Land Ownership and the Foundations of Democracy, Part One (What Made This Particular Destiny So Manifest?)
Posted by Blue Cereal on Thursday, 22 November 2018So we have two issues in play as the Founders wrestle with outlining this new government – the connection between paying into the system and thus earning a voice in the running of that system, and the practical challenges of who exactly “consents” to that government on behalf of the whole. Little wonder our progenitors might try to reconcile them in concert – hopefully without overtly dialing back those fancy new ideals they’d been proclaiming to justify the entire project.
They weren’t starting from scratch. There were some longstanding assumptions about land ownership – or the lack thereof – with which they could begin.