CHAPTER SIX:
A Chart for the Beginning
of the Federal Government - 2

The fact that there are three dates — June 21, 1788, March 4, 1789 and April 30, 1789 — any one of which might be considered as the "birth date" of the U.S. Government, leaves us with the same kind of ambiguous situation we had when trying to select a definitive day and hour for American independence. This ambiguity is increased by the law describing the Great Seal of the United States, which was passed on June 20, 1782, and contains the following words describing the reverse side of the Seal: "The pyramid signifies Strength and Duration; the Eye over it and the Motto allude to the many signal interpositions of Providence in favor of the American cause. The date underneath is that of the Declaration of Independence and the words under it signify the beginning of the new American Era, which commences from that date."(4) Even if George Washington did not assume office on March 4, 1789, he did begin his second term on March 4, 1793, and March 4 became the official date for the renewal of presidential administrations until the date was changed to January 20 in 1933.

We are dealing here with dates that became national archetypes; and astrology deals with archetypes and basic structural patterns far more' than with existential data referring to what may at times be considered fortuitous events. This is especially true where the U.S. Government is concerned, because one of its main characteristics — and one that can have serious consequences — is that the essential governmental processes (i.e., the election of Presidents and members of the Congress) are rigidly determined by fixed time measures. In most democratic countries, the parliament may be dissolved any time a governmental crisis occurs, and a prime minister can fall from power whenever his and his party's policies are repudiated. According to the U.S. Constitution, terms of office are predetermined, and unless impeached or totally unable to operate, the elected person remains in office throughout his designated term. New elections can be called only every two or, for the Presidency, every four years. There is no provision in the Constitution for a dissolution of the Congress, and new elections, even if a widespread national catastrophe should occur in which all or most members of the Congress were killed or incapacitated.
      This is a typically Saturnian kind of rigidity. American sociopolitical processes are dominated by time measures and in astrology Saturn rules all definite time structures and the life span of all organisms. This is one of the reasons I have given for the validity of Saturn's position in the tenth House of the U.S. birth chart, and it is most revealing to find that on March 4, 1789, as the wheels of the U.S. Federal Government began to turn – however slowly at first — the Sun was conjunct Saturn. This conjunction occurred on the 14th and 15th degrees of Pisces, in exact trine aspect (120°) to the "natal" Sun of the United States of America.
      The symbol for the Sun's degree (Pisces 15°) is characteristic: An officer instructing his men before a simulated assault under a barrage of live shells. And part of the interpretation I have given is: "At the close of the great cycle — in the zodiac, the sign Pisces — a deep-seated struggle is inevitable, at least to some extent. It can be a struggle against the ghosts of the unfulfilled past, the 'unlived life,' or a confrontation with accumulated and often-eluded karma. Indeed, Pisces refers to a period in the year during which many generals and admirals have been born" — including our first President, Washington.(5)
      The Sun-Saturn conjunction in this federal government chart forms a trine to Jupiter on the 20th degree of Cancer; this contrasts with the basic square of the Sun to Saturn, which is a strong feature of the Declaration chart. While on July 4, 1776, the basic issue was the break with a social system denounced as criminal as well as obsolete in its disregard of the human individual, in 1789 the, Federal Government was established as a means to harmonize conflicting interests within a nation whose wealthy classes had become aware of the need for internal stability and security. The task facing the framers of the Constitution was to plan a smoothly operating system, as secure and permanent as possible in a world violently agitated by the revolutionary spirit that was soon to explode in France. The Constitution was built on many a compromise between the ideals formulated by the men of the Enlightenment and by Masonic and related groups, and the concrete realities of the day. Thus while Jefferson and especially Thomas Paine saw America as a great experiment in working out a "new order" of society that would eventually spread over the entire world, Washington, Hamilton, John Adams and many others were primarily concerned with building a nation, self-reliant and powerful among other nations.

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4. Italics mine. Quoted from Paul Foster Case's booklet, The Great Seal of the United States. Rowny Press, Santa Barbara, Calif.  Return

5. According to Paul Leicester Ford, The True George Washington, (J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia), our first President was born February 22, 1732, at 10 A.M. — the hour recorded in the family Bible. His natal Sun was on the fourth degree of Pisces, and his Saturn (exactly conjunct the Part of Fortune) on the 3rd degree of Aries, therefore on the degree of the fourth House cusp, (Imum Coeli) in the chart of the Declaration of Independence that I use in this book. The fourth House refers to the foundation or basic structure of the personality, and Washington built solid roots for our nation. He was a conservative at heart, more interested in the strength and preservation of the nation than in the ideals of a new social order for mankind as a whole. His Jupiter fell in the tenth House of the U.S. chart just halfway between the Mid Heaven and the Saturn of that chart. His Moon was in Capricorn, a Saturn-ruled sign.  Return