When the American colonies broke free from England, they, for all practical considerations, were thirteen sovereign nations– independent states that were in quite a pickle, actually. In fact, they were vulnerable to a number of old, established nations during a time when global colonization was a fashionable way to enhance a country’s revenue, territory, prestige and power. Further, it wasn’t out of the question that, if nothing else, border friction would eventually give rise to hostilities between the states, themselves. Clearly, some sort of cohesion was needed in the form of a political system that both provided a unity and defense against foreign interests, but also a stability among "the several states."

Most people aren’t interested in politics, and tend to think of politicians as sort of overpaid used-car salesmen. So long as things run smoothly, we aren’t getting the short end of too many sticks, no one is shooting at us personally, and the king hasn’t raided the treasury and pilfered our gold to fight a war somewhere, politics is something we’d rather not be bothered with. Not many of us have the drive for power that politicians do. Not many of us have the innate perfidy required to claw ourselves upwards to the rarified planes of fragile, public recognition that these preening, egocentric individuals possess the way the rest of us have dandruff. As a general rule, politicians offend and annoy by seeking our support of ideas and programs we, at best, don’t agree with, and leave us to try to figure out which options would cause us the least harm. In Georgia, this was once referred to as "the Lester of two evils." To many of us, probably most or us, politicians aren’t the sort of people you’d want your sister to marry. And in today’s crop of them, most especially not your brother.

Yet, since the passing of Feudalism, when the strongest of the strong ruled, and the Middle Ages, when the holiest of God’s chillun held sway in the person of the Pope and other pretenders, or the age of Napoleon, when the guy with the most cannon, guts and ambition was in charge, it has always been the politicians who wound up on top of governments. This was true at the time of the founding of our nation, and remains so, today. And while it is true that political power is very often achieved through physical power (think the USSR, Red China, Nazi Germany, Vietnam, and so on) it is the planning, scheming, maneuvering, prevaricating mind of the politician that invariably bubbles to the top of any political system.