Batavia's very own Bill Kauffman is setting radical hearts aflutter in the blogosphere this week as the publication of his new book nears. The Western Confucian muses on the sage of Batavia and proudly proclaims his own love of Kauffman's works.
If you've read Bill Kauffman, you know that he's at his best describing the quirky, eccentric political characters that make America great, as opposed the the bland figures that make her ugly. A book about America's "drunken prophet" will likely [be] pure Kauffman.
Daniel McCarthy previews the book, titled Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin, on his blog: The Tory Anarchist.
Coming from ISI Books in September: Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin. Martin, a Maryland delegate to and “the bitterest states’ rightser at the [Constitutional] Convention,” was a great Anti-Federalist whose detestation of Thomas Jefferson drove him, ironically enough, into the Federalist Party. I’ve just had a glance at the galleys of Kauffman’s book so far, which looks to be every bit as good as you’d expect.
Here's an excerpt of the work, courtesy of McCarthy:
Martin understood quite clearly that the Constitution was a counterrevolution, recentralizing that which had been decentralized upon the assertion of American independence. ‘Men love power,’ Hamilton told the convention. To Hamilton this was a simple statement of fact, not at all deplorable. The Anti-Federalists had their doubts about its accuracy—did not men love their families, their homeplaces, their liberties even more?—but in the event, they desird not to channel this powerlust toward profitable ends but rather to block those avenues down which power is pursued. If it is true that men love to wield power over other men and that a centralized state will attract such warped creatures, then rather than design a Rube Goldberg scheme by which the will to dominate is transmuted into gold for the commonweal, why not just not construct a centralized state? Remove the means of gratifying the temptation.
Visit the publisher's site for a synopsis of the work. We will probably hear more as the publication date nears — it's not due out until September — but in the meantime, for an interesting and well-written read about Kauffman, check out the article by John McClaughry published on Reason Online last January. Or see our our earlier post where Howard takes a look at Kauffman's Batavia.
