individuals in the [society]. Men of this class, whether the favorites of a king or of a people, have in too many incidences abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the [society's] tranquility to personal advantage or personal gratification.
The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a prostitute [Aspasia], at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the Samnians. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the [Greek nation of ] Megarensians, or to avoid a prosecution [for acting as] an accomplice in a supposed theft of the statuary of Phidias, or to get rid of the accusations [for purchasing with state funds] popularity, from a combination of all these causes, [fomented] the Peloponnesian war, which [ruined] the Athenian commonwealth.
[An] ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister to Henry VIII, permitting his vanity to aspire to the the [Papal] crown, entertained hopes of [gaining] that splendid prize by the influence of the Emperor Charles V. [To that end] he precipitated England into war with France, contrary to the plainest dictates of policy,... For if there ever was a sovereign who bid fair to realize ... universal monarchy, it was the Emperor Charles V, whose intrigues Wolsey was at once the instrument and dupe....
Perhaps, however, a reference, tending to illustrate the general principle, may with propriety be made to a case which has lately happened among ourselves. If Shays [photo above] had not been a desperate debtor [sic], it is much to be doubted whether Massachusetts would have been plunged into a civil war.

While Hamilton appears to provide the excuse of poverty for Shays's fomenting insurrection, that armed rebellion nonetheless strengthened the voice for federalism during the Continental Congress' deliberations. Shays's monument stands beside a country road about three miles from our cottage, a frequent reminder that principled governance and the wisdom of ages must not be sacrificed to diverse personal interests always in competition with a greater goal.