Essay 19-B: Nikola Tesla and the Application of Electricity

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest geniuses of American history. His brilliance strengthened the greatest document of American history, the Constitution. Tesla was born in Serbia in 1856, and showed early talent as an engineer. As a result, he was recruited to come to the U.S., in 1884, to work for legendary inventor Thomas Edison. Tesla became a U.S. citizen in 1891. 

Yet by then Tesla was no longer working for Edison, because he had a better idea than his boss. Edison had plenty of smarts (he invented the light bulb, for example) and yet he could also be stubborn. On the crucial issue of electricity distribution—all those lightbulbs needed juice—Edison was convinced that DC (direct current) was best. 

Yet DC suffered from bad energy inefficiency, and so it required a power station every few miles. By contrast, the AC (alternating current) system used transformers to step up the voltage for transmission, dramatically increasing efficiency. Then the transformers would step down the voltage for safe use in households and businesses. The young Tesla did not invent AC, and yet his polyphase induction motor made AC much more feasible. 

By the 1890s, entrepreneurs such as George Westinghouse were using Tesla’s patented technology, proving that AC worked better. A good lesson was that the genius of Edison, or anyone, is not the final word. In a free and open system, others with better ideas can also step forward, taking their shot to prove themselves in the competitive marketplace. That’s how the best ideas emerge. 

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine what the course of American history would have been like in the absence of AC. With only DC, Americans would have needed small power plants every few miles, everywhere, with all the attendant expense and mess. And so it’s possible that many Americans, especially in rural areas, would never have had electricity at all. Instead, thanks to AC, a big power plant could be built and provide low-cost electricity to a whole region, rural and urban alike. 

So we see the good workings of capitalism. And it also works to strengthen constitutionalism. How so? Just as electrical power is better when it can be widely distributed, so, too, with political power. 

This is the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, well articulated by James Madison, principal author of the Constitution, in a 1788 article advocating for the Constitution. In that piece, known as Federalist 51, Madison described the “compound republic of America,” in which power was separated, in several ways. There would be a central government, divided into three branches—legislative, executive, judicial—and that separated power, in turn, would be further separated, and shared, with the states. “Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people,” Madison wrote, “It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” 

The key idea was to make sure power was separated, and so distributed—not all held by one person, or one city, or even one region. 

Thomas Jefferson was a companion to Madison who envisioned an America boasting a big middle class of independent property owners. President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which doubled the size of the U.S., was in keeping with his broad plan for personal agency, popular sovereignty, and self-rule. 

Yet the limited technology of the era threatened this distributive vision. 

Even before the Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788, critics, known as Anti-Federalists, warned that geographic distance would cripple the new republic; they emphasized “the feebleness of the ties by which these United States are held together.” 

Indeed, if communication across distance were limited to letters carried on horseback, it was difficult to see how the U.S. could defend without keeping standing armies on every frontier—and the mere existence of such hulking armed forces would, in turn, threaten liberty. 

Happily, in the early 19th century, another American inventor-entrepreneur, Samuel Morse, developed the telegraph, which connected the country while still preserving liberty. In fact, empowered communication helped make Americans more free. 

Later in that same century, Tesla came along to help provide power to the people of 38 states at the time. Over the course of his long life, Tesla did much more than that, of course, proving that in America, an immigrant with gumption and brains can work wonders. As today’s electric automobile proves, even decades after his death, Tesla still inspires. Yet the greatest wonder of all is the harmonious fusion of invention that gives each citizen both technological and political power. 

Jim Pinkerton was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and serves as a Senior Fellow in the Center for American Prosperity at the America First Policy Institute. He worked in the Domestic Policy Office at the White House under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and in their 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 presidential campaigns. In 2008, he served as a senior adviser to Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign. 

From 1996–2016, Jim was a Contributor to the Fox News Channel. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and The Los Angeles Times. 

Today, Jim writes regularly for Breitbart, The American Conservative, and The Daily Caller. He is married to our very own Elizabeth Pinkerton and is a graduate of Stanford University. 

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