I read a great book while on my recent trip to Washington D.C. It wasn’t a book specific to Washington politics and history, and it is generally available by Tyson Reeder called Serpent in Eden. I found it at Mt. Vernon, Washington’s home, and it seemed like something I’d be interested in since it dealt with foreign meddling and partisan politics in James Madison’s America, a kind of not much talked-about period between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. A lot of political activity during this period got lost in the various wars that essentially shaped America as a new nation that is worth discussing. I think people assume that they know American history if they know the basics of the Revolutionary War, that the Constitution was signed soon thereafter, and that George Washington was the first president. But that really doesn’t begin to cover it all. The Serpent in Eden is a really remarkable, tightly packed book with a lot of detail and would take a general understanding of history before really absorbing it. It views the world through the eyes of James Madison, the tiny man but brilliant mind who shaped the Constitution and served as the fourth president of the United States. But he was writing the Constitution as America was trying to figure itself out, and Washington was trying to preside over everything as a country was trying to start from scratch on an idea of individual liberty, which was a completely foreign concept at that time. In many ways, it is because of one straightforward term: “We the People.” The world didn’t understand what that meant, so they didn’t have much respect for the new country. They did respect George Washington, but they didn’t understand the idea of willfully giving up power and returning to the farm after service to the people was completed.
To understand the problem we have today with foreign meddling, which George Soros would be a good example, and just one of many, this particular period at the start of the country is an interesting story. Because America had its original 13 colonies that it was trying to make a country out of, but there were still French holdings along the Mississippi River, Spanish in Florida, and England smarting from their Revolutionary loss and plotting to retake its colonies once a few years wore down the rebels hanging out in Canada, where the French were still hostile and had alliances with the many Indian tribes. All those forces were plotting and scheming to use America to leverage their enemies, specifically the French against the English, and all early politics centered around these factions of Anti-Federalists, who became Republicans against Federalists, the early version of the big government advocates. The trick was how to have a big enough government to deal with all these hostile countries that weren’t too big to suppress the will of the people it was supposed to serve. The English and French thought such a concept was hilarious, so they posed a constant threat by looming in the background attempting to tamper with elections to swing policy in a direction of their liking. There are a lot of lessons in the truly remarkable story of how America survived all this tampering to win the War of 1812 with Madison in the White House and having to escape before the British burnt it from the inside out. It was a tight walk on a razor’s edge to build the kind of government we see today, and given the ambitions of globalism and not wanting America to exist at all, you can understand the real problems of our day by seeing how people saw things from the very beginning.
I was in the right mood to read Tyson’s new book, as it had just recently come out. It was available at all the leading book outlets, but Mt. Vernon has a wonderful gift shop, as you would expect, and it was the kind of book you could get as a souvenir that captured the area and circumstances of America’s birth. I was at Mt. Vernon trying to see the start of the country the way that George Washington would have seen it. Not the way that historians with a very shallow grasp of history would have. These were real problems that reside in the hands of our current Supreme Court as they try to keep our country as close to that razor’s edge as possible. But it’s hard on a good day because America was never respected, and it still isn’t today. What is respected is our version of capitalism, which produced a lot of wealth, and people around the world wanted a piece of that wealth. But our system of government for the people was never understood. Because nations were built around the concept of sovereignty, such as Napoleon Bonapart, who was Emperor of France, he could speak as a representative of the whole French people. Or King George in England. If George Washington was going to give power back after two terms in office, then who represented the government? These fighting politicians in Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and others? So, of course, in the chaos of all that political contemplation, the nations of the world plotted our demise, as they still do because they don’t understand how a government can serve the people rather than the people serving the government as one people who then dealt with the world. It was not an easy idea to flush out.
So, the Serpent in the book is all these foreign whispers trying to steer America in a direction beneficial to them, just as the serpent tempted Eve to eat from the apple. So, too, is the business of foreign lobbying, which is a big problem today and is at the heart of the tariff war Trump puts forth. But there’s a secret in the background of all that, which really emerged from this period with Madison and the War of 1812. And the Louisiana Purchase and Westward expansion in general. The world does not know what to do with free people, who a regional monarch or emperor can’t control. It hadn’t ever been done in the world, and it’s still perplexing to all nations. And their only defense against it isn’t armies, but in political narrative. They had infiltrated both political parties in America. As a result, essentially leaving “We the People” without any accurate representation, violating the Constitutional merits Madison and others worked so hard to perfect and for our Supreme Court to hold so tightly to the vest, as a matter of principle. The defense against the various serpents in our political system of foreign meddling and influence was that the American concept was too big to alter. That’s how Jefferson ended up with the Louisiana Purchase. Napoleon never thought America would survive long enough to do anything with the land, so he thought it was a safe bet. But he lost power before America fell. The English were trying to push everyone into decline and never thought a country without a military could win a war against them, but Andrew Jackson ruined all their days, and the Spanish too. All the hostile elements, including the conspiring Indians, were betting on America to fail, but it survived anyway. Because the brilliance of the Constitution made us too big as a country to fall into such minor grabs of power. The idea was more significant than the military plots of conspiring nations, which makes us more important than other nations. Our ideas for personal freedom are more lofty than any other government on the face of the earth or in human history. It is extraordinary and a big step for the human race. And it was a real work of a miracle coming from human minds during a very tumultuous time.
Rich Hoffman
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