Random benji historical story that nobody cares about but might make up for making 20 dumb posts about Greenwald and Hitchens.
Everybody here is probably familiar with the Jefferson quote about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants from time to time. That was from a short page long or so letter he wrote to John Adams son-in-law that was a bit of rhetorical flourish.
At the same time he was writing a longer letter to James Madison, they had a tendency to geek out and write letters trying to construct governments and such. The former letter contained the nugget of the idea, but Jefferson's letter to Madison contained none of that for a more specific outline of the concept. Essentially it was that generations lasted about 19 years, future generations shouldn't be bound by current generations, so basically governments should sunset after 19 years, the new generation could re-enact it or enact something entirely new. This has gotten some historical attention, as has Madison's general dismissal of the idea as more or less impractical especially for the time, and Jefferson agreed with him on the specifics but felt there was a way to figure it out, but then he became Secretary of State, later President, the French Revolution did not go as he hoped, etc. and never really revisited the idea.
What I found interesting about Jefferson's more elaborate proposal to Madison and Madison's reply, something I was not aware of until recent weeks, was that Madison actually did write a rather lengthy reply and it was much more declarative than his going "well, that seems like it has some good parts but I don't know how it'll work." And related to what Jefferson included with a seemingly unnecessary amount of math to decide on 19 years and other things.
It wasn't just the government or laws that'd be refreshed. Jefferson proposed that most debts would also end, especially any incurred by those now dead. This didn't include
all debts obviously, as you couldn't know next year was the big refresh and take out a loan for infinity dollars (not that anyone would loan it to you) then get it cancelled. Madison spent most of his reply actually arguing most forceably against this idea, not as unworkable or impractical, but as dangerous and almost certain to lead to violence rather than a peaceful refresh. Whereas the rest he was more like "needs work."
I think that Madison's most convincing argument may have been that Jefferson was making the current Millennial craze mistake, people born between 1875 and 2018 may all be Millennials according to the media, but some of them were born yesterday and others are legal adults or even older. How do you delineate regarding the debts? Especially since Jefferson allowed for some debts and not others. Jefferson wasn't the math whiz that Hamilton was, but he liked to dabble, like the John Hollinger of the first cabinet.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living": that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society has formed no rules for the appropriation of it's lands in severality, it will be taken by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the child, the legatee, or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be the reverse of our principle.
What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.--To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 21. years, and their period of life 34. years more, that being the average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who have already attained 21. years of age. Each successive generation would, in this way, come on, and go off the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals do now. Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. the 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation. Then no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of it's own existence.
Take, for instance, the table of M. de Buffon wherein he states 23,994 deaths, and the ages at which they happened. Suppose a society in which 23,994 persons are born every year, and live to the ages stated in this table. The conditions of that society will be as follows. 1st. It will consist constantly of 617,703. persons of all ages. 21y. Of those living at any one instant of time, one half will be dead in 24. years 8. months. 3dly. 1[8],675 will arrive every year at the age of 21. years complete. 41y. It will constantly have 348,417 persons of all ages above 21. years. 5ly. And the half of those of 21. years and upwards living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18. years 8. months, or say 19. years as the nearest integral number. Then 19. years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt.
