Essays

The drafting of the Federal Constitution was completed on September 17, 1787, a date which is today remembered as Constitution Day. From late 1787 through early 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison collectively wrote a series of seventy-seven essays, mainly for New York newspapers, advocating for ratification of America’s new national political charter. In May 1788 these essays were published in book format under the title The Federalist. An additional eight essays were published between June and August 1788. All eighty-five essays were written under the pen name Publius, in reference to Publius Valerius Publicola, a co-founder of the Roman republic. While the passage of time has proven the authors wrong on some points, The Federalist is today rightly venerated as perhaps America’s greatest intellectual contributions to political science. It’s main purpose was to advocate for the adoption of the Constitution which ordained the legal form of a democratic republic.

Emulating this example, Adams Institute founder Tim Ferguson wrote this series of twelve essays articulating the need for our proposed Amendment, and this not to preserve the legal form of a democratic republic but its political substance: an upright, optimistic, and independent middle class, continually refreshed by upward mobility. The mechanism of action by which this would be accomplished is median-top household wealth tethering at an efficient mathematical ratio (initially 10,000:1), such that, in order to enjoy any future gains, covered households – collectively wielding market power – must increase the median in order to increase their own outcomes. In other words, the Amendment would put the plutocracy on capitalism’s own device of the long-term incentive plan, thereby enabling a fuller and more rational and sustainable vision of capitalism, where markets punish negative-sum and zero-sum outcomes and reward positive-sum outcomes. It would also enable future legislators to backsolve for a middle class of any prescribed target size, by adjusting the social aspect ratio as necessary to capture a sufficient number of top households collectively holding the requisite market power.

These essays are written under the pen name of Gracchus, in reference to Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a reformer of the Roman republic. The reforms of Gracchus were well-received by America’s Founding Fathers: In a 1776 letter to his wife Abigail Adams, John Adams referred to the centerpiece, the Lex Sempronia Agraria, as a “genuine republican Measure.” Also in 1776, Thomas Jefferson’s first three drafts of the Virginia constitution incorporated a 50-acre viritim, emulating that law’s distribution of public lands to ordinary Roman households. Although it may be true that no corruption of manners was ever found among the middling yeoman smallholders, prevailing economic practices will not always remain agrarian. Our proposed Amendment adapts these lessons of history from ancient to modern economic modes.

In addition to appearing on Adams Institute websites, early drafts of the first nine essays appeared on The Blind Spot, a London-based independent media project. As our project advances, as the form of the proposed Amendment becomes more definite, and as we process the various feedback we receive, additional essays may be published to incorporate fresh contributions and address thoughtful objections. Until new essays are added, please enjoy these twelve essays introducing a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America to preserve the democratic-republican model of government, addressed to the people of the United States of America, by Gracchus, a loyal citizen: