On the morning of March 1, 1788, James Madison published his now-famous article in New York’s Independent Journal, the 63rd in a series of 85 such newspaper articles that came to be The Federalist Papers.  In it he relayed why extreme deliberation was needed in a large republic, as proposed by the Philadelphia Convention in the Autumn previous.

Madison warned: “[T]here are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.”

I was reminded of this tome by the “Father of the Constitution” one day last week whence it was brought to my attention that the Left has christened this new year with its answer to the Tea Party movement.  The unwitting followers of the so-called Coffee Party (no this isn’t an Onion spoof, much to my surprise) have weighed in on the conservative-led gridlock in Washington.

Of course, one wonders why they couldn’t at least pine for corporate benevolence from Starbucks with a Via Party moniker, but I digress.

On the front page of the website they invoke the gods of Big Brother Bi-partisanship and imbibe leftover spirits from the French Revolution with peculiar and empty phrases like “cooperation in government” and “expression of our collective will” and “positive solutions,” inveighing against those “who obstruct them.”

Rather belated and nonsensical as their retort is – a dead horse comes to mind – it shouldn’t be of any surprise that civic action and reaction in a republic caught them so off-guard.  The Left is oft-quick to regurgitate revolution-era platitudes to justify their own revolution against the very institutions which the Revolution was fought to protect.  Whilst the real meaning of it all escapes them still.

Despite the legerdemain of these coffee partiers and their elitist ne’er-do-wells in Congress, Madison’s wisdom shines through the whole affair in Washington.

Where these java-heads see obstruction of the collective will, Madison foresaw the “salutary interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind.”

And in the memory of Madison, we members of this American Majority, the Tea Party – the Post-Party movement for the republic – rekindle the spirit of the Framers in working to bring to a screeching halt the irregular passion of interested men keen on hurling this experiment in liberty into the abyss of despotism.

So with our fellow temperate and respectable citizens, we say “obstruct…obstruct away.”  After all, the Framers much preferred tea over coffee … and as for me and my house, we’ll have a Venti Sugar-free Breve Vanilla Earl Grey Latte.