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| A US Constitution labeled “orrery” similar to the one purchased for Princeton University by John Witherspoon in 1771, showing a working model of a Newtonian mechanics based "solar system", the logic of which being taught to James Madison as a Princeton student, via an early form of social mechanics, the basics of which he used in the construction of writing of the US Constitution, in respect to separation of powers and checks and balances. |
originally drafted in the form of his “Virginia Plan” (Ѻ), with its model of checks and balances between three different branches of government, mentally constructed from the Newtonian-conceptualized (see: Newtonian government) theories of John Witherspoon and or Charles Montesquieu, based on the primitive form of social physics he had learned at Princeton in 1769.
“There can be no question of the fact that, in early Princeton, physics cooperated with politics in a sort of analogical double play, Newton to Witherspoon to Madison.”— John Q. Stewart (1955), on social physics at Princeton [2]
“The eighteenth century was dominated intellectually by the scientific work of Newton, and mechanical metaphors sprang naturally to men’s minds. Men had found a rational order in the universe and they hoped that it could be transferred to politics. Madison spoke in the most precise Newtonian language when he said that such a ‘natural’ government must be so constructed ‘that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.’”— Richard Hofstadter (1967), The American Political Tradition [3]
“The third element—the principle of checks and balances—in the principle of separation of powers is what Madison called ‘partial agency’, which gives each branch enough power over the others to be able to check them. This principle of checks and balances, designed to enable the three branches to protect themselves from each other’s encroachments.”— Levine and Cornwell (1968), An Introduction to American Government [4]
“The founders were elitists, and realists about human nature. Their task was to make passion subject to reason. If men could be expected to be selfish, or worse, then said James Madison ‘ambition must be made to counteract ambition’. The Newtonian principles of action and reaction were applied to politics.”— Lance Morrow (1987), “The Ark of America” [5]
“The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of ‘checks and balances.’ The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped by the sheer pressure of life.”— Woodrow Wilson (1912), Presidential candidate campaign speech [1]
“By the statement America was founded on ‘Judeo-Christian philosophy’, I mean that the founders of the Constitution, the people who forged the country, believed in the Ten Commandments, and that’s what they based the ‘law’ on.”— Bill O’Reilly (2015), on (Ѻ) Carson’s no vote for Muslim President statement, Sep 22
