The midterm elections are Tuesday. Some 68,000 people have already voted in Hamilton County, indicating high turnout from both parties. Passions are high. Suspicions and ambitions, fears and hope, rhetoric and duty fill ballot boxes and inboxes. Both sides express desperation, a fear of the future, if the other side wins.
The most difficult job for a large nation is how to manage competing interest. That battle is the heart of the most significant disagreements and the reflective individual inquiry within our national and local lives.
Our own 1776 Declaration of Independence is said to be the soul of our nation. The 1788 ratified Constitution, on the other hand, the contract that governed those ambitions, is the organization and management of that vision. That is akin to personal disciplines that give life to every personal dream.
The 12 years from 1776 to 1788 were not smooth. Competing interests fought and fought. Simply put, many supported states’ authority over national. Those folks welcomed the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, those who wanted the ability to handle our economy to fight wars, expand trade and create alliances with foreign governments wanted not several states’ interests, but a singular one.
People like Jefferson and Adams hurled insults at one another. Madison fought with George Mason. Hamilton famously differed with Patrick Henry. The final resolution, The Great Compromise, came through conflict and contention and birthed the novel form of government that we live with and are under now.