In December of 1787, the convention called in Pennsylvania through which the new Constitution would be ratified, or not, was at a roiling boil. It never had been a model of what the delicate snowflakes of our current elite political media would call "civility." As the late Pauline Maier describes in her great book, Ratification, the convention once nearly broke into open violence over the question of whether or not the Swedes ever had trial by jury. An anti-Federalist delegate named William Findlay had claimed they did. His opponents demanded Findlay produce proof of this, and a row erupted that almost derailed the whole enterprise.

On December 1, Findlay rose once again to oppose the new Constitution. One of the points Findlay made is that the system of paying the officials of the new and invigorated central government was yet another way of removing power from the individual states. In reply, James Wilson argued that paying the officials of the new general government through the general revenues was a way of keeping them honest and above the influence not only of the states, but of the other branches of the federal government as well. Of the newly created office of President of the United States, Wilson said, in part:

In order to secure the president from any dependence upon the legislature, as to his salary, it is provided that he shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation that shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and that he shall not receive, within that period, any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.

This argument carried the day and, ultimately, it was enshrined in the Constitution in such a way as to prevent any official of the American government from receiving any benefits, even honorary ones, from foreign governments as well.

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

The point is, from the outset, the Founders tried to cut off any avenue for private profiteering and influence peddling in their new government. The corruption of the old world nobility was fresh in their minds. They'd just fought a revolution to get out from under it. In Federalist 22, Alexander Hamilton explained that, without such restrictions, the American republic would rot from within and without the way all republics before it had. "One of the weak sides of republics," he wrote, "among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption."

These considerations are not idle ones, nor are they obsolete vestiges of 17th Century political science, like the Electoral College. They are foundational to the self-governing democratic republic that the people established here.

So, when people argue that, because of the international business interests of which he refuses to divest himself, Donald Trump will be in violation of his oath to "faithfully execute" the Constitution the minute his hand comes off the Bible, they are not kidding, and we shouldn't either. If we tolerate this, we'll tolerate anything, and there's no good end to that manner of surrender.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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