A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government

A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government

Simon & Schuster, 352 pp., $25

God knows the feds have committed their share of felonies over the years. And nowhere in the Constitution is there any specific authority for, say, FBI snipers to kill Randy Weaver's wife, for President Nixon to "secretly" bomb Cambodia, for JFK to authorize warfare by proxy against Fidel Castro.

So do we all grab a 12-gauge and a handful of shells and head for the hills? Garry Wills' new book A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government suggests there is some middle ground available to the conscientious citizen even after acknowledging Washington's predations. Government, the author insists, is in fact a necessary good.

This latest disquisition from the apparently omniscient Wills (22 books and counting, including the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winner Lincoln at Gettysburg) examines our persistent tendencies to belittle, belabor, and begrudge the efforts of our federal government. As the author points out, Americans are so innately attracted to programmatic Washington-bashing that we've somehow come to believe that our founding fathers were not only the creators of our central government but also the architects of its impotence.

Nonsense, says Wills. The men who made our government quite consciously made it a thing of power and efficiency. He then proceeds, brilliantly, to disassemble a whole catalog of anti-federal arguments through resort to historical record. His explanation of what the Second Amendment really means, for example, involves analysis of James Madison's deep game in drafing the Bill of Rights. The amendment, says the author, was an attempt to appease Southerners who needed assurances that a well-armed -- possibly even a federally armed -- militia would always be available for squelching slave insurrections. The argument makes good sense, though your average bullet buyer is probably not going to give up his Glock in response.

Wills moves on from conceptual criticism to examine various anti-governmental groups and individuals over the years: Nullifiers, Seceders, Insurrectionists, Vigilantes, Withdrawers, and (my personal favorites) Disobeyers.

He could have spent more time here. In the course of cruising through his anti-governmentalists, he introduces then waves goodbye to a fascinating cast of cranks that includes Daniel Shays, Bronson Alcott, and Timothy McVeigh. Why rush? In the hands of a writer more comfortable with idiosyncracy, the complicated interconnections in the thoughts of these men would be given room to assemble themselves. Then, perhaps, America's lush symphony of disaffection could finally be heard.