Among historians there is an argument going on which involves
how much influence did John Locke have on the writers of our constitution and on
those who ratified the basic law. This
is of particular concern to this blog due to the fact that a good deal of my
overall presentation is based on the claim that our political culture evolved more
from a traditional federalism rather than the ideas of Locke and his theory of natural
rights. For those who are new to this
blog, what I have shared has been the argument that our political culture held predominantly
a view of government and politics that emphasizes a collective bias which holds
that we, as citizens, are in a partnership in this polity. Some historians call this general set of
ideas and ideals civic humanism.
Civic humanism is central to the collective nature of
traditional federalism. I have defined
federalism not so much as a fancy term for states’ rights or the argument that
our politics should basically revolve around state issues. That definition extols state government as that
government, at least as compared to the central government in Washington, as
being closer to the people, more knowledgeable of their problems and
concerns. It is also the level of
government, through the structures of city and county jurisdictions, in which
the average person with limited political assets can have a meaningful say and
even have influence. While my use of the
term incorporates a lot of this bias, it is more concerned with the notion that
federalism is about viewing the body politic as just that: an organic association in which its component
entities are highly interrelated and codependent. By entities I mean you and I and all of our
fellow citizens either individually or in groups. This whole structure is defined and justified
by a “sacred,” albeit secular, agreement; one in which the parties, so
agreeing, are consenting to the provisions of either a covenant or a
compact. The word federalism is derived
from the Latin word for covenant, foedius.[1] But not all historians agree with this level
of commitment on the part of the founders.
The question revolves around how much influence John Locke had at the
time of Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Why Locke? This will
be more fully addressed in my next posting, but here I want to just point out
that Locke was the first to theorize – i.e., set down a coherent argument – on
the ideas and notions that became the liberal or natural rights view. What this view has become is not what it was
initially. Back in the late 1600s when
he wrote, the impetus was to begin representing the political and cultural aims
of the merchant and budding industrial interests class which was becoming more
influential due to its growing successes.
Holding its interests at bay were the entrenched landed (country)
interests of the nobility. A country
which particularly was experiencing in its politics the tensions among these
groups was England. There, the upstart
entrepreneurs were fighting many of the established privileges the nobility
enjoyed including the inherited positions in Parliament. It was in Britain that we have a more
immediate effect of Locke’s writings. He
also had an influence on this side of the Atlantic, but it would be more subdued
and slower to gain traction. I will save
for the next postings some of the language this clash expressed as the upstarts
undermined the legitimacy of this advantaged class.
In this posting, I want to merely set the stage. I want to remind you why I believe that the
founders fell more heavily on the side of republicanism, the governmental
system supported by federalists, than on the side of individualism, the side
bolstered by the writings of Locke.
While the Constitutional Convention was a definite step away from a purer
federalism, it was still well ensconced in its penumbra of ideas. Let me share the historian’s, Forrest
McDonald, account of this argument:
It is a grave mistake, however, to
assume from this [the influence of natural rights thinking] that the Framers
(or even the court-party nationalists [those who questioned the civic minded
motivations of people] or even Hamilton) cynically abandoned the whole notion
of virtue in the republic and opted to substitute crass self-interest in its
stead. Several historians have made that
assumption, and at least one has gone so far as to pronounce the judgment that
the very tradition of civic humanism, of men finding their highest fulfillment
in service to the public, thereby was brought to an end. To commit that mistake is to fail to understand
… crucial aspects of the concept that men are driven by their passion. [This includes] a variety of passions, and
many of these – love of fame, of glory, of country, for example – are noble.[2]
One source of possible confusion is that there was a movement
at the time of the Convention that can be associated with both federalism and
natural rights. Among those historians
that support the stronger influence by Locke and those who took up the natural
rights argument is this recognition that with our constitutional development
was the origins of a constitutionalism being a way to stem the power of
lawmaking bodies, be it Parliament, Congress, or any state legislature.
This central idea was what galvanized what we consider our
version, as opposed to that of the British, of radicalism. This radicalism refers to the passion some
approached this new found sense of entitlement of liberty and individual
integrity. In the political mix of the time
were those who took up this radical advocacy. This had some effect in Britain, but it was in
the US that it took on legal status. We
incorporated the concern and adopted; it has become a basic constitutional
attribute today. This initiative became
legally established with the ratification of the Bill of Rights – the first ten amendments to our constitution – and
the exertion of the Supreme Court especially under the leadership of John
Marshall. Even then, it took the courts
until the twentieth century to apply this power of the Constitution in any institutional way. To put this newer concern in context, a more
important aim of the founders was to define structurally what it meant to have
the people rule through representation and majority rule.[3] But as for limiting lawmaking bodies, keeping
them from abusing rights and liberties, this concern obviously promotes the
individual, the notion that we are born with those powers that government has
no authority to disregard or trample.
One can easily see how adopting legal protections from abusive laws which
undermine individual prerogatives stems from Lockean ideas. But, one can also see, with just a little
more effort, how it also promotes basic ideals of federalism and republicanism.
Let me explain. Central
to the notion of federalism, one of its basic values, is equality. This sense of equality has an inclusive
quality to it; we are all equal in this common, organic whole of a
society. Laws that favor one group over
others, as laws often do, pose, at least potentially, very real threats to the
egalitarian character of a polity. And
this is of importance today with the obscene skewing of income and wealth our
nation is currently experiencing. I
would argue that above the founders’ concerns for any emerging class of
business people was the more fundamental appreciation they had for the organic
nature of a polity and the parallel concerns for health of that polity to that
of an organic being like themselves. This
concern, it was understood, was negatively affected by abusive laws. Let us take in John Adams’ central views on
constitutions as reported by the historian, Bernard Bailyn:
So John Adams wrote that a political
constitution is like “the constitution of the human body”; “certain contextures
of the nerves, fibres, and muscles, or certain qualities of the blood and
juices” some of which “may properly be called stamina vitae, or essentials and fundamentals of the constitution;
parts without which life itself cannot be preserved a moment.”[4]
I know, I know, he was not at the Constitutional Convention,
but his writings had a good deal of influence on those who met in Philadelphia
in 1787. He was one of them in spirit
and a leader of the Revolution and of the nation (our second president). There are other quotes I could add, but that
is not my intent here. What I do want to
stress is that while the delegates at the Convention had to deal with very
practical concerns of the day, they foresaw a national government structured, acting,
and functioning within the parameters of federalist values and what we have
come to call civic humanism. So, what
then is the place we should attribute to Locke and natural rights
principles? That is the topic of my next
posting.
[1]
So the constitutional scholar, Daniel J. Elazar,
informs us.
[2]
McDonald, F. (1992).
The power of ideas in the convention.
In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history,
Volume I: The colonial era through
reconstruction (pp. 160-169). Lexington,
MA: D. C. Heath and Company. Quotation on pp. 162-163.
[3] Reflecting this, for example, was the evolution of
how we choose our presidents – we still have the Electoral College.
[4]
Bailyn, B.
(1992). The birth of republican
constitutionalism. In K. L. Hall (Ed.)
Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I: The colonial era through reconstruction (pp.
91-97). Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company. Quotation on p. 91.
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