There are still remnants in the USA that highlight the difference between an oppressive European-style government and a laissez-faire society. Years ago, we moved to Wyoming but still spend a few months each winter in Southern California. In California, I get notices that the trash collector will start photographing my garbage to ensure I put the appropriate trash in the proper bin or that the power company will soon bill me based on my income. In Wyoming, where there are few local or state taxes, the atmosphere is like what De Beaumont described: a place "...where the action of the government is hardly perceived!”
As I read this, for once in my life, I started to really grasp what life must have been like then. I thought about not having to do the income taxes I finished last week, not considering the tax effect of the stock transa tion I did yesterday, not having to pay the property taxes due in a week, not having to renew the registration on my car, not having to get a government inspection on my recent home improvement, and on and on and on ad infinitum. It was wonderful to contemplate.
What the Founders actually created was a loose Confederation in a failed attempt to implement the principles of the Declaration which was the actual founding document. They came back a decade later with another implementation attempt which was was a great deal more successful and indeed, inspired. Nevertheless, the Constitution provided for great deal more central government than the Articles did, however constrained it was.
The people of the South didn't feel unburdened by government since tariffs which was a leading revenue source fell disproportionately on the agricultural economy of the South. Indeed, that was the 2nd largest source of friction in the run up to CW1.
“In breaking their social and cultural ties with Great Britain and the rest of Europe, the Americans had to learn how to be free—free not so much from British political institutions but from the remnants of the old social ties that had formerly bound them together in an ordered society of inherited ranks and deference.”
This is the reason given for Moses wandering in the desert for 40 years. It gave the oldsters time to die off as a couple new generations came into being. It took that long for the tribes to forget what being a slave had been like. Few of the old ones crossed the river into the land of milk and honey.
There are still remnants in the USA that highlight the difference between an oppressive European-style government and a laissez-faire society. Years ago, we moved to Wyoming but still spend a few months each winter in Southern California. In California, I get notices that the trash collector will start photographing my garbage to ensure I put the appropriate trash in the proper bin or that the power company will soon bill me based on my income. In Wyoming, where there are few local or state taxes, the atmosphere is like what De Beaumont described: a place "...where the action of the government is hardly perceived!”
As I read this, for once in my life, I started to really grasp what life must have been like then. I thought about not having to do the income taxes I finished last week, not considering the tax effect of the stock transa tion I did yesterday, not having to pay the property taxes due in a week, not having to renew the registration on my car, not having to get a government inspection on my recent home improvement, and on and on and on ad infinitum. It was wonderful to contemplate.
What the Founders actually created was a loose Confederation in a failed attempt to implement the principles of the Declaration which was the actual founding document. They came back a decade later with another implementation attempt which was was a great deal more successful and indeed, inspired. Nevertheless, the Constitution provided for great deal more central government than the Articles did, however constrained it was.
The people of the South didn't feel unburdened by government since tariffs which was a leading revenue source fell disproportionately on the agricultural economy of the South. Indeed, that was the 2nd largest source of friction in the run up to CW1.
Brilliant. Thank you.
“In breaking their social and cultural ties with Great Britain and the rest of Europe, the Americans had to learn how to be free—free not so much from British political institutions but from the remnants of the old social ties that had formerly bound them together in an ordered society of inherited ranks and deference.”
This is the reason given for Moses wandering in the desert for 40 years. It gave the oldsters time to die off as a couple new generations came into being. It took that long for the tribes to forget what being a slave had been like. Few of the old ones crossed the river into the land of milk and honey.