ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250019
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GUY GUGLIOTTA THE WASHINGTON POST
In the fall of 1787 three politicians traveled to New York, sworn to win ratification of the new Constitution of the United States in a large and important state reluctant to endorse the concept of a strong central government.
The three - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay - wrote 85 essays on the merits of the Constitution and published them in New York newspapers under the pseudonym ``Publius.''
The essays are ``The Federalist Papers,'' probably the most famous work of political science ever produced in the United States - a detailed explanation and vigorous defense of a proposed system of government unique in the world at that time.
This year the New York-based Twentieth Century Fund has commissioned three well known academics to write ``The New Federalist Papers'' in order to counter a ``disenchantment with government'' that is ``bubbling up to challenge the whole constitutional system,'' said Richard C. Leone, the fund's president.
Circumstances were somewhat similar 200 years ago. Then the ``Federalist'' authors were battling for the Constitution in states accustomed to a loose federation in which central authority was almost nonexistent. The authors believed the Constitution was doomed if New York and other large states failed to ratify it.
Today, Leone said, an assault on the federal government threatens structural and constitutional changes affecting almost everything from the budget process to terms of office, the power to tax and the line-item veto.
``It's the Chinese-menu approach: We have a problem; let's have one of these and one of those,'' Leone said. ``This particular group of essays says it's cheap currency to attack the system. It's working pretty well, and we should be careful about changing it.''
The fund chose historian Alan Brinkley of Columbia University, political scientist Nelson W. Polsby of the University of California at Berkeley and legal scholar Kathleen M. Sullivan of Stanford to write the essays.
The authors have produced 13 so far, with more to come. Some have been used, like the originals, as newspaper commentaries. All, like the originals, will be published as a book.
Congress's Republican revolution will find scant sympathy in ``The New Federalist Papers,'' and this is by design. ``Public discourse is almost completely dominated by critics of government and contempt for the federal government,'' Brinkley said. ``This is a small effort to provide balance.''
The authors cautioned, however, that the aim is not to produce screeds trashing favorite Republican initiatives. Instead, Sullivan said, she and her colleagues sought debate ``in a more elevated fashion,'' above the yowling commonly heard in town meetings or talk radio.
And, like the original authors, ``We're trying to persuade people that it's possible to understand better how the system actually works,'' Polsby said. ``That's the prerequisite to deciding whether you want to change it.''
Polsby addresses this task in ``On the Distinctiveness of the American Political System,'' wondering ``whether the bashing'' of government ``has been for partisan purposes or, perhaps, whether it is simply ill-informed.''
He notes that the Founding Fathers intended that it be ``difficult for the government to act,'' and that decentralization, separation of powers and a Bill of Rights ensured confusion, tedious consensus-building and the legislative artery-hardening known today as ``gridlock.''
But maybe this is a good idea in a large nation ``deeply divided by race, religion and national origin,'' Polsby suggests. The system ``may be weak in forward motion,'' but ``it is strong in its capacity to solicit marks of legitimacy.'' When you have a deal here, people accept it.
This, Sullivan writes in ``Are the Federalist Papers Still Relevant?'', is ``the key reason'' to have a strong federal government.
``On the framers' theory, decentralization of power is exactly the wrong prescription for a time when passions run high and interests are in sharp competition,'' Sullivan says. Church-burning, dismantling affirmative action in California, ``Freemen'' defying federal agents in Montana all argue against change.
And with instant communications, ``it is easier to foment factionalism today than in Madison's time,'' she adds. The federal government is ``the only institution anyone has come up with in our political history for keeping explosive divisions of faction under control.''
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB