WHO WERE THESE GUYS?

Who were the founders of our nation? I mean, really, who were they? Were they the guys whom we see depicted on those paintings? Or were they other people? Jack Rakove makes the very convincing argument that the founders were the people who made up the ratifying conventions that voted for the constitution that those guys in the paintings proposed to them.¹ Yes, the “painted” bunch wrote our constitution, but that document didn't take effect until it was ratified by nine of the conventions. It was eventually ratified by all the states. In total, by my count, there were 1,648 representatives at the various ratifying conventions. Not all conventions had the same number attending: the largest had 355 (Massachusetts) and the smallest had 26 (Georgia). More populated states tended to have more representatives, but there was no ordering of the number of representatives by the population size; Virginia, the largest state with about 821,000 people, had 168 attendees at its convention. In almost each state, a few of the representatives at their respective conventions were also members of the Constitutional Convention, but they made up a relatively small portion of the 1,648 representatives.

I relate some of these facts regarding the ratifying conventions because I want to support a claim I have made in numerous postings; that is, that more than any other mental construct, the founders held a federalist construct or worldview in terms of their political perspectives. Note: I don't say it is the only influential construct. As it turns out, this notion of how the founders saw politics, governance, and ideal citizenship is somewhat contentious today. According to Richard C. Sinopoli,² there are scholars who attribute to the founders a strong republican view. This would be in keeping with my contention since federalism is a particular form of republican thought. There are others who argue that the founders were influenced by liberal thought – what I have called a natural rights perspective. Here, the emphasis is on the idea that the founders were motivated in their political writings and actions by a desire to promote individual rights. Some of these scholars see these founders being swayed by the ideas of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers.

I want to point out that I never claimed that the founders were ideologues or “true believers” of the federalist train of thought. Again, what I do believe is that more than any other construct, the founders were influenced by federalist thinking. Whether they consciously knew they were following a federalist line of thinking or even went about identifying themselves as federalist devotees or not, I, frankly, don't know. I have never read anything that makes me believe they thought this way other than the fact that those founders who were promoting the new constitution of 1787 jumped on the title, Federalists. But what I do think is that their ideas and how they saw government needed to be organized and structured – from local government to national government – following a federalist model. That model first took root on American soil with the writing and implementation of the Mayflower Compact. The basic format of the compact agreement can be noted in just about all of the founding documents that set up local jurisdictions, regional arrangements, colonial/state charters and constitutions, and of course, our national constitution – even our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation.³

Here is Sinopoli's take on how “republican” or “liberal” the founders were: “Normatively, I conclude with at least two cheers for a conception of liberalism that recognizes the value of community and participation even if it is not one such liberals as Madison and Hamilton themselves would have endorsed.”⁴ This scholar points out quite emphatically that the founders harbored both republican concerns for community and liberal concerns for individual rights and prerogatives. He seems to lean in favor of the side of the debate that sees the founders as liberals, but goes on to argue that liberalism can include a concern for communal interests. I believe that the nuanced view of the founders can be best described as federalist because integral to the federalist view is its concern with the commonwealth being formed by independent and free-willed individuals who voluntarily enter compact agreements – a presumption of liberty that is extensive and profound. By the late eighteenth century, these founders had become quite accustomed to the, by that time, traditional way of seeing political arrangements. They saw them structurally as outgrowths of the arrangements which had formed their congregational churches. It was just the way these types of things were/are done.

This goes for those attending the Constitutional Convention, although among these elites the concerns for individual rights were beginning to take a stronger hold as they saw their property rights becoming more and more threatened by “highly democratic” state governments. These entities, the states, were experiencing policy decisions – such as whether higher taxes on the big land owners and talk of nullifying debt contracts should be instituted – that were beginning to undermine the institution upon which their riches relied. Incidents such as Shay's Rebellion were highly unsettling. But as the argument over the new constitution went out to the countryside and the people got to elect their representatives for the ratifying conventions – when it got closer to the regular folks – we find a different emphasis expressed. Sinopoli points out:

Anti-federalist conceptions of civic virtue and the sources of allegiance also resided in a complex moral and political psychology, one that relied on ties of personal acquaintance and the bonds of benevolence to explain political loyalties and to argue for the inevitable weaknesses of such loyalties in a large, extended republic.⁵

Anti-federalists – a poor title for those who opposed the proposed constitution – were elected to these ratifying conventions. They were fearful of this large national government being formed and being able to take away the prerogatives of their state governments. Again, for these founders, they believed the emphasis in governance should be on the independence and integrity of the entities that make up the national federal union – in this case the former individual colonies. These entities, now the separate states, were closer to the communities they knew and loved; they were closer to the biases, prejudices, and parochial beliefs that constituted who they were. Both Federalists (promoters of the proposed constitution) and Anti-federalists were all federalists; their argument would have been better titled Centrists vs. Anti-centrists – that would have been more descriptive. The question was not whether federalism had to be instituted or dismissed. The question, better posed, was whether the level of governance was better at local federal entities or a national federal entity. The resulting compromise was a dual federal arrangement which is today symbolized by a flag with fifty stars.

1Rakove, J. N. (1996). Original meanings: Politics and ideas in the making of the constitution. New York: Vintage Books.

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

3A scholar who has done extensive work in this area is Donald S. Lutz. You can find a good summary of his work in Lutz, D. S. (1992). A preface to American political theory. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

4Op cit., Sinopoli, p. 15.

5Ibid., p. 15.

VOTE FOR THE BANDITRY OPTION?

Boy, there has been a lot of ink used to describe why we have government, how governments come about, and what governments can be expected to accomplish. In this writing, there is much disagreement; among political thinkers there are many approaches to this subject matter. That is, there is a variance in how these questions are perceived and answered – in how they see the relevant history of governance. One thing these writers seem to agree on, though, is how they, at least in part, answer the question: why government? Governance is needed, they contend, in order to manage and, if needed, settle disputes. This does not refer to all disputes, but those that cannot be settled through agreements due to human emotional bonds or through shared interests. Samuel P. Huntington¹ claims that government is not needed when social collectives are small with a common set of interests, a shared sense of values, and a relatively high level of affection between the members. But as societies grow, taking in more diverse interests, and relying on good humor and a common past does not seem to work too effectively in promoting solutions to the conflicts among interests that will inevitably materialize. At some point, a designated, non-interested party, with authority, is needed to render those decisions that will relieve or even settle such disputes. That function seems to be the one agreed upon reason for government. Even conservatives agree with that reasoning.

By conservatives, I am referring to those citizens who would agree with the general proposition that former President Ronald Reagan announced: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.” A political thinker who seems to provide theoretical backing for this view is the late Mancur Olson. He argued that as societies grow, the social bonds grow weaker, interests diversify, and people have the logical motivation to not participate in the solutions of societal problems. They instead are motivated to become “free riders” – that is, they logically decide to enjoy the fruits of collective action, but do not put in time, effort, or money to support such action. Instead, in order to get them to put some skin in any group or collective effort(s), people need particular incentives to entice them to participate in the collective action. Government is the product of those among us who see the need for government – this dispute settling function – and exploit this reality through chicanery to place themselves in positions of power in order to steal – commit banditry – from the community they govern. Hence, the government they head becomes “the problem” as it sucks the resources from the productive members of society to provide themselves with lavish lifestyles. Not only do they steal, but they are also highly ineffective in solving the problems they supposedly set out to fix. Olson distinguishes between two types of bandits: “roving bandits” – a basis for anarchy – and stationary bandits who provide protection against roving bandits. The stationary variety, in their process of establishing government, also provide the beginnings of civilization which can eventually evolve into democracy that puts a lid on the excesses of banditry by aligning the workings of government more closely with the interests of the people. But then again, there is the problem of “free ridership” and one can readily see the best solution is for government to do as little as possible.

Of course, this line of reasoning precludes a more active view of governance. Active governance is one that sees government as that agency that can coordinate and head collective actions to strive to achieve collective ambitions. These ambitions are difficult to satisfy without government when the potential of satisfying the ambitions neither provides for private profit nor profit which can be derived by particular parties, be they individuals or businesses. Such ambitions can reflect moral considerations or they can be a generally shared desire for some accomplishment that people feel reflects well on them. The first type of ambition would be exemplified by the War on Poverty during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration in the 1960s. The second type of effort would be exemplified by the space program that was started during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration and continues today, albeit on a much reduced level. Of course, the crowning event of the space program was the US's landing a man on the moon in 1969. Most Americans take pride in that accomplishment. The role of government in either of these types of efforts, in order to be successful, is indispensable for it is only government that can summon the resources such efforts demand. But that view of governance would surely not see it as a form of banditry.

The philosophic foundations for more active governance come from varied sources; they can be deduced from thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to Karl Marx. The degree of governance with which these thinkers would feel comfortable runs the gamut from a role in which government is an encourager and a focal point expressing collective ambitions to a role as determinant agent mandating, even using coercion, to establish some ideal or “perfect” society. As a guiding mental construct, federalism lies closer to the former sort of approach – one of encourager or focal point. For federalists, perfection, if that word can be used here, lies not in some final societal condition or program or in an arrangement among citizens, but in the process of promoting the participation Olson seems to think can be derived only from particular or specific incentives that “buy” that participation. Its approach comes in direct opposition to the sentiment espoused by Olson and other critics of government action.

How do you elicit that type of participation characterizing an active government in a diverse society when there is no unifying ethnicity, religion, or occupational base? There is no guarantee, but I feel federalism in its component parts addresses some of the concerns.

For one, federalism respects the smaller units that compose a societal makeup. It is more in tune with a political environment that is apt to have more shared interests. In the US, that would be the respect and constitutional powers that are retained by the states. In addition, the evolve-ment of “home rule” within states allows localities a great deal of leeway in how they run their affairs. And while states don't have state religions anymore – a prospect some states have mentioned reviving – there are efforts in all states to promote a sense of loyalty or fidelity to that state's common history and shared values. There are attempts to celebrate the history of that state with stories of sacrifice and other folklore. While these efforts at times run contrary to agreed upon national values – often in regard to race issues – overall, a healthy respect for local modes of living and their related values has been an honored aspect of American life.

Federalism also emphasizes the foundational arrangements that originally created the society and government. They are the product of an active choice by a population to go through the process of forming an agreement by which that people will be governed. By formulating and agreeing to the provisions of a constitution, the people of a state are federated to each other by binding themselves to a compact – a solemn agreement by which they promise to live by the agreement no matter what any other party does or does not do.

Is all this idealistic in light of Olson's concerns? Perhaps, but what happens when there is no such idealism? We might create the institutional requisites for governance, but the resulting arrangement is one totally based on transactional relations, particularly in our politics. When that happens, we have to face overwhelming problems: a population not willing or able to make the sacrifices a people might and probably will be called upon to make for the common good and a population primed for nihilism. So, as I see it, those are our choices. I choose that we not only take up the federalist option – leaving all that banditry talk behind – but also that we promote it to students in our public schools.

1Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.