Word: publius
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Cato, a literal-minded constitutionalist, lets fly with oratorical grapeshot: "If New Publius is saying that once the Federal Government determines that a problem-any problem-exists and decides that something should be done about it, the States have the first option to take action and if they refuse the Federal Government may rightly act on its own-if this be his argument, then not only is it objectionable, it is revolutionary. Power implies the right to say No and make it stick, it includes the right of a State to decide for itself whether a 'problem' exists...
...with such debates in the past, it is a fascinating and difficult question whether there is a national social morality, where it lies, and who is to enforce it. Writes New Publius: "To the New Federalists, morality in the nation is determined not by government policy, church decree or social leadership -what is moral is what most people who think about morality at all think is moral at a given time." Rejoins Cato: "Morality then, to New Publius, is the temporary decision of a majority of those who happen to take the effort to think about it ... The 'national...
What are the practical applications of New Publius' theory? He cites the President's welfare reform as a program embodying national guidelines and local initiatives. Similarly, says New Publius, the Administration's revenue-sharing plan "recognizes the difficulty of State taxation and acknowledges the better judgment of most States in spending funds within their own boundaries." In each case, "the Federal government systematically yields involvement to local authorities without surrendering the ultimate responsibility...
...President encourages the intramural philosophizing but has no plans to embrace either interpretation. He has taken some courses close to New Publius' theory, others more appealing to Cato. That simply proves that the man in the White House is not a consistent ideologue, which is perhaps just as well. Whatever treatises churn forth from the White House, politics is still the art of the possible...
...Cato," the nom de plume of the early 18th century Whigs Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard, who wrote Cato's Letters: Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious. Also for Cato the Censor, the Roman statesman. Publius, whose name was taken by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, was a Roman moralist of the 1st century...