As you so rightly noted in your article "GOP Changes Held in Check by Earlier Revolutionaries", Newt Gingrich and his fellow Republicans with their Contract with America are attempting to dismantle much of the federal government, which James Madison and his fellow Federalists established with the Constitution of the United States. I would add that the Founders gave great powers to our national government only after having suffered through years of political and economic chaos under the Articles of Confederation, which had given most of the powers to the states.

Professor of history Gingrich would also do well to heed the prophetic warning from maker of history Madison, who wrote in The Federalist Papers: "We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of the few. A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes...we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions."

Those who do not learn from history...