Welcome to Douglas Wilson's Blog and May Blog, presented by Canon Press.

Early American Politics July 5th, 2023.

Introduction.

For those who know the backstory, it is kind of odd that you can go to our nation's

capital and there visit both the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.

After all, the two men were political adversaries on opposite sides of the aisle, and this was

before that center aisle was even built.

But in another sense, this is just the way it ought to be, in that it helps us see how

nations actually form in real life, which is to say they do not form on the drafting tables

of the big thinkers, especially including John Locke.

Locke gets to chime in, of course, but that is just a piece or two and a 500 piece jigsaw

puzzle, unwritten constitutions.

All nations have unwritten constitutions, including those like ours that have written

ones as well.

For an example of an unwritten requirement, there is nothing in our constitution that

requires us to have a two-party system, but a two-party system developed organically

here anyway, from the very beginning.

The structural logic of our constitution does encourage a two-party system, but does

not mandate it.

So in a parliamentary system, all the horse trading is done after the election, and a government

is formed, sometimes in surprising alliances.

In our system, all the same horses get traded, but it is done before the election, within

...