A PROVERBIAL AMERICAN TENSION

I have from time to time in this blog used the expression: the freedom to do what one should do, not necessarily what one wants to do. I have further associated this expression with the vision of liberty promoted by federalist thought – at least as an ideal for which federalists strive. I have also made the claim that the founding generation of our political system – those patriots we recognize as starting our republic – were swayed, more so than by any other construct, by federalist thought. Therefore, one can readily assume that I see the founders believing in a severe socialization of youth in which they are taught that the good of the community trumps the good of the individual. By so doing, we can solve the Rousseauean problem: “… we no longer have citizens.”¹ Or stated another way, the founders argued: we should all conduct our lives in such a way that we place the interests of the community above our own. That is what it means to “do what we should do ...”.

The nation, during its Puritanical beginnings and for many years thereafter, placed this kind of burden on individuals. The earliest settlers might not have taken this notion as far as Rousseau did, but religiously stern discipline characterized many of the expectations of those New England settlers. In this blog, I have traced the history of how the harsh initial conditions of the frontier demanded this kind of discipline to assure the very survival of the early settlements. But naturally, as those conditions softened, the rationale for such a view became ever more difficult to maintain. Slowly, the more hospitable environment – caused in no small measure by the discipline exerted by the earlier Americans – led to political and social perspectives that liberalized our laws, customs, mores, and ethos. In addition, writers other than Rousseau, such as John Stuart Mill and John Locke, presented arguments that individuals are entitled to rights and that the community cannot and should not impose burdens on individuals that transgress those rights. These rights are provided by nature.

Since prior postings have spelled out this development, my purpose here is to merely remind you of this overall evolution and to point out that by the time of the founders of our present republic, there was still a very strong sense of societal duty and obligation, but that this sense had been somewhat compromised – how compromised is up to interpretation and debate. Read what a current scholar believes about the state of mind most founders were in by the late eighteenth century:

[The Federalist – collection of essays promoting the newly written constitution of 1787] presumed … that man is selfish and his politics factious. Moreover, stability of the regime is assured only through “mechanical devices” aimed at pitting “ambition against ambition” within government and faction against faction in society. …

It can no longer be taken for granted, however, that the American constitutional founders – even the authors of The Federalist – can be described as Lockean liberals. … I will argue that the revisionists were right in asserting that the constitutional founders were more civic-minded, more concerned about the dispositions of citizens to undertake public duties, than the “possessive individualist” … I reject what I see as a tendency in the revisionist literature [though] to assume that where civic virtue is discussed – and practiced – liberalism must be absent.²

In other words, it is hard to peg the founders on a continuum from republicanism – with a commitment to civic duty – and liberalism – with a commitment to individual interests. My take is that the difficulty lies in the nature of the transition the nation was only beginning to experience at that time and is still progressing today.³

One thing we should not forget when considering the founders is that they saw themselves creating a layered polity. A problem they were trying to solve was how do you get citizens to take on the burdens of obligations and duties without the resulting regime being oppressive. How do you, at the same time, maintain within each of us the ambition to help build that great nation with a vibrant economy that not only provides a better material life, but provides the resources to make the nation strong in relation to other nations? How do you create the conditions that would lead to a foreign policy sufficiently vibrant to protect our national interests? The national layer of the polity was to set the political infrastructure by which such a posture could be created. It would set about a governmental framework to allow this more ambitious agenda by allowing people, at least as far as the national government was concerned, to advance their individual goals and aims. It would create those conditions that would allow a national market with a free trading zone to be established and unleash the natural ambitions of Americans to not only prosper on the Atlantic seaboard, but to conquer a continent chock full of resources. With these aims eventually accomplished, they believed that prominence, power, and wealth would naturally follow. Allegiance to this more grandiose government would be based on its protection of individual rights by first limiting its powers to those delegated in the national compact and later by adding a set of rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, as far as promoting what Richard C. Sinopoli calls “a sentiment of allegiance,” the local government, under the auspices of the state governments, would take the lead in this more communal ambition.

Why? Because the national government was, in the eyes of the founders, probably too big and represented too many diverse interests to be able to engender the attachment and allegiance upon which civic virtue depends. Smaller entities, like the states, with more limited populations, interests, and diversity can engender those bonds of attachment the founders believed essential. Of course, what exactly was viewed as deserving allegiance would be, from state to state, very different and, of course, in one area this diversity almost led to the union dissolving. As it was, it led to a bloody civil war.

Where are we today given this tension between the interests of the individual and the interests of the community? A lot of politics today is an expression of this tension. If anything, the alternative views between the two are being expressed with more intensity than what had been the case some thirty years ago. The presidency of Ronald Reagan gave a shot in the arm to those views promoting the individualist side of the debate. Recently, those who champion the duty and obligation side have had some successes. For example, the passing of the Affordable Health Care Act has been interpreted by many as the society taking on the responsibility of providing health insurance to many who can't afford it. This provision, in turn, is viewed as a program that will lead to a healthier nation and, as such, promotes the common good. The final outcome of Obamacare will go a long way in defining where we are: are we tilting toward the “me” or are we tilting toward the “us”? Are we finding morality under a doctrine of individual determination or under a doctrine of societal welfare calculation?

1Quoted in Sinopoli, R. C. (1992). The foundations of American citizenship: Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 3.

2Sinopoli, R. C. (1992). The foundations of American citizenship: Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 4-5.

3In terms of the prominent views of those in the political class between the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, I am partial to the description provided to us by Gordon S. Wood. See Wood, G. S. (1998). The creation of the American republic 1776-1787. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. This seminal work was originally published in 1969.