Hazell: Ever Wonder Why Scousers Never Buy the Sun...?

The standards of service for all witnesses of crime are set out in the Witness Charter. 

It has been developed to tell you how you can expect to be treated by the police if you are a witness to a crime or incident. 

It also covers standards of care for other criminal justice agencies and lawyers if you are required to give evidence in court.

The Standards of Care Include:

• You will be treated fairly and with respect according to your needs irrespective of race, religion and belief, background, gender or gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability or marital or civil partnership status.

• If you provide a statement to police, this will include an initial assessment of your needs as a witness. This information will be used to decide how the investigation of the case will proceed, and to ensure that arrangements are made to meet your needs if you are called to give evidence in court.

• The police will inform you when the defendant has been charged, whether the defendant has been released on bail or held in custody and what relevant bail conditions apply.

• One of our Witness Care Units will provide a single point of contact for you and will tailor arrangements for your attendance at court to meet your personal circumstances.

• Every effort will be made to ensure you are only asked to attend court on the day on which you are required to give evidence.

• One of our Witness Care Units will notify you of the outcome of your case and, if relevant, the sentence. They will also explain to you what the sentence means.

A neighbour of the grandmother of murdered schoolgirl Tia Sharp told detectives he had seen her when in fact she was already dead, a court heard.

Bus driver Paul Meehan, 40, from Croydon, south London, is on trial charged with wasting police time.

He was the neighbour of Christine Sharp, whose boyfriend Stuart Hazell was jailed in May for a minimum of 38 years for killing 12-year-old Tia.

Meehan initially told police he had not seen Tia on August 3 last year, but later claimed he was "100% sure" he watched her walk past his home at around noon that day.

Jocelyn Ledward, prosecuting, said: "He described her outfit and person in detail."

She said this was "thereby in fact confirming Stuart Hazell's account of her having walked out of the door at that time".

Tia's mother Natalie sat in the public gallery at Croydon Magistrates' Court during the trial, which is set to last one day.

Miss Ledward said Meehan's claim had the result of "compounding the family's false hope" that she was still alive.

It also led detectives to conduct "labour intensive interviews", she added. "These were a waste of valuable police resources at a crucial time."

But she told the court: "There is absolutely no suggestion Mr Meehan was in league with Stuart Hazell."

Instead, she suggested he made the report "perhaps in order to increase his importance in the investigation".

The court was read a statement given to police by Meehan, in which he claimed he saw Tia walk towards a bus stop while he was having a cigarette in his front garden.

"From the time I saw Tia I didn't take my eyes off her," he told detectives.

He said the reason for watching her was "a parental thing" - but he did not attempt to talk to her as he thought she was wearing headphones.

Meehan insisted that "nobody has forced me" to make the police statement, saying: "I have made it under my own free will."

After his arrest, he told officers: "I definitely saw her leave the house. Whether she came back I don't know."

Meehan denies causing wasteful employment of the police by making a false report.

"All witnesses should be treated with courtesy and every attempt should be made to put witnesses at their ease. It is preferable to speak to witnesses in a private room so that there is a more relaxed environment. At the outset, you should explain to the witness that the primary aim of taking a statement from them is to find out what happened.

Any statement should be written and signed in ink. Witness statements should be drafted so that they are concise and to the point. They should only deal with matters within the direct knowledge of the witness. As far as is possible, you should try to record the witness’ own words.

You may find it helpful to take notes before beginning to write the statement. Once the statement has been completed you should offer to allow the witness to read it; otherwise you should read the statement over to the witness before it is signed. If there are any alterations on the statement, these should be initialled by the witness.

When questioning the witness you should ask all relevant questions ie pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry, whether these point towards or away from the potential accused.

Your primary concern is with obtaining the best evidence possible from witnesses. Therefore you will want to know, and should ask, whether the witness has discussed their evidence with anyone else (including the solicitor representing any suspect e.g. a company/employer or another person). If there is any information relevant to the weight to be attached to a witness’ evidence, this should be recorded in your notebook."

Three witnesses saw Tia Sharp leave her grandmother’s house at midday, 

including her grandmother’s boyfriend Stuart Hazell, who lived there. 

He had told the girl to be back by 6 o’clock, to which she had replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” as she left. 

The grandmother was not present.

The following Thursday, while the search was still on for Tia Sharp and her abductor, Hazell appeared in a TV interview himself saying that he had not had anything to do with the girl's disappearance, public suspicion having fallen on him because he was the last person known to have had contact with the missing girl.

Exactly as with his precedecessor in arch misfortune, Caretaker Huntley a decade earlier, this dark undercurrent of deeply unsavoury inuendo had indeed been mounting steadily within the somewhat insular local community with each passing day, reverberating around the tiny, isolated estate, becoming as is did increasingly a more noticeable and clamorous din.

Resonance being the way it is, there is only one way in which a careless but malicious whisper can build into a bestial, bellowing roar, building on it's own native intensity reflected back onto itself over and over again, building upwards exponentially : 

Constant, round-the clock, negative reinforcement via the news media, drip-feeding poison to a community on edge.

The Police investigation was not merely  creating a rarified sense of fear, suspicion and anxiety by refusing to name any suspect - close reading of contemporary news reports filed throughout the week leading up to the official "discovery" of Tia's mortal remains in the council house make it stridently clear from at least as early as the Monday morning, Hazell had been identified as dupe to pin the crime on and clear the case in record time.

Officers from Croydon CID as well as the Yard were quite clearly briefing against Hazell right from the start while they began piling up stacks of firewood sufficient to engulf him in a mighty blaze, come the appointed hour.

As a Judas Goat sacrifice, he was perfect - a broad-shouldered, wild-eyed former crackaddict with a bad record and previous, he seemed genuinely at peace with himself and appeared to have found  a place for himself , just as fellow misfit-in-arms Tia had finding in that house a sense of family and acceptance lacking in the Merton house her birth Mum shared with her new dodgy geezer step-dad and the family they had proceeded to start together, raising her two half-brothers.

Hazell and her Nan always kept some sausage rolls in the fridge it seems, just in case she ever felt like dropping over to theirs for the weekend, rather than spending it at home and feeling so much as if she was just getting in the way...

Then a very strange set of events occurred. 

The police suddenly changed their investigation from that of an abduction and sealed off the house in which he and Tia's grandmother lived, including that of the neighbour, Paul Meehan, who was one of the witnesses that had seen the girl leave her grandmother's house that day. 

The police now concentrated their investigation among the bins and surroundings of the house itself, and inside it, despite it having been searched several times before, including with sniffer dogs, and despite the witnesses who had seen her leaving the house.

Then a very strange set of events occurred. 

The police suddenly changed their investigation from that of an abduction and sealed off the house in which he and Tia's grandmother lived, including that of the neighbour, Paul Meehan, who was one of the witnesses that had seen the girl leave her grandmother's house that day.

 The police now concentrated their investigation among the bins and surroundings of the house itself, and inside it, despite it having been searched several times before, including with sniffer dogs, and despite the witnesses who had seen her leaving the house.

Media attention having switched to himself, Stuart Hazell was soon recognized by a member of the public buying vodka in a shop in Merton, 

This is around 8 miles due West of New Addington;

After going missing from the house he had been essentaially confined to under informal house arrest to for the best part of a week, he somehow was able to slip away from the massive community and police pressence searching the streets, hours, if not minutes prior top the fateful "discovery" of Tia's reamains in the attic, where AT LEAST four previous full searches, with police sniffer dog teams had failed to notice on every previous day that week.Hazzell was actually arrested, drunk out of his mind and sobbing in uncontrollable grief on Merton Common - intially, he had been identified by a local child of Tia's own age, who came across him weaping his heart out whilst cowering from view in an area of some dense bushes, who claims to have recognised him, "got scared" and raised the alarm.

He was eventually arrested half-curled into a foetal position, paralytic and absorbing the shoves, jeers and mob rage of a gathering crowd of engaged members of the public set on stabbing him to death with their keys, as he offered to resistance to their blows.

Merton Common is approximately 8 miles due West of New Addington - and almost right on top of the house Tia's birth mother resided in with her new family and wirey, shifty-looking partner with the illegal gambling income and big, lairy jailhouse neck tattoos pocking out from under his respectable shirt collar.


Neither one was ever questioned closely or investigated by Croydon CID.

and he was arrested and charged with murder.... 


while Paul Meehan, the witness who lived next door and had supported Hazell's account of Tia Sharp's exit from the house, was bailed on suspicion of having assisted an offender.

This is a fairly novel concept - the charge of assisting an offender apparently preceeded not only the eventual trial of Hazell in the Old Bailey, but also the official coroner's inquest into Tia's death;

How can the Metropolitan Police move to arrest, charge and bail Mr. Meehan on suspicion of having assisted an offender

(by proving, with his voluntary witness statement him to be Innocent of any alleged crime)

But more so even than that dread possibility - charged on suspicion of aiding an offender even before it was agreed or ascertained that a crime of any description had indeed even actually occurred....

At that point, no-one new with any certainty that she hadn't been just stung to death by killer bees ... 

Much less who murdered her, how, and who was helping the killer to get away with it.....

Billie Bragg - The Scousers Never Buy The Sun from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

The press coverage was difficult to comprehend, particularly the publication of pictures which added to people's distress. 

There was one photograph of two girls right up against the Leppings Lane fence, their faces pressed into the wire. 

Nobody knows how they escaped. They used to come to Melwood every day, looking for autographs, and that photograph upset everyone there because we knew them. After seeing that I couldn't look at the papers again.

When the Sun came out with the story about Liverpool fans being drunk and unruly, underneath a headline 'The Truth,' the reaction on Merseyside was one of complete outrage. 

Newsagents stopped stocking the Sun. 

People wouldn't mention its name. 

They were burning copies of it. 

Anyone representing the Sun was abused. 

Sun reporters and photographers would lie, telling people they worked for the Liverpool Post and Echo. 

There was a lot of harassment of them because of what had been written. 

The Star had gone a bit strong as well but they apologised the next day. 

They knew the story had no foundation. Kelvin MacKenzie, the Sun's editor, even called me up.

"How can we correct the situation" he said.

"You know that big headline – 'The Truth" I replied. "All you have to do is put 'We lied' in the same size. Then you might be all right."

Mackenzie said: "I cannot do that."

"Well,"; I replied, "I cannot help you then."

That was it. I put the phone down. Merseysiders were outraged by the Sun. 

A great many still are.

I was invited to Walton jail where the prisoners were having a service for Hillsborough. Before I went in, the governor asked me to give them words of reassurance. 

The inmates were very upset by what they had read. It was a creepy experience. There was silence apart from the clinking of keys, the rattle of doors sliding back. I went into the chapel and the inmates were sitting there, with hardly a murmur from anybody. Then they clapped me in. It was really appreciative applause but unnerving as well. 

I remembered the governor's words and told them not to be upset by what they had read in the papers, because it wasn't true.

The Sun's allegations were disgraceful and completely groundless. 

Ticketless fans try to get into every game. 

Any well-supported club playing in a semi-final is going to attract ticketless fans. If handled properly, as they had been at Hillsborough a year earlier, ticketless supporters do not present a problem.

The shameful allegations intensified the anger amidst the trauma. 

We spent the week consoling the bereaved and attending funerals. On the Saturday we held a service at Anfield. At six minutes past three there was a minute's silence across the country. Then everyone at Anfield sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone.' 

We tied scarves between Anfield and Goodison. 

We just wanted to show the unity existing on Merseyside. The following day, there was a final service on the pitch. It was really quiet, just the wind rustling the scarves tied to the crossbar. 

When somebody shouted out 'We all loved you,' we all broke down.

A Beginner's Guide to Freemasonry by Wor. Bro. Dennis Stocks, Barron Barnett Lodge

Mirrored from: http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/freemasonry/freemasonry.html

A Beginner's Guide to Freemasonry
by Wor. Bro. Dennis Stocks, Barron Barnett Lodge.

While there is general consensus that Freemasonry originated in the British Isles, the exact line of descent (direct or indirect) from the Operative stone masons remains an oft posed question. Although the "Direct" argument has the most supporting evidence, the problem of a final resolution of this question remains complicated by the dearth of primary material.

The occupation of "stone mason" began in the British Isles about the beginning of the eleventh century and received great stimulus after the Norman Conquest. The occupation was broadly divided into two strands -- the Hewers, who worked in the quarries rough shaping the stones and the Layers (or Setters) who worked on the building site(s).

Until the Elizabethan era they were engaged almost entirely on cathedrals, churches, abbeys and castles which often took an inordinate time to complete. While each building site was under the direction of a Master Builder or Master Mason, as with most members of a recognised craft, the stone masons were also organised under the protection of craft guilds which had arisen as guardians of the interests of the skilled workers -- a kind of medieval unions. But, importantly, the guilds also required their members to regularly (if not frequently) attend church.

Frith, or family peace guilds, existed in London about the middle of the tenth century, while the first merchant guild is believed to have originated in Dover about the middle of the eleventh century. Although weaver guilds also appear to have also originated about the same time, there is not doubt that the Craft guilds in Britain were well established by the reign of Henry I (around 1135).

On each construction site was erected a small, dedicated building called a "lodge" which served as a repository for their working tools and as a meeting place and school room for apprentice stone masons. Not only practical instructions were imparted to the apprentices, but evidence suggests moral and ethical teachings, modes of recognition and all matters relating to general conduct were imparted in the ceremonies lodge meetings held on Saturdays at high twelve. All apprentices were obligated and indentured in the ceremonies lodges and candidates for promotion were likewise examined, tested for proficiency, obligated and entrusted in these lodges.

Most members of the craft guilds could readily find employment at all levels in the society from the large projects to cottage industries. But major construction programs were expensive and rare. As each phase of the building was concluded or local requirements for their labour exhausted, some stone masons may have been forced to leave and travel to a new building site to find continued employment. Their trade and skills could be confirmed by certain signs, tokens and words which would serve as introductions and certification in this largely illiterate society.

In the earliest days, many of the established lodges must have worked independently since travel was difficult, dangerous and time-consuming. Nevertheless there is evidence that annual assemblages were probably taking place in the 1300's. It was these gatherings that Henry VI in 1436-1437 sought to prohibit by Royal Statute.

Under the Guild system, many families rose from serfdom to become successful employers in a few generations and the system was highly successful until the Reformation. At this time, Henry VIII confiscated most of the Guilds' possessions and his son, Edward VI, in 1547, confiscated nearly all the remaining Guild funds that had been dedicated for religious purposes. The Guilds that survived developed into the Liveried Companies as we find in the City of London today.

The records suggest that the stone masons were probably the worst affected by these travails and many of their records were destroyed.

The direct case argues that, in the seventeenth century, lodges of stone masons which controlled their trade began accepting men who were not stonemasons -- non Operatives -- and called them "accepted" masons. Over the subsequent years, the numbers of accepted masons grew and transformed the Operative lodges into Speculative lodges. The evidence in support of this comes primarily from Scotland where the minute books of Scottish operative lodges shows that from 1599 onwards in addition to the management of the masons' trade, some form of ritual work was being undertaken.

We must be careful to distinguish between Operatives' ritual (their body of stone masons' customs, craft lore and professional 'secrets') and non-operative ceremony which contains a nucleus of catechisms and esoteric teachings. Our earliest evidence as to the contents of the non-operative, Craft ritual is from a series of Scottish Masonic aide-memoirs compiled c.1696-c.1714 which show ceremonies as practiced at that time. They depict a rite of two degrees -- Entered Apprentice and Master or Fellow Craft -- each containing an obligation, 'secrets' and a series of questions and answers. The texts contain nothing that might be described as "Speculative" masonry and on these documents alone there is no grounds to infer that the same ceremonies were practiced in England.

If you accept the present-day sense of the adjective "Speculative" as applied to the Craft, it is highly improbable that such a definition would/could apply to the seventeenth century lodges in either Scotland or England.

So, while the Direct case relies of the Scottish evidence, there is not extant record of the form or nature of the rituals worked in the transitional operative-to-speculative lodges. Without the details of the rituals, the accepted masons in Scotland may not have had any links with Speculative freemasonry and it may be they may simply have been honorary members or patrons of the operative lodges.

Lodge minutes of Aitcheison's Haven shows non-operative admissions in 1672, 1677 and 1693 and the membership roles at Aberdeen in 1670 shows ten operative and thirty-nine non-operatives drawn from the nobility, gentry, professional men, merchants and tradesmen. Yet the lodge continued to conduct itself as an operative lodge.

While the purely operative antecedents of the Scottish lodges made them reluctant to change to non-operative workings, seventeenth century minute books of Scottish operative lodges increasingly show the admission of Accepted Masons and, by the eighteenth century, they had in fact lost most of their Operative functions.

So you can perceive of a three-stage development: Operative Lodges to Transitional Lodges to Speculative Lodges.

But this appears confined to Scotland.

In England it is as if Freemasonry sprang into existence fully formed without a trail and development period. A kind of Speculative spontaneous generation.

The earliest operative lodge in England whose records survive is the Lodge at Alnwick in Northumberland. The records show a code of operative and "moral" regulations drawn up in 1701 and so far as can be ascertained, all members listed as being admitted at this time were operative masons. Surviving minutes of another operative lodge at Swalwell in Durham are sufficiently similar to confirm that these lodges are representative of their time -- purely operative lodges with no non-operative members.

This is not to say that operative lodges did not exist before that time. The existence of semi-permanent groups of stone masons forming themselves into lodges in England before the seventeenth century is, however, purely speculative (no pun intended), for there is no evidence by which we could prove that they existed. The Reformation, when Henry VIII confiscated most of the guilds' property and his son, Edward VI, in 1547, took possession of nearly all the remaining guild funds, virtually destroyed the stone masons who were perhaps the hardest hit by these confiscations of property. Henry VI in 1436-1437 had sought to prohibit the annual assemblages of the guilds. So the guilds, and by extension the masons' lodges, had a history of opposition to their existence in England.

Yet in 1646, Elias Ashmole was made a Free Mason in a lodge specially convened for that purpose. Ashmole, in his account of the ceremony, recorded the names of those present and none were operative masons or had any connection with the craft of stonemasonry. Other seventeenth century evidence from England shows similar events -- the lack of operative lodges and the making of Free masons by other Free Masons with no operative connections.

Supporters of the direct argument will dismiss the lack of Scottish-equivalent evidence in England by claiming that it must have been destroyed. Certainly this was a time of great upheaval. However, their claim that close ties with Scotland and England making the English experience in the development of Accepted Lodges from Operative ones parallel that in Scotland, ignores the very real differences in political, religious, legal and social development between the two countries. Indeed, for much of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Scotland had closer links with France than with its southern neighbour.

Supporters of the Indirect case have approached the problem from a different viewpoint but not asking HOW or WHEN, but WHY Freemasonry should have developed in the first place. Why should non-operatives wish to become Accepted Masons? Why should they turn the trade orientated organisations into a Speculative Art?

By studying primary material some interesting insights become apparent.

The REGIUS MS of c.1390 has a purely operative content. By 1583, the GRAND LODGE #1 MS contains much that is of no relevance to Operative Masonry but highly relevant to Free Masonry. These documents are, respectively, the oldest and third oldest version of the "Old Charges".

The historical period of the GRAND LODGE #1 MS was one of political and religious intolerance in England leading to the Civil War. It is argued that the Society of Freemasons was founded by men of peace who wished to end the religious and political strife of their day. To achieve this, they founded a brotherhood in which religious and political dissent had no part, belief in God was tantamount, and members were dedicated to brotherly love (tolerance), relief and truth. Thus men of differing views could meet in harmony.

It was common practice at that time to teach and pass on philosophical ideas by means of symbolism and allegory. As the primary aim was to "build" a better man/nation in a better world, the form of the old operative building lodges was adopted with the working tools as symbols on which to moralise. What better allegory could there be than the construction of an actual building? In spite of high levels of illiteracy, the great majority of men were familiar with the Bible -- the central source of allegory -- and the only building mentioned in the King James version is that of King Solomon's Temple (although there are conflicting descriptions between Kings and Chronicles).

Harkening back to Ashmole, you will note that, at the time of his initiation (1646) the English Civil War was at its height. Ashmole was a Royalist who had been captured by parliamentarians and was on parole at the house of his father-in-law (a leading Parliamentary supporter in England's north-west). Importantly, the lodge that convened to initiate Ashmole was a mixed group of Royalists and Parliamentarians.

In time, the English Speculatives never doubted that their craft had descended by some torturous and probably untraceable route from the medieval stone masons' operative lodges. Nor did it concern them that men of all races, creeds and walks of life met together in their Speculative Lodges. However undemocratic the external English society might be, within the Lodge, all men were equal.

Yet the egalitarian nature of the English Freemasons did not extend to the Continent. The absolute monarchy and lack of democratic institutions in France and else where on the Continent ensured Freemasonry was effectively the province of the nobles and professional classes.

Freemasonry was seen as an extension to their other social activities or as a path to esoteric knowledge. The three Craft degrees with their unassuming ceremonies and direct moral message were too simple and too dull. Membership had to be justified by showing there were other, more elaborate purposes and a more illustrious origin than could be found in a "mere" reconstructed building guild.

On 21 March 1737, Andrew Michael Ramsay presented an address to the Grand Lodge in Paris in his capacity as Official Orator, As a result, the history of the Craft took a new direction.

On the whole, Ramsay's speech was unexceptional, but he began to emphasise the hypothetical and fanciful origins of Craft as an order founded in antiquity and revived in the Holy Land during the Crusades.

The idea of a medieval chivalric antecedent for Freemasonry struck a receptive chord and within a decade a host of new rites and degrees based on the ideals of chivalry and contemporary notions of knightly practices had sprung up in Germany and France.

It must be emphasised that Ramsay himself did not found any of the additional degrees and he made no reference to, for example, the Knights Templar. But the notion of a Masonic descent from the Templars became firmly embedded in the romantic mind of continental masonry.

Outside the lodge room we hear many and varied statements as to what Freemasonry is all about. Whilst most of the assertions contain an element of truth, they all too frequently assign excessive importance to a subsidiary aspect of our Craft, to the extent that the true purpose of Freemasonry is obscured.

What then IS Freemasonry? The speculative free masons who drafted our first ritual in the 1700's said that freemasonry was a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. This IS what true Freemasonry always has been and always will be.

There is a wealth of information regarding Freemasonry on the WWW. Check it out, you may be surprised and certainly enlightened!

A Constitution for the Few: The Masonic So-Called Founding Fathers

A Constitution for the Few: Looking Back to the Beginning

By Michael Parenti To understand the U.S. political system, it would help to investigate its origins and fundamental structure, beginning with the Constitution. The men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 strove to erect a strong central government. They agreed with Adam Smith that government was "instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor" and "grows up with the acquisition of valuable property." Class Power in Early America Early American society has been described as egalitarian, free from the extremes of want and wealth that characterized Europe. In fact, from colonial times onward, men of influence received vast land grants from the crown and presided over estates that bespoke an impressive munificence. By 1700, three-fourths of the acreage in New York belonged to fewer than a dozen persons. In the interior of Virginia, seven individuals owned over 1.7 million acres. By 1760, fewer than five hundred men in five colonial cities controlled most of the commerce, shipping, banking, mining, and manufacturing on the eastern seaboard. In the period from the American Revolution to the Constitutional Convention (1776-1787), the big landowners, merchants, and bankers exercised a strong influence over politico-economic life, often dominating "the local newspapers which voiced the ideas and interests of commerce."1 In twelve of the thirteen states (Pennsylvania excepted), only property-owning White males could vote, probably not more than 10 percent of the total adult population. Excluded were all indigenous First Nation people ("Indians"), persons of African descent, women, indentured servants, and White males lacking sufficient property. Property qualifications for holding office were so steep as to exclude even most of the White males who could vote. A member of the New Jersey legislature had to be worth at least 1,000 pounds. South Carolina state senators had to possess estates worth at least 7,000 pounds clear of debt (equivalent to more than a million dollars today). In Maryland, a candidate for governor had to own at least 5,000 pounds of property. In addition, the absence of a secret ballot and of a real choice among candidates and programs led to widespread apathy.2 Not long before the Constitutional Convention, the French charg�� d'affaires wrote to his government: Although there are no nobles in America, there is a class of men denominated "gentlemen." . . . Almost all of them dread the efforts of the people to despoil them of their possessions, and, moreover, they are creditors, and therefore interested in strengthening the government and watching over the execution of the law. . . . The majority of them being merchants, it is for their interest to establish the credit of the United States in Europe on a solid foundation by the exact payment of debts, and to grant to Congress powers extensive enough to compel the people to contribute for this purpose.3 In 1787, just such wealthy and powerful "gentlemen," our "founding fathers," many linked by kinship and business dealings, congregated in Philadelphia for the professed purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and strengthening the central government.4 Under the Articles, "the United States in Congress" wielded a broad range of exclusive and binding powers over treaties, trade, appropriations, currency, disputes among the various states, war, and national defense. But these actions required the assent of at least nine states.5 The Congress also had no power to tax, which left it dependent upon levies agreed to by the states. It was unable to compel the people to contribute to the full payment of the public debt, most of which was owed to wealthy private creditors. The delegates to Philadelphia wanted a stronger central power that would (a) resolve problems among the thirteen states regarding trade and duties, (b) protect overseas commercial and diplomatic interests, (c) effectively propagate the financial and commercial interests of the affluent class, and (d) defend the wealthy from the competing claims of other classes within the society. It is (c) and (d) that are usually ignored or denied by most historians.6 Most troublesome to the framers of the Constitution was the insurgent spirit evidenced among the people. In 1787, George Washington wrote to a former comrade-in-arms, "There are combustibles in every State, to which a spark might set fire." Even plutocrats like Gouverneur Morris, who shortly before the Constitutional Convention had opposed strong federation, now realized that an alliance with conservatives from other states would be a safeguard if radicals should capture the state government. So Morris gave up 'state rights' for 'nationalism' without hesitation."7 The delegates' newly found devotion to nation-building did not possess them as a sudden inspiration. As their private communications show, it was a practical response to immediate material conditions, born of a common class interest. The working populace of that day has been portrayed as parochial spendthrifts who never paid their debts and who advocated inflated paper money. Most historians say little about the plight of the common people in early America. Most of the population consisted of poor freeholders, tenants, and indentured hands (the latter trapped in servitude for many years). A study of Delaware farms at about the time of the Constitutional Convention found that the typical farm family might have a large plot of land but little else, surviving in a one-room house or log cabin, no barns, sheds, draft animals, or machinery. The farmer and his family pulled the plow.8 Small farmers were burdened by heavy rents, ruinous taxes, and low incomes. To survive, they frequently had to borrow money at high interest rates. To meet their debts, they mortgaged their future crops and went still deeper into debt, caught in that cycle of rural indebtedness which today is still the common fate of agrarian peoples in this and other countries.9Interest rates on debts ranged from 25 to 40 percent, and taxes fell most heavily on those of modest means. No property was exempt from seizure, save the clothes on a debtor's back.10 Throughout this period, newspapers complained of the increasing numbers of young beggars in the streets. Economic prisoners crowded the jails, incarcerated for debts or nonpayment of taxes.11 Among the people there grew the feeling that the revolution against the English crown had been fought for naught. Angry armed crowds in several states began blocking foreclosures and forcibly freeing debtors from jail. In the winter of 1787, debtor farmers in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays took up arms. But their rebellion was forcibly put down by the state militia after several skirmishes that left eleven men dead and scores wounded.12 Containing the Spread of Democracy The specter of Shays's Rebellion hovered over the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia three months later, confirming their worst fears. They were determined that persons of birth and fortune should control the affairs of the nation and check the "leveling impulses" of the propertyless multitude who composed "the majority faction." "To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction," wrote James Madison in Federalist No. 10, "and at the same time preserve the spirit and form of popular government is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed." Here Madison touched the heart of the matter: how to keep the "form" and appearance of popular government with only a minimum of the substance; how to construct a government that would win some popular support but would not tamper with the existing class structure, a government strong enough to service the growing needs of an entrepreneurial class while withstanding the democratic egalitarian demands of the popular class. The framers of the Constitution could agree with Madison when he wrote also in Federalist No. 10 that "the most common and durable source of faction has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society" and "the first object of government" is "the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property" (that is, acquiring wealth). The framers were of the opinion that democracy was "the worst of all political evils," as Elbridge Gerry put it. For Edmund Randolph, the country's problems were caused by "the turbulence and follies of democracy." Roger Sherman concurred, "The people should have as little to do as may be about the Government." According to Alexander Hamilton, "All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the wellborn, the other the mass of the people. . . . The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right." He recommended a strong centralized state power to "check the imprudence of democracy." And George Washington, the presiding officer at the Philadelphia Convention, urged the delegates not to produce a document merely to "please the people."13 There was not much danger of that. The delegates spent many weeks debating and defending their interests, but these were the differences of merchants, slaveholders, and manufacturers, a debate of haves versus haves in which each group sought safeguards in the new Constitution for its particular concerns. Added to this were disagreements about constitutional structure. How might the legislature be organized? How much representation should the large and small states have? How should the executive be selected? What length of tenure should exist for the different officeholders? The founders decided on a bicameral legislation, consisting of a House of Representatives elected every two years in its entirety, and a Senate with six-year staggered terms (a third of the Senate to be elected every two years). It was decided that seats in the House would be allocated among the states according to population; while each state, regardless of population, would have two seats in the Senate. Major questions, relating to the new government's ability to protect the interests of property, were agreed upon with surprisingly little debate. On these issues, there were no poor farmers, artisans, indentured servants, or slaves attending the convention to proffer an opposing viewpoint. Ordinary working people could not take off four months to go to Philadelphia and write a constitution. The debate between haves and have-nots never occurred. Not surprisingly, Article I, Section 8, that most consequential portion of the Constitution, which gives the federal government the power to support and regulate commerce and protect the interests of property, was adopted within a few days with little debate. Congress was to regulate commerce among the states and with foreign nations and Indian tribes, lay and collect taxes and excises (the power that makes all other government functions possible), impose duties and tariffs on imports but not on commercial exports, "Pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States," establish a national currency and regulate its value, borrow money, fix the standard of weights and measures necessary for trade, protect the value of securities and currency against counterfeiting, and establish uniform bankruptcy laws throughout the country��all measures of primary concern to investors, merchants, and creditors. Some of the delegates were land speculators who invested in western holdings. Accordingly, Congress was given the "Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." Most of the delegates speculated in highly inflated Confederation securities, nearly worthless paper script that the earlier Confederation had issued to pay soldiers and small suppliers. Wealthy speculators bought up huge amounts of this script for a trifling from the impoverished holders. Under Article VI, all debts incurred by the Confederation were valid against the new government, a provision that allowed the speculators to make enormous profits by cashing in their nearly worthless scrip at face value.14 By assuming this debt, the federal government��under the policies of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton��used the public treasury to create by government fiat a vast amount of private capital and credit for big investors, based on the government's newly established ability to tax the general population. The payment of the debt came out of the pockets of the general public and went into the pockets of of a moneyed class.. Financing this assumed debt consumed nearly 80 percent of the annual federal revenue during the 1790s.15This process of using the taxing power to gather money from the working populace in order to bolster private investment continues to this day, as we shall see in the chapters ahead. In the interest of merchants and creditors, the states were prohibited from issuing paper money or imposing duties on imports and exports or interfering with the payment of debts by passing any "Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts." The Constitution guaranteed "Full Faith and Credit" in each state "to the Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings" of other states, thus allowing creditors to pursue their debtors across state lines. Slavery—a major form of property��was afforded special accommodation in the Constitution. Three-fifths of the slave population in each state were to be counted when calculating the state's representation in the lower house, giving the slave states disproportionately more seats in the House beyond their actual voting population. The Constitution never abolished the slave trade. Indeed, the importation of slaves was explicitly guaranteed for another twenty years until 1808, after which there was the option but no requirement that it be abolished. Many slaveholders assumed they would have enough political clout to keep the trade going beyond that year. Slaves who escaped from one state to another had to be delivered up to the original owner upon claim, a provision that was unanimously adopted at the Convention.16 The framers believed the states acted with insufficient force against popular uprisings, so Congress was given the task of "organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia" and calling it forth to "suppress Insurrections." The federal government was empowered to protect the states "against domestic Violence." Provision was made for "the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings" and for the maintenance of an army and navy for both national defense and to establish an armed federal presence within the potentially insurrectionary states��a measure that was to prove a godsend to the industrial barons a century later when the U.S. army was used repeatedly to break strikes by miners and railroad and factory workers. Fragmenting Majority Power In keeping with their desire to contain the Propertyless majority, the founders inserted what Madison called "auxiliary precautions," designed to fragment power without democratizing it. They separated the executive, legislative, and judicial functions and then provided a system of checks and balances among the various branches, including staggered elections, executive veto, the possibility of overturning the veto with a two thirds majority vote in both houses, Senate confirmation of appointments and ratification of treaties, and a bicameral legislature, they hoped to dilute the impact of popular sentiments. They contrived an elaborate and difficult process for amending the Constitution, requiring proposal by two-thirds of both the Senate and the House, and ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures.17 To the extent that it existed at all, the majoritarian principle was tightly locked into a system of minority vetoes, making swift and sweeping popular action less likely. The propertyless majority, as Madison pointed out in Federalist No. 10, must not be allowed to concert in common cause against the propertied class and its established social order. The larger the nation, the greater the "variety of parties and interests" and the more difficult it would be for a mass majority to act in unison. As Madison argued, "A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other wicked project will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it." An uprising of impoverished farmers may threaten Massachusetts at one time and Rhode Island at another, but a national government will be large and varied enough to contain each of these and insulate the rest of the nation from the contamination of rebellion. Second, not only must the majority be prevented from finding horizontal cohesion, but its vertical force, its upward thrust upon government, should be blunted by interjecting indirect forms of representation. Thus, the senators from each state were to be elected by their respective state legislatures rather than directly by the voters. The chief executive was to be selected by an electoral college elected by the people but, as anticipated by the framers, composed of political leaders and men of substance who months later would gather in their various states and choose a president of their own liking. It was believed that they would usually be unable to muster a majority for any one candidate, and that the final selection would be left to the House, with each state delegation therein having only one vote. The electoral college is still in operation, though it has became something of a rubber stamp. Its main function has been to create artificial majorities out of slim pluralities. Thirteen times since 1838, a candidate with a plurality (the largest vote of all the various candidates but still short of a majority) was elected president with a substantial majority of the electoral college. This happens because a candidate might have, say, 47 percent of the vote in a particular state (with the other 53 percent divided among several other candidates), but wins 100 percent of the winner-take-all electoral college vote, thus greatly inflating the winning tally. The undemocratic effects of the electoral college were felt more than two hundred years after the Constitutional Convention in the 2000 presidential election. Vice-President Al Gore won the popular vote by some 300,000 ballots, but Texas governor George W. Bush won a larger number of smaller states with their padded electoral votes, thereby gleaning a majority of the electoral college. A highly dubious count of votes in Florida tilted the electoral college to Bush, and when that count was challenged in the courts, the Republican-controlled Florida legislature declared its intent to brush aside all challenges and summarily accept the list of pro-Bush electors that the Florida secretary of state, an active member of the Bush campaign, had certified as the winning slate. The Florida lawmakers were within their legal (if not moral) rights, for Article II, section 1 of the Constitution states, the electors in each state shall be appointed "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct," demonstrating yesup>sup>t another undemocratic feature of the electoral college.18 The Supreme Court was to be elected by no one, its justices being appointed to life tenure by the president, with confirmation by the Senate. Direct popular election of the Senate was achieved when the Seventeenth Amendment was adopted in 1913��126 years after the Philadelphia Convention��demonstrating that the Constitution is sometimes modifiable in a democratic direction, though it does seem to take awhile. Originally, the only portion of government directly elected by the people was the House of Representatives. Many of the Philadelphia delegates would have preferred excluding the public entirely from direct representation. They were concerned that demagogues would ride into office on a populist tide only to pillage the treasury and wreak havoc on the wealthy class. John Mercer observed that he found nothing in the proposed Constitution more objectionable than "the mode of election by the people." And Gouverneur Morris warned, "The time is not distant, when this Country will abound with mechanics [artisans] and manufacturers [factory and mill workers] who will receive their bread from their employers. Will such men be the secure and faithful Guardians of liberty? . . . The ignorant and dependent [read, poor and propertyless] can be . . . little trusted with the public interest."19 When the delegates finally agreed to having "the people" elect the lower house, as noted earlier, they were referring to a select portion of the population that excluded all white males without property; all females, Native Americans, and indentured servants. Also excluded were slaves��who constituted almost one-fourth of the entire population. Even among those African Americans who had gained their freedom, in both the North and South, few were allowed to vote. Plotters or Patriots? In a groundbreaking book published in 1913, Charles Beard argued that the framers were guided by the interests of their class. Disputing Beard are those who say that the framers were concerned with higher things than just lining their purses. True, they were moneyed men who profited directly from policies initiated under the new Constitution, but they were motivated by a concern for nation building that went beyond their particular class interests. That is exactly the point: high-mindedness is a common attribute among people even when, or especially when, they are pursuing their personal and class interests. The fallacy is to presume that there is a dichotomy between the desire to build a strong nation and the desire to protect wealth and that the framers could not have been motivated by both. In fact, like most other people, they believed that what was good for themselves was ultimately good for their country. Their nation-building values and class interests went hand in hand, and to discover the existence of the "higher" sentiment does not eliminate the self-interested one. Most persons believe in their own virtue. The founders never doubted the nobility of their effort and its importance for the generations to come. Just as many of them could feel dedicated to the principle of "liberty for all" while owning slaves, so could they serve both their nation and their estates. The point is not that they were devoid of the grander sentiments of nation building but that there was nothing in their concept of nation that worked against their class interest and a great deal that worked for it. The framers may not have been solely concerned with getting their own hands in the till, although enough of them did, but they were admittedly preoccupied with defending the interests of the wealthy few from the laboring many. "The Constitution," as Staughton Lynd noted, "was the settlement of a revolution. What was at stake for Hamilton, Livingston, and their opponents, was more than speculative windfalls in securities; it was the question, what kind of society would emerge from the revolution when the dust had settled, and on which class the political center of gravity would come to rest."20 The small farmers and debtors, who opposed a central government that would be even farther beyond their reach than the local and state governments, have been described as motivated by self-serving, parochial interests��unlike the supposedly high-minded statesmen who journeyed to Philadelphia.21 How and why the wealthy became visionary nation-builders is never explained. Not too long before, many of them had been proponents of laissez-faire and had opposed a strong central government. In truth, it was not their minds that were so much broader but their economic interests. Their motives were no higher than those of any other social group struggling for place and power in the United States of 1787. But possessing more time, money, information, and organization, they enjoyed superior results. Though supposedly dedicated to selfless and high-minded goals, the delegates nevertheless bound themselves to the strictest secrecy. Proceedings were conducted behind locked doors and shuttered windows (despite the sweltering heat). Madison's notes, which recorded most of the actual deliberations, were published, at his insistence, only after all participants were dead, 53 years later, most likely to avoid political embarrassment to them.22 Those who argue that the founders were motivated primarily by high-minded objectives consistently overlook the fact that they themselves repeatedly stated their intention to erect a government strong enough to protect the haves from the have-nots. Deliberating in secrecy, they gave voice to the crassest class prejudices and most disparaging opinions about popular involvement. At no time did they deny the fact��as have their latter-day apologists��that their concern was to diminish popular control and resist all tendencies toward class equalization (or "leveling," as it was called). Their dedication to their class interests were so unabashedly avowed as to cause one delegate, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, to complain of hearing too much about how the sole or primary object of government was property. The cultivation and improvement of the human mind, he maintained, was the most noble object��a fine sentiment that evoked no opposition from his colleagues as they continued about their business. If the founders sought to restrain power through a system of "checks and balances," they seemed chiefly concerned with restraining mass power, while assuring the perpetuation of their own class power. They supposedly had a "realistic" opinion of the rapacious nature of human beings��readily evidenced when they talked about the common people��yet they held a remarkably sanguine view of the self-interested impulses of their own class, which they saw as inhabited largely by virtuous men of "principle and property." According to Madison, wealthy men (the "minority faction") would be unable to sacrifice the rights of other citizens, nor jeopardize the institution of property and wealth and the untrammeled uses thereof, which in the eyes of the framers constituted the essence of "liberty."23 In sum, the Constitution was consciously designed as a conservative document, elaborately equipped with a system of minority locks and dams in order to resist the pressure of popular tides. It furnished special provisions for the slaveholding class. It provided ample power to build the state services and protections needed by a rising bourgeoisie. For the founders, liberty meant something different from democracy. It meant liberty to invest, speculate, trade, and accumulate wealth without encroachment by the common populace. The civil liberties designed to give all individuals the right to engage in public affairs won little support from the delegates. When George Mason of Virginia recommended that a committee be formed to draft "a Bill of Rights," a task that could be accomplished "in a few hours," the other convention members offered little discussion on the motion and voted almost unanimously against it. If the Constitution was so blatantly elitist, how did it manage to win ratification? It was strongly opposed in most of the states, but the same superiority of wealth, organization, and control of political office and press that allowed the rich to monopolize the Philadelphia Convention enabled them to orchestrate a successful ratification campaign. The Federalists also used bribes, intimidation, and fraud against their opponents. What is more, the Constitution never was submitted to a popular vote. Ratification was by state conventions, each composed of delegates drawn mostly from the same affluent stratum as the framers. Those who voted for these delegates were themselves usually subjected to property qualifications.24 Democratic Concessions For all its undemocratic aspects, the Constitution was not without its historically progressive features. Consider the following:25 The very existence of a written constitution with specifically limited powers represented an advance over more autocratic forms of government. No property qualifications were required for any federal officeholder, unlike in England and most of the states. And salaries were provided for all officials, thus rejecting the common practice of treating public office as a voluntary service that only the rich could afford. The president and legislators were elected for limited terms. No one could claim a life tenure on any elective office. Article VI reads: "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States," a feature that represented a distinct advance over a number of state constitutions that banned Catholics, Jews, and nonbelievers from holding office. Bills of attainder, the practice of declaring by legislative fiat a specific person or group of people guilty of an offense, without benefit of a trial, were made unconstitutional. Also outlawed were ex post facto laws, the practice of declaring some act to be a crime, then punishing those who had committed it before it was made unlawful. There was strong popular sentiment for a Bill of Rights. In order to assure ratification, supporters of the new Constitution pledged the swift adoption of such a bill as a condition for ratification. So, in the first session of Congress, the first ten amendments were swiftly passed and then adopted by the states; these rights included freedom of speech and religion; freedom to assemble peaceably and to petition for redress of grievances; the right to keep arms; freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; freedom from self-incrimination, double jeopardy, cruel and unusual punishment, and excessive bail and fines; the right to a fair and impartial trial; and other forms of due process. The Bill of Rights also prohibited Congress from giving state support to any religion. Religion was to be something apart from government, supported only by its own constituents and not by the taxpayer��a stricture that often has been violated in practice. The Constitution represented a consolidation of national independence, a victory of republicanism over British imperialism. It guaranteed a republican form of government and explicitly repudiated monarchy and aristocracy; hence, Article I, Section 9 states: "No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States." According to James McHenry, a delegate from Maryland, at least twenty-one of the fifty-five delegates favored some form of monarchy. Yet few dared venture in that direction out of fear of popular opposition. Furthermore, delegates like Madison believed that stability for their class order was best assured by a republican form of government. The time had come for the rich bourgeoisie to rule directly without the baneful intrusions of kings and nobles. On a number of occasions during the Philadelphia Convention, this assemblage of men who feared and loathed democracy found it necessary to show some regard for popular sentiment (as with the direct election of the lower house). If the Constitution was going to be accepted by the states and if the new government was to have any stability, it had to gain some measure of popular acceptance. While the delegates and their class dominated the events of 1787-89, they were far from omnipotent. The class system they sought to preserve was itself the cause of marked restiveness among the people. Land seizures by the poor, food riots, and other violent disturbances occurred throughout the eighteenth century in just about every state and erstwhile colony. This popular ferment spurred the framers in their effort to erect a strong central government but it also set a limit on what they could do. The delegates "gave" nothing to popular interests, rather��as with the Bill of Rights��they reluctantly made democratic concessions under the threat of popular rebellion. They kept what they could and grudgingly relinquished what they felt they had to, driven not by a love of democracy but by a fear of it, not by a love of the people but by a prudent desire to avoid riot and insurgency. The Constitution, then, was a product not only of class privilege but of class struggle��a struggle that continued and intensified as the corporate economy and the government grew. Sidney Aronson, Status and Kinship in the Higher Civil Service (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 35; and Daniel M. Friedenberg, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Land: The Plunder of Early America (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992); Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Random House, 1950), 178. Aronson, Status and Kinship, 49; A. E. McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies in America (Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1969, originally 1905). Quoted in Herbert Aptheker, Early Years of the Republic(New York: International Publishers, 1976), 41. On the class interests of the framers, see Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1936, originally 1913). Even Forrest McDonald, a conservative critic of Beard's interpretation, documents the opulent background of fifty-three of the fifty-five delegates; see his We, the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), chapter 2. Articles of Confederation, in National Documents (New York: Unit Book Publishing, 1905), 59-71. For instance, see most of the articles in Robert Goldwin and William Schambra (eds.), How Democratic Is the Constitution? (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980). Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1948), 30. Bernard Herman, The Stolen House (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1992). Jensen, The Articles of Confederation, 9-10; and Beard, An Economic Interpretation,28. Aptheker, Early Years of the Republic, 33-36; . Historians like Robert Brown, who attack Beard's view, assert that little poverty existed in post-Revolutionary America. They ignore the large debtor class, poorhouses, and crowded debtor jails. They also ignore studies like Clifford Lindsey Alderman, Colonists For Sale, The Story of Indentured Servants in America (New York: Macmillan, 1975). Aptheker, Early Years of the Republic, 137, 144-145. David Szatmary, Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980). For these and other unflattering comments by the delegates regarding the common people and democracy, see Max Farrand (ed.) Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937, 1966), vols. 1-3, passim. Beard, An Economic Interpretation, passim. Enormous profits accrued to holders of public securities. Aptheker, Early Years of the Republic, 114. For an excellent study of the enormous influence wielded at the founding by the slaveholding class, see Paul Finkelman,Slavery and the Founders (Armonk, N.Y./London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996). Amendments could also be proposed through a constitutional convention called by Congress on application of two-thirds of the state legislatures and ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the states. This method has yet to be tried. For a general discussion of the Madisonian Constitutional legacy, see Jennifer Nedelsky, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). For further discussion of the 2000 election and the controversy in Florida, see chapter 13. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, vol.2, 200ff. Staughton Lynd, Class Conflict, Slavery and the United States Constitution (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967). For discussions of the class interests behind the American Revolution, see Alfred Young (ed.), The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism (DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1977); and Edward Countryman, A People in Revolution(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1982). For examples of those who confuse the founders' broad class interests with the national interest, see David G. Smith, The Convention and the Constitution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965); also several of the essays in Goldwin and Schambra (eds.), How Democratic Is the Constitution? Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, vol 1, xii-xv. Sparser notes on proceedings, delegation votes, and other matters were published in 1819 and 1824. Federalist No. 10. Jackson Turner Main, The Antifederalists (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961). For a state-by-state account see Michael Gillespie and Michael Lienesch (eds.) Ratifying the Constitution (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989). Probably not more than 20 percent of the adult White males voted for delegates to the ratifying conventions, if that many. This section on the Constitution's progressive features is drawn mostly from Aptheker, Early Years of the Republic, 71ff. and passim. Voting No based on a rigid compliance with a 220 year old scrap of paper authored by millionaires rather than following your own moral conscience means never having to say you're sorry.

British Freemasonry, Labour and the Deep State

I'm afraid I don't know an awful lot about Merlyn Reese, other than the cabinet positions he held and the times that he held them.

In December of 1973, all parties are agreed (with retrospect), peace was at hand in the North of Ireland - Provos, ex-paratroops and ex-Spooks all converge on this point - the war had been won and the IRA were war-weary, broken and beaten - thoroughly infiltrated by informants at every level, it's leaders jailed, flow of arms interdicted and shut off.

That was the situation in Feburary of 1974 when Labour was returned to power and Merlyn Rees became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland - Labour had sent the troops in in 1970 to restore public order (which Catholics at the time had been especially grateful for), and now, in the wake of the Sunningdale Agreement and power sharing, it was about to bring them home.

And then, in the period between the February and October 1974 Elections, like every other aspect of British national life, for no reason at all, and completely out of the blue, all hell broke loose.

Harold Wilson condemned the roaring demagogues and Presbytarian bully-boys of Ulster for sponging off the might and relative economic prosperity of the rest of the British State whilst kicking it in the teeth, which was an economic truth.

In August, Ulstermen enacted a general strike across the province, causing mass disruption and chaos with breaks in the electricity supply.

For no real reason...

Hmm...

A MASSIVE wildcat bombing campaign of completely unprecedented proportions, across the province occurred almost immediately afterwards, and was both claimed and blamed on Republicans.

But the fact that all the striking Orangemen opted to march that year with pieces of sponge pinned to their lapels as a mark of defiance and pride suggests to me that we are in the pressence of a psy-op, here...

"Because Labour can't keep you safe".

Once he became Home Secretary, they promptly dropped the longest serial murder series in British criminal history right into his lap in his Leeds constituency.

Hmmm. 

Although the Bilderberg element constantly vyed for control, it is notable to observe that the Wilson and Callaghan cabinets were the only ones in recent memory not dominated by Freemasons; Nazi King Edward VIII, former Grand Master of English Freemasony had in the 1920s ordered the creation of a a SECOND Masonic Lodge Temple within the Palace of Westminster (the New Welcome Lodge) for the sole and specific purpose of recruiting and co-opting rising stars within the Parliamentary Labour Party.

These MPs dominated both the wartime coalition War Cabinet and the 1945 Labour Government.

Indeed, Churchill once noted in his diary:

"An empty taxicab pulled up outside the Palace of Westminster; and Clement Attlee stepped out."

and yet still, he was Prime Minister for more than 5 years....

Wilson, and then Callaghan appear to have consciously avoided appointing Freemasons....

I strongly suspect Rees might share similar concerns.

Either way, in reviewing allegations of mass ritualised child abuse, being on a 3 MP panel with Alex Carlile and Ted Heath, he hadn't a hope...

It Got Them Killed / October Surprise: The Assassination of Vice-President Nelson Rockerfeller

1979

“Nelson thought he was coming, but he was going.” That was one quip following the news that Nelson Rockefeller—New York’s four-term governor, former vice-president of the United States, and the most prominent scion of America’s most famous wealthy family—had succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 70, while in his midtown townhouse with his 25-year-old assistant, Megan Marshack. 

Preferred joke: 

Q: How did Nelson Rockefeller die? 

A: Low blood pressure: 70 over 25.

Before there was Warren Buffett and his secretary, there was Rockefeller and his. Autres temps, autres mœurs. The official story quickly broke down. 

He had not been in his office working on a book about his art collection but in his townhouse. 

He had not been with his security guard but with his security guard and his chauffeur. 

Okay, security guard, chauffeur, and a young blonde woman in a black evening gown. 

He died instantly. 

Actually, he died one hour after he was stricken. 

The blonde called 911, and that’s all she did. 

Well, first she called her friend, TV personality Ponchitta Pierce, and it was Pierce who called 911. 

Where was Marshack? 

Out of town, replied the family spokesman, though when reporters had reached Marshack by phone a few hours after the death, she explained that she was with the family spokesman.

Eager for closure, the family allowed no autopsy and had the corpse cremated, hastily absolving everyone involved of any negligence or malfeasance—

“4 Rockefeller Children Say All at Hand Did Their Best” 

read the good-natured headline in the Times. But the image of an engorged “Rocky” launched into eternity by an orgasm worthy of America’s premier financial titan was already firmly established in the popular mind.

The sudden death may have robbed the public of democracy’s birthright, the spectacle of the high and mighty crushed and fallen. Rockefeller himself was the very Midas of scandal, his touch turning gold to outrage: the Diego Rivera mural at Rockefeller Center, the prison riots at Attica, and of course his high-profile divorce from Mary Clark, his wife of 22 years, to marry Margaretta “Happy” Murphy, his wife at the time of his death. 

By the time scandal arrived breathless and too late in that midtown lair, Nelson Rockefeller, as a liberal Republican, had been out of sync with his various milieus for a long time. Of course, not knowing whether you are coming or going is the very definition of even a moderate Republican these days.