AN ARRAY OF DISPOSITIONS

 

The last posting referred to certain points this blog has made through the years.  More specifically, those points describe the political/cultural landscape that the political scientist, Daniel Elazar, describes.[1]  Here is how this blog (with some editing) reported on Elazar’s contribution, back in 2011:

 

Daniel Elazar's study of American political dispositions identified these three subcultures. They are the individualistic, the moralistic, and the traditional. The origins of these distinctive cultural dispositions can almost be traced to the earliest colonial period. Highly affected by the economic diversity that sprang up from the colonies in the northern, New England region to the plantation-based economies of the southern colonies, the subcultures of each of the three regions [New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern] reflected the social realities emerging from these diverse economic conditions.

Robert Putnam found these diverse political ideas, ideals, and beliefs surviving in the nation’s more current times.[2] Elazar claims that the distinct cultural dispositions stretched westward in mostly three parallel layers of states. The trend is not perfect; for example, while the traditional subculture of the south moved westward, its expansion was mostly limited to the former Confederate States [and ends at the western border of Texas plus Arizona and New Mexico].

Mostly stretching westward from first the mid-Atlantic colonies and then the resulting states, overall, the individualistic subculture is the most dominant today as it mirrors the marketplace perspective. [This blog has made the argument that that dominance was first exerted in the years just after World War II replacing a more moralistic bias that prevailed.]  Today, the nation’s political culture is well ensconced in the natural rights construct that is dominant in our nation's school curricula. Why? Because it best reflects the nation’s capitalist biases.[3]

 

 

This general description, as presented in this blog, was further supported by the thoughts of the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana.[4] He argued that American history saw a religious outlook among Americans that began with a strict Calvinist belief that evolved into a more genteel transcendental perspective. Those competing moral views helped develop or at least co-existed with the above described three distinct political subcultures.

To be clear, none of these perspectives held or hold total allegiance among the American population at any time.  That includes the thinking and feelings of Americans today.  For example, the Republican Party base today is described as holding a Christian nationalist perspective among its MAGA[5] advocates.  Readers can pass judgment as to the validity of that claim.  But to the extent it is true, one can classify such thinking as a form of parochial/traditionalist thought.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism:  A View from the States (New York, NY:  Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966).

[2] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone:  The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[3] Robert Gutierrez, “Individualistic Political Subculture,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, July 18 or 19, 2011).  This posting is no longer found in the blog’s archive feature.

[4] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” in The Annals of America, vol. 13 (originally published in 1911) (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopaedia Britanica, 1968), The Annals of America, vol. 13, 277-288.

[5] Make America Great Again.

OH, OHIO

 

One might argue that a chief challenging reality to the values and aims of federalist thinking is bigness.  If to be federated means a populous shares a sense of partnership, then large social/political arrangements undermine the supposed interpersonal requisites that such a sense would intuitively demand.  One is more apt to federate with others who see the world through similar lenses, and geographic settings would affect the level of “usness” one would presuppose to be necessary.

          In retrospect, probably from the beginnings of the American republic, its fate was sown-in in the treaty with Great Britain to end the Revolutionary War.  Mostly through the American minister, John Adams, the resulting treaty with Great Britain ceded the American nation just about all of the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.  Of particular interest to this posting is the expansion of land north of the Ohio River or what would become to be known as the Northwest Territory.

          A nation that didn’t even exist before the war was now a significantly large one.  And while on paper that seemed just about unprecedented, it left that nation with a demanding challenge – how does one extend control over that vast expanse?  And here, what would be considered as an added challenge, an extended post-war economic depression, turned out to be a motivator for people to behave in just the way this expansion challenge needed them to behave.

          Here is what the historian, David McCullough, describes took place:

 

Unprecedented financial panic had gripped the new nation since the end of the Revolutionary War.  The resources and credit of the government were exhausted.  Money, in the form of scrip issued by the government, was nearly worthless.  The scrip the veterans received as compensation for their service was worth no more than ten cents on the dollar.  Trade was at a standstill.  In Massachusetts the situation was worst of all.  Farmers were being imprisoned for debt.  Only a few months earlier, an armed rebellion led by poor Massachusetts farmer and war veteran named Daniel Shays had to be put down by a force of loyal militia commanded by General Tupper.

            As it was, the severe economic depression that followed the war would last longer even than the war.  But out west now there was land to be as never imagined – vast land, rich land where there was “no end to the beauty and plenty” – that could be made available to veterans at a bargain price in compensation for their service.  West was opportunity.  West was the future.[1]

 

And this opportunity and how it was exploited portrays a number of the attributes of the prevailing construct among the American population having to do with governance and politics.

          As this blog has argued, that construct can be given the name parochial/traditional federalism.  Yes, it ascribed to sustaining a federated populous but mostly only among the nation’s Western European descendants (including the recent immigrants from that area).  It excluded blacks and indigenous peoples.  While indigenous people’s rights were mostly neglected in the process by which the Northwest Territory was incorporated into the American system, there was an element of the process that addressed the rights of blacks.

          And this concern was also extended to other demographic classifications.  McCullough explains:

 

It was intended that this ordinance, now called the Northwest Ordinance, should stipulate that in the whole of the territory there would be absolute freedom of religion and particular emphasis on education, matters New Englanders considered fundamental to a just and admirable society.

 

Most importantly, there was to be no slavery.  In the plan for the creation of a new state northwest of the Ohio River, the proposition put forth by Rufus Putnam [war hero who led the Ohio Company of Associates] and others at the time of the Newburgh Resolution, total exclusion of slavery was an essential.

 

As would be observed by historians long afterward, the Northwest Ordinance was designed to guarantee what would one day be known as the American way of life.[2]

 

And a couple of points should be emphasized.  One, this area would initially be inhabited by migrating New Englanders.  And two, various states would eventually be formed in this area and all of them were organized and developed under a culturally federalist mind set.

          Initially, the New England base was to be highly Calvinist and as such highly based on covenantal thinking in the formulation of political arrangements.  As the political scientist, Daniel Elazar, points out, the northern stretch of states as one moves from east to west in the US can be considered an extension of New England’s moralistic political subculture. 

That is, it highlights the moral bases of governance.  That view more specifically emphasizes the interests of a commonwealth, that governments are to advance the public interests, that the polities are to have very low tolerance of corruption, and that citizens have a duty to participate in politics.[3]  And these characteristics became common among the New England colonies and then states from the time of their earliest settlement and extended westward among the northernmost layer of states.

As for the landmass in question, it is sufficient to list the states that eventually were formed in this territory.  They are Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  Significant shoreline on the Great Lakes would prove to be of economic advantage to these states.  This became particularly true with the building of the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825, and opened trade lanes out to the Atlantic Ocean via the port of New York.

Of course, these developments were done with concerns over the “Indian menace.”  Among the indigenous peoples a certain belief prevailed, that “considered the Ohio country their rightful, God-granted domain.”[4]  This aspect of the American expansion – of its parochial character – deserves its own separate analysis.

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[1] David McCullough, The Pioneers:  The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West (New York, NY:  Simon & Schuster, 2019), 8.  Historical claims in this posting rely on this source.

[2] Ibid., 12.

[3] “Explaining Policy Difference Using Political Culture,” West Texas A&M University, n.d., accessed January 27, 2024, URL:  https://www.google.com/search?q=elazar+moralistic+political+culture&rlz=1C1RXMK_enUS966US966&oq=elazar%27s+moralistic&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgCECEYqwIyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgcIAhAhGKsCMgcIAxAhGKsCMgcIBBAhGKsC0gEJMTQxMThqMGo5qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.  It should be noted, most of the states making up the Northwest Territory would eventually morph into the individualistic mindset except for Michigan and Wisconsin that remained moralistic.

[4] McCullough, The Pioneers, 7.