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Since the beginning of time, people have been divided between those
who make the rules, and those who must abide by them. From the first
families, in which the father's word was law, through tribal
communities, where the elders' word was the law, through Greece and
Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire, where the church's word was law -
societies have been divided between those who make the laws, and those
who must abide by them.
Centuries of this reality deeply permeated the culture which
recognized that those who made the law were free, and those who were
bound by the law were free to do whatever the lawmakers allowed them
to do.
The process of becoming a lawmaker, rather than a law abider, has
always been bloody, and remains so today in many parts of the world.
Conflict between the church and the king, for ultimate authority was
not free from bloodshed. But in the 12th century, a new force began
to emerge, a force which we will identify simply as the individual
quest for freedom.
This quest for freedom appears throughout history, to one degree or
another, in the form of rebellions by law abiders who were either
unhappy with the laws that bound them, or who wanted to become law
makers themselves. More often than not, these rebellions ended in
bloody massacre.
The quest for freedom exploded into the world in 1215, at
Runnymede, England, when the barons of King John rebelled, and
demanded that the King agree to the terms that they dictated. King
John acquiesced on June 15, and signed the document known as the Magna Carta.
With this document, a new idea entered the culture: absolute power
of the law makers can be limited by the people who must abide by the
law.
This extremely important concept was the beginning of a completely
new concept of governance. It was just the beginning, however. The
king still held the power, commanded the armies, owned the land, and
collected taxes. The Magna Carta did limit the King's power, and
established several ideas that survived through the centuries and are
reflected in the U.S. Constitution.
Not everyone appreciated the barons' rebellion nor the document it
spawned. Even after four centuries of the evolving quest for freedom,
many people subscribed to the philosophy of Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679).
Hobbes philosophy is expressed in his book, Leviathan, (1651), in which
he describes individuals as being in a constant struggle for power, at
war with each other, to take what another person has, or to defend his
own possessions from the aggression of others. When left to his own
devices, the life of individuals is "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish,
and short."
To make life better for everyone, Hobbes advocated the surrender of
individual power and property to an absolute sovereign. Hobbes
believed that:
"The control of power must be lodged in a single person, and no
individual can set their own private judgments of right and wrong in
opposition to the sovereign's commands." [1]
Out of this philosophical foundation grows the idea that the state
is, or should be, the sovereign, and the grantor of individual rights
and freedom.
The evolving quest for individual freedom, however, was shaping its
own philosophical view of how people should live. This philosophy is
illuminated by John Locke
(1632-1704). Locke rejected Hobbes' conclusion that a single
sovereign should rules the lives of individuals. In his treatise Of
Civil Government, published in 1690, he sets forth two
important ideas: (1) external things (nature) are not owned by mankind
in common, but are owned by their first possessor; and (2) every man
has a "property" in his own person and products produced by his own
labor. He says:
"Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all
men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has
any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his
hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of
the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his
labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby
makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state
nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to
it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being
the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a
right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough,
and as good, left in common for others."[2]
Locke struggled throughout the latter part of his life trying to
conceive a system of governance that would both protect the sanctity
of individual freedom and property while providing the social
organization necessary to maintain order and prevent the constant
aggression that Hobbes feared.
Here are the foundations of the concepts in conflict today. On the
one hand, we see forces at work who clearly believe that individual
freedom is the reward of the sovereign, while on the other hand, we
see forces at work who clearly believe that individual freedom is the
natural condition of every person, which should be limited only by the
person's consent.
In more modern times, the Hobbes view evolved into Britain's
empire-building initiatives of the 17th and 18th centuries. The era
of exploration discovered societies less developed than the British,
and the benevolent leaders believed that by colonizing the discovered
(or conquered) territories, the lives of the natives would be made
better, to say nothing of the resources that might be pillaged from
those territories.
Britain's empire attitude motivated the colonization of America.
The Virginia Company of London was granted a Royal Charter by King
James the First, to establish a colony in Jamestown in 1607. This
Charter guaranteed that "the persons which shall dwell within the
colonies shall have all the liberties as if they had been abiding and
born within this our realm of England or any other of our
dominions."[3]
These English "liberties" included the limitations on government
set forth originally in the Magna Carta. For more than a century, the
American colonies wrestled with the conflict between the quest for
individual freedom - a requirement for survival in the new world - and
the sovereign authority of a king on the other side of the ocean. The
American revolution set the stage for the next major evolutionary step
toward the individual's quest for freedom: the U.S. Constitution.
Like the barons who confronted King John in 1215, the authors of
the U.S. Constitution were not trying to implement a new philosophical
theory; they were simply trying to organize themselves into a society
in which government would protect the "natural rights" [4] they believed all men to possess.
The system of governance created by the U.S. Constitution takes the
quest for individual freedom and the ideas contained in the Magna
Carta to a much higher plane. It firmly establishes the idea that the
government (the state) is empowered by the consent of the people.
This concept of freedom gives neither king nor church any room to
share authority. The powers of government are enumerated. Those
powers not granted by the people to the government, are retained by
the people.
To be absolutely sure there could be no mistake about certain
natural rights retained by the people, the U.S. Constitution was
immediately amended to include the Bill of Rights - the first ten
amendments. Among these natural rights are: the freedom of speech and
assembly; freedom to worship; freedom to bear arms; the right to a
public trial by a jury of peers; security from unwarranted search and
seizure; and the assurance that government could not take private
property for public use without "just compensation."
The documents which created the United States of America represent
a gigantic forward leap for the ideas born in the Magna Carta, and
massaged and matured through the mind and writings of John Locke.
To most of the world, the American Revolution was just another war
which America won. Few people, even in America, recognized the
significance of the ideas articulated and enshrined in those founding
documents. For another hundred years, Britain would continue
exploiting other colonies, where the rebels were not so rambunctious.
While around the world, the power of kings was steadily eroding, even
in England, the Hobbesian view prevailed - that the state, not
individuals, should be sovereign.
Global Governance
Nearly a hundred years after Thomas Jefferson penned the
Declaration of Independence in America, John
Ruskin (1819-1900) was teaching a generation of English students,
at Oxford, to disdain personal wealth in favor of the common good. He
writes:
"But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life
to be striven for -- life, good for all men, as for yourselves; if you
can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following
those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her
quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace;- then, and so sanctifying
wealth into 'common wealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily
labors, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and
increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to
build, well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh
better; temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that
kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal." [5]
Ruskin's work deeply influenced one of Britain's most famous empire
builders, Cecil
Rhodes (1853-1902). In 1888, he organized the diamond-mining
company, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. He was appointed Prime
Minister of Cape Colony, South Africa in 1890, and by 1891, De Beers
controlled 90 percent of the world's diamond production.
With more wealth than he would ever need, and guided by the
influence of John Ruskin, Rhodes called together two of his close
friends - William
J. Stead, and Reginald Baliol
Brett - in what was to become an historic meeting at his home in
1891. Together, they decided to create a secret society. The inner
circle was named "Society of the Elect," and an outer circle to be
known as "The Association of Helpers." [6]
Stead was, perhaps, the most famous journalist of his day. He
exerted great influence upon his readers until his untimely death as a
passenger on the Titanic in 1912. Brett, later to be known as Lord
Esher, was a powerful government official, who refused the Viceroyalty
of India, and the position of Secretary of War in order to work behind
the scenes.
Alfred
Milner (1854-1925), private secretary to George Goschen,
chancellor of the exchequer, was added to the inner circle. This
group, and other powerful individuals who were added to both circles,
have had enormous influence on the development of global governance.
Rhodes died in 1902, leaving most of his vast fortune to the Rhodes
Scholarship Program at Oxford that continues to this day. Rhodes left
Alfred Milner in charge of the secret society, and he continued the
mission launched by Rhodes.
The individuals within the group used their various positions in
government, the press, and finance, to advance their Ruskin-Rhodes
philosophy in every public policy they could influence. In 1910, the
group began publication of The Round Table, a magazine for
intellectuals. This group, and the publication's writers, soon became
known as "The Round Table Group." The group set up offices in Chatham
House, and were also known as the Chatham House Crowd.
While Cecil Rhodes, Stead and Brett held their fateful meeting in
England in 1891, another meeting was taking place in Austin, Texas.
James Stephen Hogg faced two formidable challengers in his bid for
Governor. Hogg called on Edward
Mandell House (1858-1938) to head his campaign. Hogg won the
election in 1892, and rewarded House with the honorary title of
Lieutenant Colonel, which soon was shortened to "Colonel."
House loved the excitement and challenge of politics. He developed
a strong network of Democratic supporters that he referred to as "Our
Crowd." House was the driving force behind the election of three
Texas Governors, one of whom, Allen Culberson, moved to the
U.S. Senate in 1898. House became disenchanted with politics after
his candidate lost in 1904. He toured Europe for a while, studied,
and moved to New York in 1910, to re-engage in Democratic politics at
the national level.
House met Woodrow Wilson on November 25, 1911. The two became
close friends and House managed Wilson's Presidential campaign . By
reactivating his Texas network of political allies, House secured the
vote of Texas' 40 electors, which gave Wilson the nomination in 1912.
Wilson's subsequent victory placed House at the pinnacle of influence
in the White House. House refused every official position offered to
him and chose to remain behind the scenes as the President's closest
personal advisor.
In 1912, House also published his first novel, anonymously. The
novel, titled Philip Dru: Administrator, is a horrible novel by any
literary standard. Nonetheless, it is an extremely important book.
Many people believe the book is an autobiographical fantasy in which
House sees himself leading the world to the perfect system of
governance.
It is essential to understand House's belief system. Let his words
speak for him:
"Philip Dru...saw many of the civil institutions of his country
debased by the power of wealth under the thin guise of the
constitutional protection of property" (p. 3).
"When in the future children are trained from infancy that they
can measurably conquer their troubles by the force of mind, a new era
will have come to man" (p. 31).
"The strong will help the weak, the rich will share with the poor,
and it will not be called charity, but it will be known as justice.
The man or woman who fails to do his duty, not as he sees it, but as
society at large sees it, will be held up to the contempt of mankind"
(p. 42).
The purpose of House's novel is to describe the events that lead to
the overthrow of the government, and the organization of the new
government under "the Administrator." When the revolution is
completed in the book, Dru says:
Note the striking similarity of House's vision with the words of
Thomas Hobbes.
"Dru saw that the time had come ... for the National Government to
take upon itself some of the functions heretofore exclusively within
the jurisdiction of the States" (p. 182)
"He also proposed making corporations share with the Government
and States a certain part of their net earnings" (p. 182)
"Government...was to have representation upon the boards of
[every] corporation.... Labor was to have one representative upon the
boards of [every] corporation and to share a certain percentage of the
earnings above their wages" (p. 183)
"...he thought, and perhaps rightly, that in a few centuries from
now the killing of animals and the eating of their corpses would be
regarded in the same way as we now think of cannibalism" (p.200).
"...there were no legislative bodies sitting, and the function of
law making was confined to one individual, the Administrator himself"
(p. 221).
"Our Constitution and our laws served us well for the first
hundred years of our existence, but under the conditions of today they
are not only obsolete, but even grotesque" (p. 222).
"The American flag, the American destiny and hers [England's] were
to be interwoven through the coming ages. Thus Dru had formulated and
put in motion an international policy, which, if adhered to in good
faith, would bring about the comity of nations, a lasting and
beneficent peace, and the acceptance of the principle of the
brotherhood of man" (pp 275-276).[7]
The reason for all this emphasis on House will become clear as we
follow his influence in the White House.
Shortly after his election, Wilson sent House to Europe as his
personal representative. There he met Sir Edward Grey, a member of
the Milner Group, and a regular at Chatham House. House also met
other leaders in the English government, most of whom were also active
participants in the Chatham House Crowd.
Firmly ensconced in the White House as the President's right-hand
man, House assembled a network of supporters and advisors which came
to be known as the "Inquiry."
This group concerned itself primarily with international relations,
especially in Europe as it faced a growing threat of war. House, with
the aid of selected members of the Inquiry, drafted Wilson's famous
Fourteen Points,
which was presented to Congress January 8, 1918.
House, and about 20 members of the Inquiry constituted the U.S.
delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference which began January 18,
1919. It is no coincidence, that one month earlier, in December,
1918, an article appeared in the Round Table, entitled "The League of
Nations: A Practical Suggestion." [8] The idea, and
the article, were developed jointly by members of the Chatham House
Crowd, House, and members of his Inquiry. Lionel Curtis (1872-1955)
who edited the Round Table, and George Louis Beer
(1872-1920), [9] who was House's special envoy, are
credited with drafting the article and the Charter for the League of
Nations.
A review of the Charter of the League of Nations should be compared
to the ideas House expressed in Philip Dru: Administrator, and
with the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.
The Charter or "Covenant" of the League of Nations is the first 30
Articles of the Treaty of Versailles - the treaty that ended World War
I. One month before the treaty was signed (on June 28, 1919), an
informal meeting of many of the negotiators was held at the Majestic
Hotel in Paris (on May 30, 1919). The participants decided to elevate
and formalize the behind-the-scenes efforts conducted by both the
Inquiry and the Chatham House Crowd (also known as the Round Table
Group), by organizing in England, the Royal Institute of International
Affairs, and in the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations.[10]
Wilson campaigned vigorously for ratification of his League of Nations,
giving 37 speeches in 29 cities during a three-week period. But when
the Treaty of Versailles was finally presented to the U.S. Senate on
November 19, 1919, and on
March 20, 1920, it was defeated. Thereby, the United States
opted out of the League of Nations.[11]
Wilson was crushed, and retreated into relative obscurity until his
death in 1924. House, never up front or in the spotlight, focused his
attention on developing the new organizations which he believed to be
the instruments through which the American people could be enlightened
sufficiently to appreciate the benefits offered by the League of
Nations' one world government.
Although the League of Nations was ratified by the other Parties to the
Treaty of Versailles, and a permanent headquarters was built in Geneva,
Switzerland, the League had no power and little influence without the
participation of the United States.
The League of Nations brought to the world an opportunity to adopt
a worldwide system of governance based on the philosophy of Thomas
Hobbes, and crafted by the leading scholars of the day. Most of the
world jumped at the opportunity - America didn't. The idea of world
government, however, was firmly imprinted upon the public mind. In
Geneva, delegates from the various nations that ratified the treaty
busied themselves with the construction of their world government. In
America, the economic expansion of the "roaring twenties," pushed
memories of the war and of the League into the distant, irrelevant
past.
Then came the depression of the 1930s, which focused America's
attention on survival. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia inspired
new visions of a socialist America. In 1933, Robert Marshall, founder
of The Wilderness Society, published The Peoples' Forests, a book
calling for the nationalization of the nation's forests.[12]
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) had served in the Wilson
administration as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was quite
friendly with Edward Mandell House, and with Wilson's effort to create
a world government.
When he assumed the Presidency in 1933, in the depth of the
depression, America readily accepted his "New Deal," a package of
programs, directly from the Hobbesian philosophy, developed by the
friends he brought into his administration, most of whom shared in
common - their membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.
"New Deal" was the new title chosen for the socialist
agenda. Curtis Dall, FDR's son-in-law, doubted that FDR was the
originator of this vast "recovery" effort. In his book, FDR: My
Exploited Father-in-Law (1967) he stated, "For a long time I felt that
FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit
this country, the USA. But he didn't. Most of his thoughts, his
political ammunition,' as it were, was carefully manufactured for him
in advance by the CFR-One World Money Group."[13]
Within weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941,
Roosevelt appointed a special committee to develop a plan for the
"post war world." Ten of the 14 were members of the Council on Foreign
Relations. This plan evolved throughout the war, and much as the
Treaty of Versailles served to produce the League of Nations, the
Yalta Conference in February, 1945, produced the United Nations.
This lesson sets the stage for an examination of the rise of global
governance in the modern era. It has defined the philosophical
foundation from which rises the concept of global governance, and it
has demonstrated an unbroken line of people, associations and
institutions that have shaped and guided public policy efforts to move
the world toward a central, global governance.
Our next lesson will examine the United Nations, and trace its progress
toward the goals dreamed of more than a century ago.
Test
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Lesson 3 |
Lesson 4 |
Endnotes
1. Richard A. epstein, Takings: Private Property and
the Power of Eminent Domain, (Harvard University Press, 1985),
p. 8.
2. John Locke, Of Civil Government http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/locke.htm#life,
(1690), Paragraph 27.
3. G. Tully Vaughan, Marshall, "Magna Carta and the
Colonies II," http://www.magnacharta.com/articles/colonies.htm,
Paragraph 3.
4. According to Epstein. "...all theories of natural
rights reject the idea that private property and personal liberty are
solely creations of the state...", Op Cit., p. 5.
5. John Ruskin, "Traffic," (18.458) http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/ruskin/politicsov.html.
6. Carrol Quigley, The Anglo-American
Establishment, (Books in Focus, Inc., 1981), p. 3.
7. Edward Mandell House, Philip Dru:
Administrator, New York (1912),
8. Quigley, Op Cit., p. 168.
9. Beer, Georg Louis (1872 - 1920), American Scholar.
In 1893, Beer graduated from Columbia University, where he
pursuedhis interest in history. Following the completion of graduate
studies, he became a part-time lecturer at Columbia, while working for
his family's tobacco business. He authored four seminal books on the
origins and development of the British colonial system. his
scholarship earned him respect in America and Britain. From 1915,
Beer's interests turned to the dilemmas of the international system
and to the conditions for a lasting post-war peace. He became an
American correspondent of the English Round Table. In his articles,
he expressed interest in an association of nations for maintaining the
peace thus preparing his readership for an organization like the
post-war League of Nations. Beer worked as a journalist till 1918.
The year before, he published the English-Speaking Peoples,
where he expounded his support for close Anglo-American ties based on
a commonality of interests and an international organization to bind
the world's nations. Beer argued that future peace would not be
secured until nations give up some of their powers of sovereignty anf
form a new league of nations. The United States, in his view, must
abandon isolationism and align itself with the British Commonwealth.
In 1917-18, Beer was asked to head the Inquiry into colonial
questions. He devised a system of mandates, whereby a league of
nations would assign responsibility over the former German and Turkish
colonies to one of the victorious powers, which would administer and
prepare them for entry into the "civilized world." From 1918 to 1919,
Beer served the American Commission to Negotiate Peace as an adviser,
chiefly on African affairs, and as member of the Mandates Commission.
Thus, in addition to laying the groundwork for settling colonial
questions within the framework of his proposed mandate system, Beer
directly participated in the peacemaking in Paris, always advocating
the Anglo-American involvement in world affairs. Just before his
death, Beer had been chosen to head the Mandates Section of the League
of Nations.
10. Eric Samuelson, J.D., "An Introduction of the
'Little Sister' of the Royal Institute of International Affairs: the
Council on Foreign Relations," http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nowcfr.htm.
11. Congressional Record, 66th Congress,
pp. 8768-8784, http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/ww1/1919League2.html
12. Jo Kwong Echard,Protecting the Environment: Old
Rhetoric, New Imperatives, Capitol Research Center, Washington,
DC, p. 13.
13. http://wealth4freedom.com/truth/2/FDR.htm.
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