AN OVERALL AMERICAN CONSTRUCT, PART I

 

This writer, in his recently published book, introduces an instructional mode for the teaching of civics education.[1]  He calls that mode historical dialog-to-action (HD-to-A).  Simply described, it calls on students to discuss, argue, and debate (in ascending order) civic issues through analyses of their historical developments. 

The main rationale for such an approach is that through historical developmental stories, students can be appraise holistic accounts about how current challenges have come to be.  The essence of the challenges chosen is their endangerment in fulfilling federalist values, for example, the way the opioid crisis has endangered the equity of millions of Americans.  The aim is not to determine what should have happened, but to what should happen in the future in dealing with the identified challenges.

While that is the aim, a lot must be filled in to guide such an effort – both in terms of content and, to some degree, instructional methods.  This posting sets out to initiate addressing of the former – the content.  And in that, such an effort, to be logically in line with what this blog has argued, that overview of the nation’s history would ideally reinforce a federalist bias that this blog has claimed characterized much of that history. 

To restate that argument, the US, since its colonial past, held as a dominant view concerning government and politics, a federalist version of what those entities should be.  That dominance lasted till the years after World War II and then it was overcome by a shift to the natural rights view or construct. 

Both views are aspirational in nature and should not be considered descriptive of what was or is.  The version of federalism that earlier Americans held was what this writer calls parochial/traditional federalism and it called for the federation of mostly the European-based population of the American nation.

Given these claims, a look at the historical overview of the nation not only gives one stories of how this development took place but provides evidence as to the veracity of this overall claim regarding the role of federalism.  But before delving into these concerns, a few definitions are needed. 

By federalism this blog has not emphasized, nor totally ignored, the structural elements of that construct; that being of the two levels of governance, the central government and the state governments.  Instead, this blog has been mostly concerned with what Daniel Elazar calls the processes of federalism.[2]

Those processes basically highlight the construct’s call for a citizenry to adopt a partnering mode of civic intercourse.  Or more in line with the term, federalism, citizens establish and maintain themselves as being federated with each other.  The term federalism is derived from the Latin term foedus – meaning to be leagued through an agreement (a covenant) that, in turn, is held to be sacred.[3] 

A further distinction is between a covenant and a compact.  According to Donald Lutz, the former calls on God to witness such an agreement, the latter does not.[4]  The US Constitution is a compact.  The common citizen becomes aware of such an agreement when he/she considers the solemnity of the marriage vow.  Usually in a church, that agreement is a covenant; before a state official, it’s usually a compact.  Both are held equally scared.

This overview reappears in this blog from time to time.  The historical development stated above also reappears often.  But as this blog sets out to test its overall historical view, this context is judged essential in this initial posting.  And before moving on, one more repetitive note should be added. 

By saying federalism served as the central view of governance and politics it is not to say all agreed with it or that other ideas, theories, models did not exist under its umbrella.  But, for this latter grouping, there should be a logical connection between what more specifically served to guide Americans, e.g., Puritanism, and what constitutes the more general tenets of federalism. 

And those tenets can be summarized by a few words:  cooperation, collaboration, commonality, and community.  More granular terms are equality (a regulated equality), liberty (a federal liberty), and civic virtue (a common value held by the founding fathers[5] and a quality that introduces a moral aspect).  This list can be expanded, but if one considers what the phrase “to be federated” means, the reader can think of his/her own terms to describe this view of citizenry.

So, given this, what overview serves to provide a substantive general look at what constitutes the nation’s history.  For that purpose, this blog relies on the overview authored by Allen C. Guelzo.[6]  In introducing his treatment, Guelzo poses the question:  do Americans have a collective mind?  And to address that question:  what is a national mind?  It is a shared view – a construct – that to some degree defines what a people see social reality to be.  And Americans seem to approach that question a bit reluctantly.

They are considered to be doers, not thinkers.  Of course, such a dichotomy cannot be totally true.  A people do need to think, and they do need to do; so, the question is:  how far a people carry on their affairs favoring one or the other?  The eventual dominance of Pragmatism in the late 1800s seems to indicate a “doer” bias, but Pragmatism itself is a well thought out philosophical position.  But this is getting ahead of the story.

In the writings of Elazar, he tells of how the original settlers, those of Massachusetts Bay being prominent, brought with them this Puritanical, covenantal approach with them.  The Mayflower Compact (a covenant) initiated this approach.  The signees of the document entered into a federalist arrangement. 

But to return to Guelzo’s account, he identifies this Puritanical influence as the starting point for how Americans began defining themselves.  The Puritanical strain shortly was mixed in with those influences emanating from the Enlightenment – and as it will be fully described at a later date, a Scottish Enlightenment.[7]  Guelzo uses the analogy of two cooks – each one of these two traditions – cooking up America’s intellectual history.

But was there another “cook”?  Guelzo points out that one of the aspects of the American experience discouraging an intellectual bent was the practical realities that Americans faced in settling a continent.  Typical days that these early generations faced were filled with how one was going to make it till sunset.  The bulk of the population had its days filled with a slew of practical hurdles the frontier provided. 

But this, in and of itself, according to this blogger, added to the need for a federated approach.  Alexi de Tocqueville describes the common experiences of Americans in the 1830s.[8]  The outstanding characteristics highlighted in that description were how intense were the levels of cooperation, collaboration, and community – these characteristics were not considered as so many duties, but necessary and even sources of entertainment.  And in this, one can see how Ralph Waldo Emerson was keen on pointing out Americans’ practical thinking. 

Even de Tocqueville expressed concern over Americans’ lack of philosophic concern.  He wrote, “Each therefore, withdraws into himself and claims to judge the world from there … [he, therefore has] the shallowest of ideas, and tend[s] to be tightly chained to the general will of the greatest number.”[9]

The plan for the next posting is to pick up on this overview.  To this point, one can readily see that what is described above does not contradict federalist thought among Americans but by reviewing these finer elements of the nation’s past, one can further describe federalist influences and explain why it held on so strongly until the late 1940s.

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[1] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020).  Available through Amazon.

[2] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

[3] Center for the Study of Federalism (n.d.), https://federalism.org/about/what-is-federalism/ .

[4] Donald Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[5] Thomas E. Ricks, First Principles:  What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country (New York, NY:  HarperCollins Publishers, 2020).  He analyzed George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

[6] Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I, II, III – transcript books – (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005).

[7] Ricks, First Principles.

[8] Alexi de Tocqueville, “Political Structure of Democracy,” in Alexis de Tocqueville:  On Democracy, Revolution, and Society, ed. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (Chicago, IL:  Chicago University Press, 1980/1835).

[9] Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I , 11.