I'm working on my online notes for the Constitutional Convention and ran into this quote from Elbridge Gerry, which made me think about the anti-government attitudes that have been rampant for several decades and have become especially potent since the tea parties.
This comes fr0m Madison's notes:
Gerry: The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massachusetts it had been fully confirmed by experience, that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions, by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute. One principal evil arises from the want of due provision for those employed in the administration of government. It would seem to be a maxim of democracy to starve the public servants. He mentioned the popular clamor in Massachusetts for the reduction of salaries, and the attack made on that of the Governor, though secured by the spirit of the Constitution itself. He had, he said, been too republican heretofore: he was still, however, republican; but had been taught by experience the danger of the leveling spirit.
He makes it sound like anti-government attitudes, at least in his day, develop illegitimately because people are misled by pretended patriots. Is democracy incompatible with good government since people are duped into starving the beast?
Worth a healthy discussion I think.
