An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …
Continuing from the previous posting, Donald Lutz[2]
points out that between the Declaration of Independence and the preamble
of the United States Constitution, a national people is created, and the
basic values and commitments of that people are laid out. At first reading, the Declaration
seems to be a list of grievances. But
these grievances represent a set of values.
The exact grievances are similarly found in the constitutions of several
states. They are also found in scores of
newspapers of that time.
The Declaration
follows the covenantal formula first utilized in America in the Mayflower Compact
in the early 1600s. Lutz entertains the
question of whether the Declaration creates one people or is the
covenant of thirteen separate people.
There are references within the document that support both positions: on the side of “one people,” the reference of
the American colonists as separating from another – the British – and the
quote, “good People of these Colonies,” supports the idea of a national people
and the reference in the last paragraph, “Free and Independent States,”
bolsters the idea of thirteen peoples.
Of
course, Americans today possess something like dual citizenship whereby they
are simultaneously citizens of the United States and of their respective
states. One could view the Declaration
of Independence as containing implicitly the first statement of dual
citizenship by more or less balancing references to a national people and to
state peoples, thereby implying that both are created at the same time. It is interesting that the document tends to
use group language for the creation of a single people toward the beginning and
language for multiple state peoples toward the end. The list of grievances refers at times to
things the king has done to hurt a colony or a colonial government, and at
other times to things he has done to harm all Americans.[3]
Lutz states that this duality demonstrates a federalist conception in
that the national union is being created but maintaining the integrity (and this
case sovereignty) of the constituent parts.
In addition, this “The
unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America” reflects a unanimous decision. The covenant was not unanimous on July 4,
1776. New York did not agree to the
covenant until July 15 and not all of the signatures were affixed to the
document when the Continental Congress formally approved the agreement on
January 18, 1777 (missing the name of Thomas McKean) and printed it. Despite this, the document was re-titled to
include the word unanimous.
Lutz explains,
The
change in the title was an attempt to present a united front against Britain. One can also view the insistence upon
unanimity as recognition that a compact does not bind those who do not sign it
or agree to it. If we are to have a
national people, a national compact, both John Locke and the American colonial
constitutional tradition required that the agreement be unanimous.[4]
What are some of the specific values expressed in the Declaration? A review provided by Lutz demonstrates the
connection between those values in this document and those established by the
colonial, federalist tradition.
With the provision,
“separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle
them,” Americans saw themselves as equal to the British. This equality was based on Americans’ inalienable
(nontransferable) right to render their consent or withhold their consent to a
British constitution. In true federalist
spirit, this was a God-given right because God distributed the ability to do so
equally among all.
Lutz writes, “Just as in
the Christian tradition, a poor person and a rich one are equal in the sight of
God, a small nation is equal to the largest nation once it forms itself by a
compact based upon unanimous consent.”[5] Therefore, “all men are created equal” not
only refers to the notion of equal individuals, but also to equal peoples;
i.e., the American people being equal to the British people.
In terms of the
pronouncement that the truths proclaimed in the document were “self-evident,”
they were so from a biblical or an Enlightened basis. The quote, “Nature and Nature’s God,” refers
to either the belief in God from a religious perspective or in the natural law
which the Enlightened thinkers argued included human nature. Either way, religious or rational thinkers, Jefferson
felt, should be able to see the correctness of the values expressed.
The grievances contain
the following values and commitments: legislative
supremacy with a deliberate process for securing the common good, freedom of
movement, independent judicial process, frugality in government based on the
consent of the governed (representative government), free trade, trial by jury
of one’s peers, the duty of government to protect its people from foreign and
domestic violence, and deliberate governmental processes in general.
And finally, and very
significant, the Declaration of Independence does call on God to witness
the agreement making this compact a covenant – giving it a religious foundation. This last bit of context becomes notable
given how the eventual constitution in 1787 takes on a secular standing in that
it does not call on God to witness that agreement.
With an extensive adoption
of equality as a founding value, one quickly turns to the value of
liberty. Equality demands duty and
obligation among the citizenry if it is to be respected – humans are readily
motivated to dishonor equality if to do so, an individual interest is
advanced. So how this covenant treats
liberty becomes centrally important.
This should be kept in mind as the following is read.
A source which was
heavily influential in providing ideas to be contained in the Declaration,
and in which Jefferson also had a strong hand in preparing, was the Virginia
Declaration of Rights and Constitution.
Actually, drawn up shortly before the Declaration of Independence
was issued, the document illustrates the importance and context that the
founding generation placed on individual rights.
Article one reads:
1. That all men are by nature equally free and
independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a
state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their
posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life, liberty, with the means of acquiring
and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.[6]
This value, of course, falls logically within the federalist view of
independent, consenting members to join and form a union or society. But the question relevant to the concerns of
this dialectical presentation is to what extent can resulting governments and
their laws prohibit behavior, especially on moral grounds.
Article 16 identifies the bias of the founding
generation and is central to federal thought:
16. That religion, or
the duty which we owe to our CREATOR, and the manner of discharging it, can be
directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore
all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the
dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty to practice Christian
forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.[7]
In short, and taken with the ideas earlier shared by John Adams (in the
last posting), the ideal of liberty was that a person was free to do what
he/she should do. To an advocate of
parochial federalism, the legitimacy of a moral basis for governmental policy
can be easily deduced from this passage and is part of the parochial / traditional
federalism perspective.
This posting will not continue
and finish the presentation on isomorphism.
This blogger wishes to leave the reader with this last point to
consider. It zeroes in on the
fundamental distinction between federalism and natural rights perspectives
which, of course, is the central point of contention between the two constructs.
[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022). The reader is reminded that the claims made
in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this
blogger. Instead, the posting is a
representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might
present. This is done to present a
dialectic position of that construct.
[2]
Donald S. Lutz, “The Declaration of Independence,
1776” in Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted,
edited by Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI:
Madison House, 1990), 138-145.
[3] Ibid., 140.
[4]
Ibid., 141.
[5] Ibid., 141.
[6]
Donald S. Lutz, “The Virginia Declaration of
Rights and Constitution, 1776” in Roots of the Republic: American Founding
Documents Interpreted, edited by Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1990), 150-165, 154.
[7] Ibid., 157.
