The Voices of America

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EVERYONE has heard of the Voice of America, but the use of the plural changes the entire train of thought. In any democratic nation there will always be at least two voices --the voice of the government and the voice of the opposition. This is so familiar a phenomenon in the free world that it must seem perfectly obvious. It is worthy of emphasis because it is often forgotten that it has always been so; we tend to regard the confusion of tongues as more characteristic of the current scene than of bygone times.

The reason is simple; history emphasizes what was done, and what was said by those who did it. It spends little time on the alternatives which were not acted upon or on the utterances of those who failed to achieve their purposes; the pages devoted to minority opinion--that which did not prevail--are relatively few. Yet when the actions were being considered and determined, contemporaries heard both sides. Not infrequently the side which prevailed did so by a narrow margin; often the opposition was more stridently vocal than those who won. But since history gives short shrift to arguments that failed, there is the natural illusion, common to each successive generation, that the current confusion of tongues is new in the land; in the days of our fathers there was no such cacophony of voices.

Every student of government is familiar with The Federalist papers, essays by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, arguing for the adoption of the Constitution. They have been collected, edited, and are constantly studied for the light they throw upon the meaning of the Constitution. Even the Supreme Court has many times referred to them in its interpretation of constitutional meanings...