Third Party Tragedies
"A Republic if you can keep it!" was Franklin's curt reply when asked the nature of our government at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Our Constitution is an amazingly brilliant document. It was written to protect We the people not only from the federal government that it created, but also as Franklin's poignant remark illustrates, the Constitution protected us from ourselves. The Founders recognized the dangers of a tyranny of the majority. Contrary to what public schools teach and what most Democrats would have you believe, on paper the United States is most assuredly not a democracy, nor was it ever intended to be. And almost paradoxically, it was not overwhelming majorities that led us down the primrose path toward democracy.
As far as I know, the Republican Party has been the only 'successful' third party in American history. Successful is bracketed because Lincoln used force to breach the Constitution and bring the seceding states back into the union. Regardless of your thoughts on Lincoln or the Civil War, the Republican Party has been with us as a major political party ever since. No other third party has ever enjoyed success and some notable third party efforts have resulted in tragedies of historic proportion for our nation.
Most Americans have an image of Teddy Roosevelt as a genuine hero. This is in spite of the fact that his decision to leave the Republican Party and form the Bull Moose Party may one day be seen by history as the pivotal event leading to the beginning of the end of the United States itself. Woodrow Wilson became President with a plurality, not a majority, of the vote as a result of this third party disaster. Wilson and the Democrats engineered three catastrophic changes in the Constitution that set the stage for socialism and "professional" politicians.
The Federal Reserve Act, one of the first successful end runs around the Constitution, was the first of the three catastrophic changes. The XVIth and XVIIth Amendments were the other two. Together, the Federal Reserve Act and the XVIth Amendment effectively granted Congress unlimited taxing, unlimited borrowing, and unlimited spending powers. The XVIIth Amendment brought the United States much closer to actually being a democracy. The theory of a republican form of government is that we elect leaders that are wiser, more experienced and of a higher moral character who will use their independent judgment to then do what is in our best interest, regardless of what we want or would prefer. Under the Constitution prior to the XVIIth Amendment, the State legislatures elected United States Senators, hence the origin of the concept of the Senate's being the upper chamber versus the House being the people's chamber.
Important third party stories and tragedies are still being played out today. Remember Ross Perot's Reform Party that gave us the Clinton tragedy? An unpublicized current tragedy is found in the numerous conservative third parties that have splintered away from a Republican Party unwilling to embrace genuine conservative reforms. Presently, there are not enough conservatives within the Republican Party to control it and the splintering away of third parties has further diluted the influence of conservatives on the Republican Party. All conservative third parties need to understand that they could not obtain a governing majority even if they had Ronald Reagan as their President. No third party can defeat the Democratic Party, especially when allied with the closet socialists within the Republican Party. If the Constitution is to be restored, it can only be done by a conservative coalition able to either control or intimidate the Republican Party. Some of our Reagan Wing statesmen may come from these splintered conservative third parties enticed back into the Republican Party by the prospect of restoring the Constitution. "Professional" politicians are not going to be part of the solution.