Corruption as tyranny. "Similar causes must ever produce similar effects." Ghostly echoes of history from 1774-1775 to 2014-2015, Part Four.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. -- John Adams

This is Part Four of my series on the differences and parallels between the Founders' struggle for liberty and our own struggle to retrieve and preserve their Republic which increasingly seems to be in its death throes. Part One, "Unum Necessarium," on one critical advantage we have is here. Part Two, "The long game & the struggle for liberty," is here. Part Three, "Faith in God and Fidelity to the Constitution versus the Rule of Men," is here.

In Part Three, I covered, in brief, the parallels between the Founders' faith in God and free men and our own. The founding of the American Republic was first and foremost a moral act, taken as hoped-for remedy against the corruption of their age. As Gordon S. Woods wrote in his classic, Creation of the American Republic:

Borrowing pointedly from relevant writings of history, especially from classical antiquity, eighteenth century intellectuals . . . had worked out the ambiguous but necessary and mutual relation they believed existed between the moral spirit of a society and its political constitution. . . "Empires," declared one orator lecturing "On the Fall of Empires," "carry in them their own bane, and proceed in fatal round, from virtuous industry and valour, to wealth and conquest, next to luxury, then to foul corruption and bloated morals, and, last of all, to sloth, anarchy, slavery and political death." History . . . only too grimly showed the fate of empires grown too fat with riches. While the Romans, for example, maintained their love of virtue, their simplicity of manners, their recognition of true merit, they raised their state to the heights of glory. But they stretched their conquests too far and their Asiatic wars brought them luxuries they had never before known. "From that moment virtue and public spirit sunk apace: dissipation vanished temperance and independence." "From a People accustomed to the Toils of War, and Agriculture, they became a People who no longer piqued themselves on any other Merit than a pretended fine Taste for all the Refinements of a voluptuous Life." They became obsessed with the "Grandeur and Magnificence in Buildings, of Sumptuousness and Delicacy in their Tables, of Richness and Pomp in their Dress, of Variety and Singularity in their Furniture." That corruption "which always begins amongst the Rich and the Great" soon descended to the common people, leaving them "enfeebled and their souls depraved." The gap between rich and poor widened and the society was torn by extortion and violence. "It was no longer virtue that raised men up to the first employments of the state, but the chance of birth, and the caprice of fortune." With the character of the Roman people so corrupted, dissolution had to follow. "The empire tottered on its foundation, and the mighty fabric sunk beneath its own weight."

Woods concludes, speaking of the Founding generation,

The analogy with the (18th Century) present was truly frightening. "Those very symptoms which preceded the fall of Rome, appear but too evidently in the British constitution." And as everyone in the eighteenth century knew, "Similar causes must ever produce similar effects." . . . All the signs of England's economic and social development in the eighteenth century -- the increasing capitalization of land and industry, the growing debt, the rising prices and taxes, the intensifying search for distinctions by more and more people -- were counted as evidence of "its present degeneracy, and its impending destruction." A "long succession of abused prosperity" drawn into "ruinous operation by the Riches and Luxuries of the East" -- England's very greatness as an empire -- had created a poison which was softening the once hardy character of the English people, sapping their time-honored will to fight for their liberties, leaving them, as never before in their history, weakened prey to the designs of the Crown. . . The English people had at last become too corrupted, too enfeebled, to restore their constitution to its first principles and rejuvenate their country. "The whole fabric," warned James Burgh, was "ready to come down in ruins upon our heads."

Re-read that, making adjustments of language and usage, and substitute the word "American" for "British." Is this not the situation we face today? It is indeed uncanny.

Consider: "It was no longer virtue that raised men up to the first employments of the state, but the chance of birth, and the caprice of fortune." Now, fast forward to today and read "Are Two Dynasties Our Destiny?" about the elites offering another choice between their two accepted ruling families, the Clintons and the Bushes. How would the Founders react to that? How should we?

The Founders saw that personal and societal corruption was indeed the predicate to tyranny, that it made it inevitable. And who among us, regardless of his or her religious beliefs or moral compass can deny that our society, today, in the 21st Century, is perhaps the ultimate expression of corruption, venality and moral decay?

We read headlines like these and don't bat an eyelid, so inured we are to the filth around us: "Bill Clinton identified in lawsuit against his former friend and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had 'regular' orgies at his Caribbean compound that the former president visited multiple times." And that is hardly the worst of the daily, the hourly, lot.

The Founders themselves doubted if they could, by their own exertions, retrieve the situation they found themselves in. But being the men and women that they were, they knew they had to try. So, too, do we. In Part Five, I'll discuss more parallels (and one big advantageous difference) between then and now.