Will John Kerry walk on the wild side? America needs a Council of Twelve

Should gay marriage be a states’-rights issue? Abortion?

Should the 10th Amendment be the First Amendment, as Jefferson might have liked?

Should we “End the Fed,” as Ron Paul and his son Rand (running for Senate in Kentucky and endorsed by Sarah Palin) would like?

Should we go back to a gold standard?

Is California really one state, or two states or more?

That last one is tricky. It bears on thinking by George Kennan, America’s greatest ambassador since Franklin. Late in life he got attached to the idea of a Council of Elders, an idea actually first thought up by four undergraduates at Wake Forest University that migrated to Kennan probably via the Gorbachev Foundation. This would be much like the Canadian Senate was once intended to be. A collection of people from varied walks — artists, doctors, monks, hockey players, trappers, business people, voyageurs, etc. — who expressed the whole of Canadian consciousness and not just the narrow political and legal spectrum. They would not make law but would advise the lawmaking body. Kennan’s Council of Elders might be a “Council of Twelve,” a group like so many other religious and social groups since ancient times that have found holistic balance in 12 representatives.

In one of his last books, Round the Cragged Hill, Kennan said he said he “attempted to take the higher gorund”:

I have often diverted myself, and puzzled my friends, by wondering how it would be if our country, while retaining certain of the rudiments of a federal government, were to be decentralized into something like a dozen constituent republics, absorbing not only the powers of the existing states but a considerable part of those of the present federal establishment. I could conceive of something like nine of these republics — let us say, New England; the Middle Atlantic states; the Middle West; the Northwest (from Wisconsin to the Northwest, and down the Pacific coast to central California); the Southwest (including southern California and Hawaii); Texas (by itself); the Old South; Florida (perhaps including Puerto Rico); and Alaska; plus three great self-governing urban regions, those of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — a total of twelve constituent entities. To these entities I would accord a larger part of the present federal powers than one might suspect — large enough, in fact, to make most people gasp.

This vision could find form in a “Council of Twelve” regional circles between states and the federal government. It would solve Mitt Romney’s problems with “one-size-fits-all” federalism. It would bring equilibrium between small states and big states. It would change the way we think of ourselves as Americans, bringing us “down to earth” by giving us back our sense of place and region, while keeping us united continentally as Americans. But it would require a few giant steps and maybe even a constitutional convention.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is calling for states to amend the Constitution to restore restrictions on corporate influence in politics. But if he wants to amend the Constitution and not just offer a sound bite in an attempt to overshadow his new colleague, Scott Brown, why doesn’t he show the courage to call for a constitutional convention? California is holding one, and Rudy Giuliani has proposed that New York hold one as well. That way he could discuss this and a variety of relevant issues in a new open forum. It’s been awhile. Several hundred years. Issues such as:

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