The Hillhouse Propositions for Constitutional Amendment in a 2024 United States of America

I have long imagined how I was going to begin to share this story. My own fears and insecurities have prevented me from sharing some of these things because the topics are delicate and deserve the appropriate amount of sensitivity. I was worried that I wouldn’t be educated enough about my family history, that I would be ridiculed for not being “directly related enough,” worried about causing harm to the ancestors of people with whom my ancestors interacted, etc. With the current political climate that’s brewing in the United States, I feel I need to push forward past my own insecurities about communicating ineffectually and share what I’ve learned.

On October 23rd, 2021 (3 days after the anniversary of his birth) one of my clients asked me nonchalantly if I was related to former Senator James Hillhouse of New Haven, Connecticut – the namesake of James Hillhouse High School, and former treasurer of Yale University for approximately 50 years. I had never heard of him before moving to New Hampshire, but I checked with my grandfather who has worked on our family lineage for years and was informed we were related. The gravity of this did not process with me until four to six months later. In February of 2022 I dove headfirst into the history of the Hillhouse family of New England and, primarily, of James Hillhouse’s political and legal works. The synchronicity between my life and the Senator’s were baffling, and the Senator’s works were haunting to me in their similarity to our current sociopolitical ills; and those are stories I would like to share. Before I can share some of these stories, I feel it is my responsibility to acknowledge the harm the Hillhouse family has caused.

The Hillhouse family traveled from Ireland in 1719 to what we know as current day New Hampshire where they took up residence at the Nutfield settlement (now East Derry, NH). After that first year, the Hillhouse brothers moved to New York and Boston, which began a long line of colonization of much of the east coast and would later spread across North America. The first several generations of the New England Hillhouse’s were split down the middle in their beliefs about colonialism, slavery, and the horrors perpetuated against indigenous communities. Many members of the earliest generations of Hillhouse’s directly contributed to the enslavement, theft, violence, and oppression of members of the Pequot and Mohegan tribes, in addition to black people in the Southern colonies who had been kidnapped from their varying homelands. The Senator’s father, Judge William Hillhouse, and then his son after him were directly responsible for issuing out parcels of stolen Mohegan & Pequot land to white settlers, and themselves were slaveholders. The Hillhouse family, among others, was responsible for the oppression and subjugation of indigenous historical figures such as William Apess and Samson Occom. The damage that was caused cannot be understated. To cover these grievances in both the detail and time they deserve is beyond the scope and intention of this article I am writing today. It is nonetheless necessary to preface.

Beyond the personal value that I have found in studying my ancestral history, I have found Senator James Hillhouse’s political works to be mystifying and shockingly relatable. One of the reasons that I chose Social Work as my field of study for grad school is because I feel the need for macro level Systems Theory is paramount in our understanding of the person-in-environment. Try as we might, we cannot escape the consequence of the flow of larger systems in this country. I have been keenly aware and studying patterns of both mezzo and macro systems in the U.S. since running for a few years, and have been left with the question: How do we organize and direct enough energy in a volatile system to make viable social change? Or are we solely at the mercy of entropy to destroy the system and make way for a new one? Senator Hillhouse’s works left me feeling that this problem has been a pervasive one that he saw coming from the very earliest beginnings of our country.

I would like to share some quotes with you all from, “Propositions for Amending the Constitution of the United States: Providing for the Election of President and Vice Against the Undue Exercise of Executive Influence, Patronage, and Power,” published by the Senator in 1830. The amendments originally proposed in 1808, were disregarded by President Madison who accused him of worrying for nothing. Many officials stepped up in later years in Hillhouse’ defense, including Chief Justice John Marshall, lamenting that they hadn’t taken his amendments and sentiments seriously. Hillhouse’s fears about a civil war were realized less than 30 years after his death. Hillhouse’s goals were to put term limits on all positions of government, keep compensation low, and require the Presidency to be a mandatory service for all members of the Senate to eliminate bipartisan elections. This was revolutionary, at the time and now, in an attempt to prevent and reduce “party rage,” and people clawing for power in political office:

“The electioneering party strife which has been introduced into our Legislative halls, and into the Executive departments of our Government, must be alarming to every considerate man, and must excite melancholy forebodings as to the final result. This party strife is not confined to the General Government, it extends to the Legislatures of every Sate, and descends even to town and city corporations.”

“The evils of party strife, growing of Presidential elections, and the exercise of Executive influence, patronage, and power have, in practice, far exceeded what was then predicted; and, as the United States increase in opulence and strength, these evils may be expected to increase to the endangering of the public welfare.”

“From persons devoted to party, no aid can be expected; they calculate on personal emolument, or advancement, from the agitation and changes which may be brought about by party exertions in a Presidential Election. The great body of the People, however, can feel no interest in having the community disturbed by such agitations and contentions.”

“Two evils to be guarded against in a Republican Government (such as is that of the United States, and such as I hope and trust it will ever be,) are ambition and favoritism. The former induces the most aspiring, artful, and unprincipled men to assume the garb of patriotism, for the purpose of obtaining office and power: and when they have obtained it, they extend their patronage and favor to those who have been most active and instrumental in procuring their elevation. There is no position more generally admitted to be true, than that Man is fond of Power.”

“A golden eagle will bribe but one man; but an office may operate as a bribe to one hundred expectants.”

“[The amendments] will be denounced by all office hunters, demagogues, and men of inordinate ambition, more anxious for their own elevation to office than for the public good. All artful men, who rely more on their own dexterity and skill in intrigue, than upon honest merit, to secure an election, will raise their voices and cry aloud, against them. They will describe them as Utopian and visionary; as departing from the elective principle; and as lowering the dignity and character of the government.”

“The idea of tying up the hands of the people, who in fact possess the whole power, to prevent the execution of that public will, is chimerical; there are no cords strong enough to hold them.”

“The exigencies of the country, the public safety, and the means of defence against foreign invasion, may place an army in the hands of an ambitious, darting President, of which he would be the legitimate commander, and with which he might enforce his claim. This may not happen in my day; it probably will not; but I have children whom I love, and whom I expect to leave behind, to share in the destinies of our common country. I cannot therefore feel indifferent to what may befall them and generations yet unborn.”

“Party spirit is the demon which has engendered the factions that have destroyed most free governments…No man can be so vlind but he must see, and the fact is too notorious to be denied, that such parties have commenced in this country, and are progressing with gigantic strides. The danger is great, and demands an early and decisive remedy.”

“And when a President shall be elected by means of party influence, thus powerfully exerted, he cannot avoid party bias, and will thence become the Chief of a Party, instead of taking the dignified attitude of a President of the United States.”

“The evil is increasing, and will increase, until it shall terminate in civil war and despotism. The people suffering under the scourge of party feuds and factions, and finding no refuge in under the State, any more than in the General Government, from party persecution and oppression; may become impatient, and submit to the first tyrant, who can protect them against the thousand tyrants.”

Thank you to those of you who have made it this far. I find that Hillhouse’s works ring true with perspectives and fears that I hold about the future of our democracy. Let me know what you think: has our system grown too large to control or change? From a systems theory perspective, what do you think would allow positive pro-social change to prevail in our current system?