In continuing with the topic of the last
posting, this one further shares Daniel Elazar’s review[1] of the obstacles the
founding fathers faced. That is
developing a national governing model that remained true to their collective
bias for republican / federalist values.
In short, the obstacles were a vast land mass and a diverse
populous. The history of such efforts
seemed to always count on despotic rule to provide effective governance.
Of
any hope, at least as one studied the situation, was to either follow the model
of Great Britain which was a single unified polity but that honored the
diversity of the governing population or to establish a loose confederation of independent
/ sovereign states united only for purposes of mutual defense and foreign
relations.
The latter option was looked upon
dubiously out a fear that it could degrade from inadequate rule even in terms
of foreign relations. And, as mentioned
in the previous posting, the unified option – a la Napoleon and France –
was popular among the military. One of
its “sons,” though, Alexander Hamilton would argue for a constitutional monarchy
– a la the British model – at the Constitutional Convention. Instead, the founders first chose the second
option, the loose arrangement, by adopting the Articles of Confederation
and in a few years determined that that was an unworkable model.
One thing the founders learned was that the
“loose” option only led to elite factions undermining the liberties of sizable numbers
within the political landscapes of the various states. Those who represented these factions – one
can by implication count Patrick Henry in Virginia – maintained their staunch support
of this option. Later, they will make up
the Anti-Federalist contingency during the debate over the ratification of the
federal constitution.
So, what was chosen – option one or
option two? Neither. The founders instead invented yet another
option. They first acknowledged that a
single nation had evolved in the years since the first settlers made their way
to North America. Two wars and common
challenges cooked up this resulting American people.
That meant that a sufficient common
culture and way of being existed, albeit barely, to create a single
polity. But there was enough distinction
among the states to not ignore the diversity that existed. And their steadfast determination to not
cater to those who advised despotism should not be underestimated in
understanding what happened.
If the experiences taught them anything,
it taught them that “smallness” did not guarantee a protection from despotic
tendencies and even its actuality.
Smallness could be despotic just as well as bigness. And another lesson learned was that democratic
majorities can also be despotic. Pure
majorities can and had overrun the rights of individuals and minorities. Therefore, they set out to establish a
qualified majority rule arrangement. As
Elazar puts it,
Pure
democracies, in particular, were subject to the sway of passion and hence to
the promotion of injustice, and even republics were susceptible if faction was
allowed to reign unchecked. As friends
of human liberty and popular government, they felt it necessary to create a
political system that would protect the people from despotic governments
whether they be large or small, democratic or not.[2]
The proposed solution was one of
countervailing forces; a federalist model provided such an approach.
How? By allocating sufficient powers to various
levels so that they could then compete in arenas of vying, opposing interests. In this way no one faction could control what
transpires as these conflicting interests work out their differences in local
and national arenas. Among the resulting
balances would be the overall limits on governmental excesses and popular passion. For example, federalism allowed for national
governmental entities to compete with regional (state) governmental entities
while maintaining a popular governmental model.
In
short, the founders devised a “republican remedy for republican diseases.” Was it a centralized remedy or decentralized
remedy? It was a non-centralized
one. That is, the devised system has no central
body with sole sovereign power. Instead,
an original shared sovereign approach was instituted with the resulting
constitutional instrument the founders developed in 1787.
Yes, one level, when
the chips are down, has final say – that being the national government – but an
honest respect for the sovereignty of each level was to be maintained – and it
has been. Students of this innovation
gave it a name, “checks and balances,”[3] and civics students learn
that this attribute is one of the Constitution’s principles. And given that within each government there were
divided powers, the overall polity was to be set up to deny any element within
it too much power, but yet with enough power to meet those responsibilities that
element was created to meet.
And this separation of
power, writ large, extended to other political institutions such as political
parties (with national and state organizational structures) that the founders
did not even foresee. The federal model,
therefore, became culturized or institutionalized within the various political
entities including private ones such as corporations. The result is the “infiltration” of
federalist principles among the diverse array of institutional elements of the
civil society.
One can look at the
arrangements by which the public school system of the nation – that is, the
fifty different public-school systems – and how educational policy is issued
and implemented. This does not preclude
problems arising from this structure, but that it exists no one can doubt, and
no one can ascribe a despotic control over the American educational system.
And the balance sought
– one that Americans have frequently asked since – was between bestowing sufficient
power, while at the same time ensuring that those with power seek and secure sufficient
consent from the various corners of interests regarding proposed policies. To get something big done, one needs significant
consensus among the various factions that make up the American political
scene.
Currently, that is
being judged as a challenge in that various problems – e.g., environmental
problems – go untreated. Unfortunately,
one can at least suspect that various politicians today do not fully appreciate
what is at stake, but perhaps a sufficient number of voters might resolve this
inaction. And again, the prevalence of
the natural rights view seems to be an obstacle of no small consequence.
While it often, as the
current headlines of today demonstrate, draws criticisms for inaction, it, the
federalist arrangement, has protected the American public from a government
running roughshod over the nation. If
anything, it is not majorities that seem to have undermined this federalism,
but the power of a minority with excessive moneyed assets that seem to have
provided a despotic character – not just today but since the development of first
a national economy and now a global one.
The model that was
devised, though, took significant strides toward ascribing respectful and
meaningful allocation of power to the individual factions that existed at the
time and since there have been meaningful accommodations to meet the growth of
the economy – for example, instituting national programs that attempt to retain
more local elements such as Social Security.
This blogger sees the
main threat comes more from cultural elements.
The nation no longer looks to federalist thought in its political
calculations, it now looks to the transactional based view of natural rights
instead. Hence, one has the indecisive reaction
one sees in how Americans react to the various political challenges of the day.
[1]
Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the
Constitution? Thoroughly,” in a booklet of readings, Readings for Classes Taught by Professor Elazar, prepared for a
National Endowment for the Humanities Institute (conducted in Steamboat
Springs, Colorado, 1994), 1-30.
[2] Ibid., 21.
[3] This blogger has been instructed that the term
“balance” did not refer to a weighing scale, but to the mechanism of clocks of
those times that slowed down the operations within those clocks to allow for
accurate measures of time. The analogy
was just that, to slow down governmental reactions to increase the
probabilities of devising prudent policies.
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