If you have a pulse and have the smallest interest in the upcoming midterm elections, you might know the mantra of the Republican party. Republicans have looked to score major political points in November by opposing most of the Administration's initiatives and bragging about their fiscally conservative nature. They have been courting the TEA party by campaigning and supporting their endorsements in Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Kansas and a few other states whose mere livestock to population ratio might be considered a justifiable reason for being annexed by its more important neighbors (see the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.).
I'm not criticizing the strategy. In fact, it is a perfect strategy if you want to score big in November. What I have an issue with is the constant evocation of the founding fathers, and the assertions that the regular American, characterized by the lumberjack/plumber/handyman/truckdriver/tanned Ohio Representative(See John Boehner), are making about them. Somehow the vision of the Founding Fathers prefers the principles of one CONTEMPORARY political party over another.
Making speculative statements about the Founding Fathers with the obvious contemporary bias is falling into the trap of Revisionist History. This only shows that the person making the mistake is unbelievably principled, but also unbelievably ignorant.
The use of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers as a way to justify political stubbornness is flat out wrong. I don't negate this view with the belief that I have the same clairvoyance about the founding fathers as conservatives seem to think they possess. I do it from a purely historic standpoint. If you know a single shred of information about the Constitution and Constitutional convention, you would know that the Constitution is nick-named a "Bundle of Compromises" for a reason. Here's a history lesson:
States with less population endorsed the New Jersey Plan, which would have given every state equal voting power in the bicameral legislature. The Virginia Plan, which was endorsed by larger states, would have apportioned the two houses by population or taxes paid. Eventually, the Connecticut Compromise was drafted which formed the House of Representatives, based on population, and the Senate, with equal representation for all states.
The reason the document took so long to draft was because of the already forming ideological and sectional divide between Southern (primarily agriculture) states and Northern (budding industrialists) states. Apportionment was just one topic that was compromised over. Some others included: Slave Trade (Int'l Trade outlawed in 1808), Representation (3/5ths Compromise) and powers delegated to each branch. The first 10 Amendments to the Constitution (The Bill of Rights) were mostly written as a Compromise to states-rights followers of Thomas Jefferson in order to get them to agree to signing a Constitution with a Federal Government.
Beyond the ratification of the Constitution, figures who were contemporaries of the Founding Fathers became famous for having debates over the age-old problem of Federalism versus States Rights. These differences led to the creation of the Compromise of 1820 (Missouri Plan), The Mason-Dixon Line, Popular Sovereignty and the Compromise of 1850. One of the most iconic Senators from the 19th century was the "Great Compromiser" Sen. Henry Clay (Kentucky). He helped broker the 1820 compromise and stopped the first major secession attempt by Sen. John C. Calhoun in South Carolina over a tariff (see Nullification Crises). Politics was still a partisan and heated debate during the antebellum era, but it was also characterized by the idea of preserving the Union and its principles above all, even if it meant compromising on your beliefs.
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