The Great Depression

           Many say the Great Depression was fixed by the government’s intervention, but I disagree.  The government and presidents during the great depression just made things worse and continued our economy on a path that took a great deal to fix.  One example that we learned in class is how the private industry’s building of railroads did better then when the government built railroads.  The government intervening actually hurt free market economy and almost took it out of existence.

I think the FED had the biggest part in hurting our free market economy.  It was to involved in running our economy financially and created problems that eventually led to the stock market crash.  If the government would have just concentrated on fixing our nations debt after world war one and two instead of trying to intervene in our economy we would have been better off. 

Hoover and Roosevelt both hurt our economy with their high taxes, tariffs, and their implementing high wages and minimum wage.  Hoover made wages higher, which led to higher unemployment.  Hoover also created the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which started a trade war among other countries.  This hurt our economy because now we were not trading as much with other countries.  Lastly Hoover increased taxes and the top bracket got the worst of the taxing.  This made it so business owners had dis-incentive to grow there companies and create more jobs.  It was just not Hoover hurting our economy though; Roosevelt also had a part in it also.  Roosevelt actually increased taxes more than Hoover had.  He also created many New Deal Programs.  Some which may have helped a little, but others were disastrous.  Some of the job programs he created were dangerous, but he did nothing to stop it or help it.  One great example of this is when he sent the bonus army down to Florida to build bridges and such and he was told it was hurricane season and to take the men out but left the bonus army there and over 200 men were killed.  Roosevelt also took away some private contracts and gave them to the government: one example of this is the delivering of Air Mail.  Roosevelt also tried to stop competition and raise wages thinking this would end the depression.  The things these two men did in all reality hurt our economy more than them just sitting back and letting our free market economy fix itself.

The government was just to involved in our economy during the Great Depression and in my opinion actually made the recovery worse.  If the government would have just concentrated on the debt problems and other things they really needed to do and left the free market to fix itself the economy would have been better off.

Growth of the Economy

           The key institutions I would put in my economy to make it prosper and prevail are property rights, free trade, rule of law, and free markets.  These are just a few of the institutions of economic growth I would pick to help the economy.

            Property rights are extremely important for economic growth.  The constitution created property rights and helped set us on our way to creating a better economy.  Property rights allow us to keep the fruits of our labor.  The right to property is also the key institution to the establishment of a free market economy.  Without the right to property a free market economy would be replaced by another system.

Through the commerce clause the Constitution created a large landmass where trade was able to freely flow.   Free trade allows us to trade across state lines without being taxed.  This helps our economy by keeping costs lower and also helps avoid tax wars.  We saw how in the founding father’s day not having free trade created contention among the colonies.  So creating a free trade stimulates the flow of goods in the economy.

Rule of law makes it so we have consistency over time.  It helps prevent corruption, some examples are of governments changing the laws or taking property.  Entrepreneurship in the United States is hard and we have the rule of law, other countries without the rule of law and property rights have no guarantee for their business.  So the rule of law is a major part of a stable and growing economy.

Free markets help our economy grow and help for creating better quality products and also newer technology.  The idea of a free market economy was expressed in the Declaration of Independence.  Free markets also allow entrepreneurship to flourish, which in return stimulates our economy.  In a free market economy the Invisible Hand influences people with self-interest to act in the interest others.  The free market coordinates the resources of millions of people around the world to create an item.  So the free markets help our economy greatly and without it we would be just another country in poverty.

So in conclusion my economy would flourish by having property rights, free trade, rule of law, and a free market economy.  Without these great institutions my economy would be in poverty and not have a chance to grow.

Madison and the Federalist 51 papers

So what was the difficulty or paradox Madison poses and how does Madison believe the constitution solves theses difficulties?  One of the problems according to the Federalist 51 papers is “maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution” and “ the means of keeping each other in their proper places.”  That is why the auxiliary precautions were made.  The auxiliary precautions were the checks and balance system made up of the division of power and the separation of power.  This was created as an extra security method.  The division of power was the difference between national and state government.  They divided them to make sure that too much power is not given to the national government.  This gave dual sovereignty to the state and national governments.  Also states are given power so more people can have a say on a local level on what is happening in their areas.  The separation of power is the three branches of government: Legislative, executive, and judicial. According to the federalist papers to help things be more balanced they “divide the legislature into different branches; and render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit.” So now not only one area has all the power it is now divided up between three groups.  The constitution was a great and powerful tool, but the auxiliary precautions help protect us, and our governments from anyone having too much power.

The inspiration of the U.S Constitution

What about the U.S. Constitution was inspired?  There are several things about the Constitution that were inspired, things such as religious freedom.  Without religious freedom we could not have the church on the earth today.  In one of Dallin H. Oaks talks he talked about how if it were not for the constitution the gospel could not be restored and we could not have and live our gospel today.  Marion G. Romney talks about how freedom is necessary for the coming of Zion, so without our Constitution we would not be the free country we are today.  Our founding fathers were men of action and they were spiritually prepared.  They were inspired to come together and council, and work together to make something bigger and better come out of our country.  The Constitution was also inspired because in second Nephi it talks about how this land was made for the purpose of freedom from kings and rulers.  So I believe our constitution was inspired to help bring about our religious freedom and our freedom as a country.

How is it that the U.S. Constitution was inspired?  The Constitution had the founding fathers writing it.  In D&C 101 verse 80 it talks about the founding fathers, and how God placed these wise men here at this time for the very purpose of the Constitution.  Our founding fathers were born with the light of Christ, so even if they were not members they could still receive guidance.  Our founding fathers were also open minded towards religion, they believed in God and they believed God was behind all their work. The founding fathers also counseled together, such as is the lord’s way so they must have been inspired in what they were writing. How else could all 13 colonies come together when they were in bad shape and make our Constitution. So I believe our founding fathers were wise men and guided and inspired by God in all that they did.

Were the colonists morally justified in revolting?

      Were the colonists morally justified in revolting from King George the third and Great Britton?  I think the colonists were morally justified in revolting against King George the third and Great Brittan for a number of reasons.  One being taxation without representation, before 1763 all colonial tax decisions were made by colonial legislators, and people had representation in their taxing.  Three examples of taxation without representation are the Sugar-Act, which raised prices on certain goods such as coffee and textiles.  The Stamp-Act, which made all printed materials such as documents and papers taxed.  Lastly the Townshend-Act, which put taxes on imports.  Great Britton created these taxes to help raise revenue from their war with France.  All these taxes violated the rights of the colonists and the British constitution.

Another reason the colonists were justified in revolting was because Great Britton ignored the colonist’s natural rights of life, liberty, and property.  Some specific examples are British soldiers took lives at the Boston Massacre.  Second Great Britton allowed their soldiers search and seizure without warrants, which stomped all over the colonist’s rights of liberty and property.  Also in 1765 there was the Quartering-Act, which made the colonists house and feed the British soldiers, most of the time without their consent.

The colonists were also morally justified because Rule of Law. King George the third and parliament violated precedent by putting themselves above the law.  King George the third was trying to show there was a change from king George the first and second, and that he was not weak like his father and grandfather were. Great Britton also had a lack of due process.  Governor Hutchinson asked for more British soldiers to bring more power to the area.  Colonists who were officials were discredited and had no say in matters.  The Whig party had been in control and were accommodating to the colonists so the king removed all the Whig leaders.  The king increased his power by rewarding all the people who were loyal to him.  He rewarded these people by appointing them to powerful positions. The king just put more power over parliament and officials over American Colonies.  Also colonists did not have the same rights as British citizens had when they were still under British rule.  Though they still had to pay the price of being a British citizen they had to go without getting the benefits.

Great Britton also established soldiers in times of peace. Having British soldiers around created lots of unrest in the colonies. Especially after events such as the Boston Massacre, and the brutal beating of James Otis, which changed his life forever.  The Boston Massacre all started with a soldier crossing the line and striking a child because he did not like what the child had to say.  It then escalated and ended with three people dead and two mortally wounded.  Similarly James Otis stood up for what he believed and was beaten by a group of men that were customs officials and British soldiers, wanting to take their frustration out on a Whig leader. The wounds Otis received were not life or death, but they did hurt him mentally and he never recovered.  Doing this to James Otis really upset the Boston community and just gave them more incentive to revolt.    British soldiers were given too much power at this time such as the British captain in the 29^th regiment who advised his men to kill any civilian that touched them.  After this Samuel Adams tried to get the removal of British troops from the colonies.

The colonists went about protesting in the right way.  They always had order in how they responded.  They had a process of resisting.  First they tried petitions, such as the letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania, John Dickenson.  In his letters he said he was happy to be a British citizen, but said Great Britton could not trample on its subjects rights.  He was trying to get British rulers to go back to tradition, precedent and, prudence.  Samuel Adams also tried petitioning with circular letters, which circulated among legislative bodies   in other colonies.  Second they tried boycotting.  They stopped buying, trading, and selling goods to British merchants.  These boycotts came at a great economic sacrifice to those who were boycotting but it hurt Britain more than it hurt the colonists. They also boycotted the Stamp-Act by preventing stamps from being available.  The Sons of America was on of the big boycotting groups.  Lastly the less peace-full way, they tried was to maintain dignity with no riotousness such as the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party was in response to the new tea tax.  The East India Tea Company had a monopoly but most of the tea in the colonies was smuggled in tax-free.  The East India tea was left in the ports on the ships, when a few of the colonists went aboard and broke up all the containers holding the tea and threw it overboard. This led then to the next act, the Coercive-Act.  The Coercive-Act closed off the port until the East India Company was compensated.

With all that happened to the American colonists it is no surprise that they revolted.  They were very dignified in how they went about the revolt. They were not trying to revolt in the beginning; they just wanted the rights that they deserved. They did not want a war they just wanted things to go back to how they had been before. They gave it years of trying it the peaceful way and then had to resort to revolting.  The British government is the one who pushed the colonists into the revolt by all the taxes they threw at them.  The colonists deserved their natural rights of life, liberty, and property and the British were not giving it to them.  The British were not even giving them the rights they deserved by being British citizens. So yes, the colonists were very justified in revolting against king George the third and Great Britton.