The Uncivil War

Mr. David Lebedoff addresses here an issue as timely as the front page of your daily newspaper and as ancient as Aristotle: 'Who makes the laws?' Aristotle observes that a polity can have government by the one, the few, or the many, and that the conflict over which is to prevail creates permanent instability. The ensuing history of Europe amply demonstrated this. In 1787, the American founders tried to solve the problem of perpetual instability through their theory of mixed government, but, finally, they made 'We the People' the first three words of the Constitution, the basis for the laws. The sense of the people, in order to be deliberate was to be filtered through the constitutional process. But We the People finally wrote the laws. The founders, after all, had just won a revolution against government by the one. Their founding principle is now under assault by an effort to establish "government by the few," government by law school graduates being one expression of this. Mr. Lebedoff offers here a profound analysis of how this has come to pass.--Jeffrey Hart