COMMONWEALTH VS. INDIVIDUALISM (pt. 2)

[Note:  This posting is a continuation of the previous entry.  The topic is how the founders of the republic handled the contradicting forces of commonwealth concerns and that of individualism and individual rights.  The previous entry was posted June 2.]

It is helpful to get a good grasp of two questions: how did the founders generally see this debate and what did the overall political culture support?  To begin with, federalist values ultimately counted on free consent, as stated in an earlier posting, not only in terms of joining the federated union, but in meeting the responsibilities upon which such a union relied. 

But one cannot dismiss the level of social pressure that people were under when federalist ideals were dominant in the political culture to fulfill those responsibilities not to mention the proclivity to enact supportive laws.  A noted scholar, Jack Rakove, writes of how government straddled that line between individual prerogatives and commonwealth concerns:

Most important, freedom of conscience becomes the quintessential and paradigmatic liberal right. It goes further than most of the common-law rights simultaneously recognized in the various Revolutionary-era bills of rights. Those rights – even those relating to search and seizure – do not suppose that our activities lie completely beyond the purview of public authority. They suppose only that when the state acts, it must be able to demonstrate its basis for doing so, and then must conform to some set of established norms in carrying out its lawful duties.[1]

In short, the writers and those who voted to ratify the original constitutions of this nation, both at the state and national levels, did not believe in inalienable – meaning unobstructed or undeniable – rights. The phrase in the Declaration, “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” really refers to categories of rights; for example, the right of free speech falls under liberty. Liberty itself is inalienable, but free speech is not, as in the often-cited example that you don't have the right to yell fire in a crowded theater.

The only restriction placed on government on limiting a right is that government must base such restraints on a legitimate state interest, such as to “secure domestic tranquility” (stated in the Preamble to the Constitution).

Relating to this concern, the founders held the federated goal to establish a republic.  Structurally, republican government can be defined as a government that is composed of representatives of the people.  But culturally, republicanism demands civically inspired qualities which are characterized by certain attributes.  The argument is that federalist governments allow the polity to meet the demands associated with attaining these attributes. 

What are these demands?  The first is structural in nature.  Government should be small to guarantee a more personal approach to public policy.  This was furthered by the development of covenants and compacts calling on personal commitment and securing a palatable liberty.  One can intuitively see that having the “smaller” state governments addressed this demand (more on this below).

The second demand is that resulting governmental entities, at a given level and given authority, will be treated as equals. But the trade-off is:  each has responsibilities to the union, such as participating in the processes to achieve the union’s purposes. Therefore, they all have rights and duties. As such, given the moral basis of the promissory agreement, fulfilling the prescribed duties and respecting the rights of others takes on a moral character.[2]

The next demand, as stated above, the founders thought in terms of alienable, not inalienable, rights. To add a word on this demand, government, under federalist thought of that day, had a legitimate role in controlling passions such as gluttony, jealousy, salaciousness, and other physiological drives.  An enemy of liberty, it was believed, were those passions that experience has demonstrated to be self-destructive if uncontrolled.  Again, the only caveat is that the state cannot be capricious in its demands of the citizenry. 

In short, a lot of federalist politics in our early history is about the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate exercise of governmental power in what would nowadays be considered the personal aspects of life.  It was believed that since laws were the product of democratic processes, these processes served to protect individual rights – the very people who selected the law-makers, had to live by the laws those law-makers made.

Gordon Wood does point out that this reliance on representative government during the years between the Declaration and the Constitution did become abusive.  In some cases, the “majority” was trampling property rights and culminated in Shay’s Rebellion. (an uprising in which poor farmers wanted to avoid paying taxes).  At that time, therefore, there was a strong, almost radical, preference for collectivism among many Americans.[3]

  This rebellion was one of many events that spurred the calling for the 1787 Constitutional Convention that resulted in our current national constitution. But it is a mistake to see this turn as a complete undoing of communal biases of the Whigs in favor of individual property rights and other individual rights. It encouraged only a scaling back from the more radical stand that some Whigs promoted and this illustrates the diversity of views during those late eighteenth century years.

But responding to a more widespread view, the founders hit on a new model. They saw the problem for maintaining small governing areas an ideal with innate problems. While smallness allowed for more personal politics, they also were subject to dominating factions or moneyed and/or propertied interests tyrannically controlling political affairs – the “company town” syndrome.  Elazar reports that Madison reacted to this.

Elazar writes:  “The interdependence of the national and state governments was to ensure their ability to check one another while still enabling them to cooperate and govern energetically. In the words of Publius, they advocated a republican remedy for republican diseases.”[4]  To avoid a tyranny of a domineering faction or factions, therefore, the same federalist model was applied to a larger configuration and a non-centralized system was created.

It was neither a decentralized nor centralized system, but a non-centralized system. The solution came as close to the demand for personal interaction and respecting smaller entities as possible while incorporating the benefits of a larger political arrangement.  They created the pre-Civil War federalist model which sustained a significant level of sovereign power at the state level while creating a central government with national powers.

With this new format, a central assumption was made regarding the protection of liberty and individualism. That is, there is no central or single power, but several. The result is a system of checks and balances through distributed powers.  With a strong allegiance to communal concerns while furthering the rights of individuals, American republicanism received a strong foundation.  Even in the post-Civil War arrangement, this description held for many years.

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[1] Jack Rakove, “Once More into the Breach:  Reflections on Jefferson, Madison, and the Religion Problem,” in Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society, eds. Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2001), 233-262, 247.

[2] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966) AND Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly,” Readings for classes taught by Professor Elazar (Steamboat Springs, CO:  National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, 1994), 1-30.  A booklet of readings prepared for an institute for teachers. AND Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State 33, (Spring, 1991):  231-254 AND Donald Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[3] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, (New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 1998).

[4] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly,” 21.

COMMONWEALTH VS. INDIVIDUALISM (pt. 1)

[Note:  This is the first of two postings that are entered under the same title.  Part 2 will be posted on June 6.]

Confusion arises today with some of the language used in the early years of the republic.  For example, one of the prominent political groups of the time was known as the Anti-Federalists.  This moniker was the product of historical happenstance, an unfortunate development that had more to do with political strategy than an accurate use of the term.  In the traditional meaning of this term, the Anti-federalists were more “federalist” than the Federalists.

One of the areas in which this confusion manifests itself is over the issue of adding a bill of rights to the US Constitution.  This is seen by many as a historical turn toward individualism or individual liberty.  Despite the increasing popularity of Lockean ideas during the years of the founding, a look at this development from another perspective is useful.

In a lecture, Daniel N. Robinson states the following:

We tend to think of the American founding as being the bedrock of what we are pleased to call American individualism, often referring to it as rugged individualism, and the spectacle that I think we’re inclined to picture here …would be maybe John Wayne on the horizon, alone with his horse, and perhaps a shotgun over his shoulder, taking arms against any and all comers.  That just isn’t the America of the founding… 

[S]urely in America at the time of the founding, the proposition that the idea behind a just form of government is that somebody is to be left alone would have been regarded as pathological.[1] (emphasis added)

The history of the Bill of Rights is telling.  During the ratification process, a call for a bill of rights was part and parcel of the Anti-Federalists,' Whigs,’ demands of the proposed constitution.  In the debates that arose in the separate state ratification conventions, opponents to the new constitution, as proposed, argued that the document would be the death of individual and state rights.  Their support was to be contingent on the addition of a bill of rights.

The Anti-Federalists wanted the more traditional view of federalism with provisions to protect local control of governance.  The Federalists, on the other hand, argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary because, unlike state governments, the new central government would not have unlimited power. 

In Article I of the new constitution, there was a list of delegated powers and those powers, except for a few other powers listed elsewhere in the document, would limit the central government.  The new Congress could not legislate beyond those powers.  But this did not placate the Anti-Federalists. 

With their more heightened concern over individual rights, – the effect of Locke’s influence among the Jeffersonian types – along with the rights of their local communities, – a Whig concern – they insisted that the new constitution needed a bill of rights.  The bargain was reached; the Federalists promised that as soon as the new government was set up, the first order of business would be to submit to the states proposed amendments to the constitution that would in effect serve as a bill of rights.[2]

And so, it happened with the ratification of the first ten amendments to our national constitution.  But a subtle difference exists between state and national constitutions.  In the states, the bills of rights appear first in the respective documents and serve as a list of guiding principles.  In the national constitution, the Bill of Rights appears after the main body of the document; it's an add-on.  As such, the national Bill of Rights takes on more of a legal mandated set of provisions instead of a list of guiding principles.

But this did not usher in a governance that heightened individualism or individual rights.  For example, the listing of individual rights did not practically affect jurisprudence until the beginning of the twentieth century with protections of property rights, and during the sixties and seventies of that century when, starting with the Warren Court, the courts identified constitutional rights regarding arrests, civil rights, public employment rights, and reproduction rights. 

So, to be clear, the founding generation was almost unified in supporting integral federalism.  Considering the relationship between the central government and liberty, Donald Lutz provides a revealing description:

The preamble to the U. S. Constitution “secured the blessings of liberty to “our-selves and our posterity,” echoing that long-term communitarian commitment.  The Constitution sets forth a decision-making process designed to produce, as Madison says in Federalist 10, “the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”  There must be values, attitudes, and commitments – a mental stance, if you will – that lead people to frame their discourse, approach problems, and justify solutions in terms of the long-term community interests.[3] (emphasis added).

Here, to be honest, within the discussions concerning liberty and community interests, there were genuine disagreements regarding the appropriate level of individual versus community rights.  One should remember, this is a matter of degrees.  Yes, the overall bias was toward community rights, but the shifting toward individualism had begun. 

There was the initial appeal among Jeffersonians of John Locke, and his version of natural rights thinking (this was reviewed in a previous posting).  James Madison, even with his concern over factions (described further in the next posting) and how they are difficult to control in smaller polities, voiced a more communal bias, as indicated in the above quotation.[4]  Each side had its spokespeople.  

While origins of this debate can be traced to the years surrounding the writing of the Constitution, one can safely say that the founding generation and many generations later had a significantly different view of rights from what exists currently.  This belies what many libertarians claim today.  

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[1] Daniel N. Robinson, American Ideals:  Founding a “Republic of Virtue,” (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2004), 15.

[2] Considering the Whigs’ concern, a reader of the Constitution should read Amendments II, IX, and X as protections not of individuals but of states.

[3] Daniel N. Robinson, American Ideals:  Founding a “Republic of Virtue,” 77.

[4] Lester J. Cappon (editor), Adams-Jefferson Letters, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1959).

WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL INTENT?

This blog has been revisiting the basic ideas that have organized its overall aim:  to introduce the reader to a construct it proposes for selecting content in civics education.  That mental construct is entitled federation theory which served as the dominant view of government and politics from the nation’s beginnings till the end of World War II.

          A functional way to view the concept of federalism, at least in terms of the purposes of this blog, is to consider it a cultural quality not a structural arrangement.  Most references to federalism relates to the governmental arrangement between the central government and state governments.  But that is not the best way to see it from the perspective of this blog.

Daniel Elazar writes that American federalism reflects more of a basic approach to governance: “... as something close to what the French term 'integral federalism, that is to say, as the animating and informing principle of the American political system flowing from a covenantal approach to human relationships.”[1]  This is less a structural perspective than a cultural one.

To add a bit more substance:  traditional federalism reaches the standard of an “integral federalism” in that it is a comprehensive explanation of US’ political origins.  It refers to a conscious agreement of a group or society to unite under the provisions of a covenant or a compact.  The Declaration of Independence is a covenant; the US Constitution is a compact.  “Integral federalism” morally binds the parties as exemplified by these founding documents.  Those that agree to this type of promise are morally bound to live by its provisions.

These agreements are not contracts, quid pro quo arrangements – something for something else.  They are covenants or compacts that call for lasting moral commitments.  In every case, that quality is understood by the parties who sign such an agreement.  An individual party is basically committing him/herself or themselves (in case the joining entity is a group) to a course of being and/or action irrespective of what the other parties will subsequently do.

Gordon Wood argues that in the years surrounding the writing of the Declaration of Independence there was an especially strong popular commitment to federalist ideals.  Particularly, the political group of that time, known as the Commonwealthmen or Whigs (not to be confused with the nineteenth century Whig Party), demonstrated an inordinate level of support for republicanism which can be described as a type of political beliefs that include federalist thought.[2] 

The Whigs are credited with leading popular support for independence from Britain.  They emphasized citizen participation – especially at the local level – representative government, liberty, equality, and public virtue.  In other words, citizens bound to this cultural view lived their social lives as Tocqueville described them in an earlier posting. 

According to Wood, these Whigs conflated the ideals and ideas of the Enlightenment and religious traditions into an ideology that encompassed a moral wholeness for society.[3]

With this view in mind, how did early Americans define liberty?  A good summary term for their version of liberty is communal liberty.  It is a belief in people being highly engaged in the political decision-making process.  This is essential to traditional federalism as it both promotes social capital and operationalizes civic humanism; i.e., that communal linkages were to be taken seriously and actively encouraged among the citizenry.

          It is safe to believe that if the Whigs were around today, they would judge American views of liberty as foreign and dangerous.  Primarily, they saw liberty as a protection against governmental tyranny or despotism, not as the right of individuals to do what they wanted to do.

They promoted their view of virtue – civic virtue – in which, unlike under a tyrannical regime, one was to be virtuous because of his/her choice to be so.[4]  Choice and consent becomes central.  Consent, for them, is a precursor to being virtuous and this was essential to identifying what was acceptable political and social behavior.  There was the notion that one was free to do what one should do and this ideal is captured by the term, communal liberty. 

Juxtapose this notion of liberty with the natural rights view – the dominant view today – which holds that the individual has the right to make life decisions irrespective of community needs and ambitions and to have the legal prerogatives to carry out those decisions.[5] 

To the extent to which natural rights advocates hold this a-communal view today, the Whigs would have seen this perspective as undermining the bonds that bind the social community together.  How?  By individuals having mostly unfettered access to individually defined goals, each person is given mostly unrestricted ability to abuse his or her powers and pervert a healthy sense of liberty.  The only restraint is that a person cannot interfere with others doing the same. 

What results, according to Whig logic, is what pretty much exists today:  a social reality in which too many are engaging in licentious behavior and one that is driving toward anarchy, though the nation is not near that eventual state at present.[6] 

Were Whigs supportive of individualism and, if so, how? In accordance with their beliefs, Elazar instructs us that Americans, from the time of the nation's origin, were socialized, at least up to the mid-mark of the last century, to support a federalist individualism, “not the anarchic individualism of Latin countries, but an individualism that recognized the subtle bonds of partnership linking individuals even as they preserve their individual integrities...”[7]

From the days of the ancient Greeks, a concern with democracy has been that they devolve into anarchistic conditions.  Elazar claims that federalism is a way to stem this trend.  In short, one needs, according to federalist thinking, a popular and widespread belief in this more socially oriented and communal view of liberty and individual prerogatives.[8]

In Elazar’s own words, here is how he describes this communal view of individualism:

...[F]ederalism was extended into most areas of human relationship shaping American notions of individualism, human rights and obligations, Divine expectations, business organization, civic association and church structure as well as their notions of politics …  All agreed on the importance of popular or republican government, the necessity to diffuse power, and the importance of individual rights and dignity as the foundation of any genuinely good political system.  At the same time, all agreed that the existence of alienable [or limited] rights was not an excuse for anarchy, just as the existence of ineradicable human passions was not an excuse for tyranny.  For them, the covenant provided a means for free men to form political communities without sacrificing their essential freedom and without making energetic government impossible.[9] (emphasis added)

“Public liberty was thus the combining of each man's individual liberty into a collective governmental authority, the political liberty equivalent to democracy or government by the people themselves …”[10]  Wood writes on, “the people participate in it. Without the pooling of each man's liberty into a common body, no property would be secure.  'For power is entire and indivisible; and property is single and pointed as an atom.'”[11]

Unlike what current libertarians claim, that as defenders of constitutional principles they are offended by an active government, there was no early bias that the government is the problem or that a citizenry can't count on government to meet legitimate common needs.  Instead, the Whigs called for citizen participation in deciding what government was to do and not to represent solely the interests of the advantaged, the wealthy minority. 

In place are structural elements to prevent tyranny, e.g., voting.  Protection is secured by representation not governmental inaction.  This concern against tyranny was heightened with the creation of a strong central government in 1787.  There was no meaningful concern with government protecting the poor or other disadvantaged populations, because there was no historical record of such a thing.

Instead, the Whig’s concern was with those, generally called “Federalists,” who advocated for a strong central government.  The Whigs assumed a powerful central government would advance the ability of the rich to become richer.  For example, they could threaten the interests of the yeoman farmers.  And in this, there was agreement between the Whigs and the followers of John Locke, the early advocates of the natural rights view.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly,” 8.

[2] Wood does not use the term federalist, but as he describes the beliefs of the Whigs and the way Elazar and others define and describe federalism, those beliefs and federalism basically mean the same thing.  The republicanism refers to a more general form of political thinking and federalism is a more specific form of republicanism.

[3] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Jeffrey Reiman, “Liberalism and Its Critics,” in The Liberalism-Communitarism Debate, ed. C. F. Delaney (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1994), 19-37. 

[6] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787.

[7] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly,” 10-11.

[8] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority.”

[9] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly,” 26-27.

[10] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, 24.

[11] Ibid., 25.

EARLY AMERICAN VERSION OF FEDERALISM

To understand what this blog is promoting, it is necessary to review relevant historical information.  This blog is arguing that civics teachers and curricular developers should use a mental construct, federation theory, in their choice of content.  This theory has a rich history in America.

To this point, past postings have pointed out that this construct is related to civic humanism and that it was central to the thinking of the founding generation, and finally, how through the years, it has been challenged mostly by a shift toward natural rights thinking.  But what exactly is it and how is it related to civic humanism?  With this posting, these questions will begin to be answered. 

To be clear, this blog is not geared to promote an earlier form of federalism, which will be called traditional federalism, but by reviewing it and its tenets, one can appreciate what basic moral posture federalist thought is.  That construct was essential in forming our republic.  Therefore, a person cannot understand this nation’s constitution without having a working knowledge of this set of beliefs. 

According to Elazar, there are federalist ideas and structures that have had essential influences on not only current political realities, in terms of government, but also in terms of economic institutions.[1]  And traditional federalism is the source of civic ideas and ideals that are functional in promoting social capital. 

But it has its shortcomings which are due mostly to its age.  Traditional federalism, in its totality, is of another time, but it is not irrelevant.  In its time, it was an antithesis to aristocratic and monarchical privilege and some of its attributes might sound like what the advocates of Locke were seeking, but the distinguishing characteristic is its reliance and promotion of communal citizenry.[2]

Essentially, federalism is a construct emphasizing the collective and organic nature of society.  It does this while not sacrificing the integrity of the individual.  It defines society and its government as a social entity that comes about because of a process in which individuals and/or groups consciously form a union based on agreement over fundamental principles and beliefs. 

For those who are familiar with political theory, this view of societal and governmental establishment is one of reflection and choice as opposed to force or accident.  The members of the group formulate this agreement as a mutual promise among the individuals or groups making up the union. 

The agreement has the following qualities:  it is made in perpetuity; it states the purpose(s) of the union; it determines any structural arrangements; it identifies any rights the individuals or groups have under the arrangement; it establishes sanctions that its governing apparatus can administer for infractions against its provisions; and if a covenant, calls on God to witness the promise. 

Our most well-known example of a federated arrangement, not covenant but a compact, is that of the United States.  In that case, the central government was formed by an agreement among both the people of the United States' nation and among the states of the United States.  As such, the US is a complex example.  A much simpler example is a marriage.  In both examples, a member, whether an individual or a group, is equal to all other members, be it a spouse or a nation full of people and/or states. 

By definition, federated arrangements strive to secure equality.  Along with equal treatment, each member has a set of responsibilities and duties so that the union can progress toward accomplishing its purposes.  One way to see this union is to consider it as a partnership among its members whose interests are mutually advanced, at least, in the long run.

Federalism has a long history in the US.  It arrived with the Puritans who landed on the shore along Massachusetts Bay.  They adopted the old Judaic tradition of covenants which had been used to bind people together.  But even before the Puritans, the Mayflower Compact, drawn up by Pilgrims, was a covenant.[3] 

The idea is that, unlike a contract, people from time to time need to rely on others in such a way that that reliance will not waiver through challenging times.  It is not an agreement in which one party provides something in exchange for something else from another party, as in a dollar for a bag of peanuts.  It does, instead, define a relationship in which all members' interests are bound together. 

That would be the case under a government (or a marriage).  A government is formed so that a people can be afforded mutual protection and for other purposes.  A people needs to rely on this institution no matter what might happen.  By using a covenant, the Puritans established a government based on federalist principles – the term federalism has its origins in the meaning of covenant as will be further explained in a subsequent posting (along with what a compact is). 

This historical occurrence began a theoretical tradition that would have enormous influence on the nation's foundational philosophy.[4]  Its most immediate influence was in formulating our foundational documents such as subsequent constitutions and charters which were written during the colonial days and in all the original thirteen colonies and then states.  All the subsequent state constitutions follow the federalist format outlined above.

While the construct served as the dominant view of government and politics, its reign suffered from a continuous diminution.  According to Kramnick, as pointed out in a previous posting, the beginning of its diminution followed the Revolutionary War.[5]  Others place the start of this diminution at other times. Gordon S. Wood writes that federalist ideas held an unchallenged position through the writing of the Constitution by those who led the fight for independence.[6] 

This more traditional, purer rendition of federalism, with an accompanying assumption of homogeneity, had to be surrendered as our politics had to accommodate a pluralistic reality.  The homogeneity of the nation or even of localities within the nation was slipping away within a very short period of time after the establishment of communities became standard practice and the urban areas attracted more people.

As was pointed out in earlier postings as they described the various political subcultures that emerged, America was not of one mind concerning basic biases and beliefs over governance.  Whatever the beginning of its demise, as a study of the American political culture points out, the more moralistic, federalist view of government and politics was seriously challenged by transcendental thought.  This will only be the first of serious challenges to the more moralistic view. 

Each of these challenges, in turn, undermined the more communal beliefs of federalism and bolstered the individualism of the natural rights construct.  This diminution was not a simple, one-way trend.  The nation’s history indicates that some of the challenges were very complex in their effects (for example, the New Deal while providing extensive bureaucratic programs, did reignite a “we’re in this together” spirit to combat the drastic effects of the Great Depression).

But before the natural rights construct took hold as the dominant construct, a federalist view held sway, at least more so than any other view.  It hung on as a pervading atmosphere which was mostly instrumental in relaying a sense of duty and, when appropriate, shame when its moral precepts were offended.  And this dominance can be detected in place till mid twentieth century.  During its years of dominance, its influence held beyond the concerns of government and included the family, the church, and education.[7]

Stephen L. Schechter[8] provides a good sense of how intimately federalist ideas affected the development of our political tradition starting in the 1600s.  These recurring processes started with small settlements, evolved into colonies, and then into a large nation.

America engaged in a development characterized with “reflection and choice” as opposed to “accidental” development – a natural growth usually characterized by monarchial rule.  The US can point to a definite period, of short duration, in which its basic constitutional ideas were proactively thought of and implemented.

The created political entities were the product of well thought-out considerations, including these five essential attributes: 

·        the almost missionary application of covenants,

·        the reliance on rational-choice (an Enlightenment ideal),

·        the establishment of republican government characterized by popular consent and limited government,

·        the reliance on the rule of law principle which picks up on the Anglo-American common law tradition,

·        and the incorporation of “the principle of organizing polities by distributing and sharing power between general (central government) and constituent governments (the state governments).”[9]

Adding to one’s understanding is the writing of Jack N. Rakove:

The American decision for independence added a further dimension to the concept of informed citizen … Americans began writing new constitutions of government to replace the old colonial regime, and these constitutions took an avowedly republican cast [known for] the virtue of their citizens:  their public-spiritedness, their willingness to subordinate private interest to public good, their capacity to monitor their rulers for signs of tyrannical ambition, their knowledge of the essential rights government existed to protect.  A republican government required a republican society.[10] (emphasis added)

These are federalist values in operation.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly,” Readings for classes taught by Professor Elazar (Steamboat Springs, CO:  National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, 1994), 1-30.  A booklet of readings prepared for an institute for teachers.  In a booklet of readings.

[2] Communal citizenry will be identified by the term civic humanism, mentioned earlier, which will be more formally defined in subsequent posting.

[3] The Mayflower Compact was not written and agreed to by Puritans, but by Pilgrims who landed on the Massachusetts Bay at Plymouth Rock.

[4] Donald S. Lutz, “The Mayflower Compact, 1620,” in Roots of the Republic:  American Founding Documents Interpreted, ed. Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI:  Madison House, 1990), 17-23.

[5] Isaac Kramnick, “John Locke and Liberal Constitutionalism I,” in Major Problems in American Constitutional History, Volume I:  The Colonial Era Through Reconstruction, ed. Kermit L. Hall (Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company, 1992), 97-114. 

[6] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1998).  Wood uses other terminology.

[7] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly” AND Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, (Cambridge, MA:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).

[8] Stephen L. Schechter, introduction to Roots of the Republic:  American Founding Documents Interpreted, Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI:  Madison House, 1990), 1-16.

[9] Stephen L. Schechter, introduction to Roots of the Republic:  American Founding Documents Interpreted., 4.

[10] Jack N. Rokove, “Once More into the Breach:  Reflections on Jefferson, Madison, and the Religion Problem,” in Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society, ed. Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2001), 233-262, 240.  

THREE POLITICAL SUBCULTURES

This next posting compares lists of beliefs that make up the political subcultures that began to develop in America as early as its colonial days.  Specifically, it will compare the moralistic beliefs that were derived from the Calvinist tradition and the individualistic beliefs that are derived from the transcendental tradition.  These two traditions were reviewed in the last posting. 

There is another tradition, but that is limited to the southeast states of the old Confederacy.  What has resulted, though, is an intriguing story of tension among these beliefs making it more difficult to form a national political culture.  Despite this tension, a national political culture has emerged.  In part, that has been made possible by one of these traditions becoming a dominant set of values and norms. 

For most of the nation’s history, the moralistic subculture was dominant.  This was true until the years following World War II.  Since then, the individualistic subculture has become dominant.  Dominance does not equate with the elimination of other cultural biases.  One can still find strong expression of each of the three prominent belief systems.  A review of these beliefs is useful as the beliefs help explain why the nation’s politics take the form that they do.

The moralistic subculture, formed in the New England colonies, spread westward across the northern most tier of states stretching to the Pacific Ocean.  If one would want to see a current display of this subculture, pay attention to the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses during the next presidential cycle.  By doing so, one can detect the characteristics Daniel Elazar identifies in this subculture:

1.   Belief that politics as a profession is a calling of great moral standing.  One who chooses this line of work can contribute toward the betterment of the commonwealth.

2.   Belief that strong institutions are the foundation of a good society.  Through these institutions, society focuses on securing a healthy commonwealth.  Individuals and their welfare, ambitions, and contributions are measured and given meaning by what they accomplish within these institutions.

3.   The commonwealth recognizes good citizenship through public duty.  It defines this duty in terms of efforts within public politics and should exhibit honesty, selflessness, and a sense of commitment for the common good (akin to what this blog has cited as social capital – a la Robert Putnam).  This subculture holds as anathema the idea that a public career is a means for self-advancement.

4.   The subculture places an emphasis on local political engagement.  It does so because it is through local, community based action that people more readily engage in face-to-face politicking.  By this type of action, engaged citizens become more disposed toward improving conditions and their activity takes on a moral character.[1]

Naturally, this type of interaction comes closest to what Tocqueville [2] in a previous posting depicts as typical politics in the early years of the nation’s history.

Of the three subcultures, the moralistic provides the most supportive line of thinking and feelings aligned with the federation theory construct.  It did and still does have influence among certain sub-groupings of many Americans.  The last President who frequently used the language of the moralistic tradition was the New Englander, John F. Kennedy – e. g., “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

The most distinctive element of the moralistic subculture, as compared with the individualistic subculture, is that one places emphasis on the community, the collective, as opposed to the individual.  As this writer states this, it occurs to him that one can readily jump to the conclusion that the moralistic subculture is a collectivist philosophy, perhaps something like socialism. 

It is not.  The federalist construct identifies the significance of the collective in the form of a community, and argues that good and functional social policy must respect its existence and address its demands.  It is what some constitutional historians call civic humanism.

The next account of these subcultures is of the one that has become dominant today.  Mostly stretching westward from first the mid-Atlantic colonies, the individualistic subculture prevailed and still does so today.  Why?  Because it best reflects our capitalist biases as it mirrors and supports the marketplace and that subset of colonies led the way to developing the nation’s first organized market facilities of any size and wealth.

Elazar identifies the following characteristics for the individualistic political subculture:

1.   Politics, its activities and beliefs, is defined as part and parcel of the ubiquitous marketplace. Those engaged in politics are basically involved in trading favors to accomplish social goals. They are active in this exchange and are motivated by a desire to advance their political careers and expect to be adequately compensated for their participation.

2.   Citizens are mostly involved in pursuing their individual interests.  For the most part, they are concerned with private interests, not communal or public ones. Community action should be limited to minimal concerns and should, therefore, be unusual and practiced only in extreme situations.

3.   Political action should be aimed at specific problems. Political programs and ideology should be strongly avoided.

4.   Actual politics is generally a dirty business and should not be the business of most citizens. The necessary politicking should be left to those professionals who have chosen this loathsome profession. Some corruption is probably unavoidable and acceptable if it is kept to reasonable levels. Whether the public exerts the effort to clean out “city hall” depends on calculations measuring the costs and benefits of doing so.  In this atmosphere, only overwhelming public clamor will result in new government initiatives.

5.   Obviously, political activity by citizens is not encouraged. The subculture does not seek out core causes of social, economic, or political problems, and only reluctantly addresses the symptoms of such problems.[3] James McGregor Burns has described this type of political leadership as “you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back” or transactional leadership.[4]

The mid-Atlantic political culture has been exemplified, through the history of those states that stretch from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific coast until today; that is, these populations, in the main, live out these cultural traits.  There are areas of the country that fall outside this broad region that also exhibit these cultural traits; for example, areas of south Florida.  This is due to significant migrations within the country.

The third political subculture identified by Elazar is the traditional subculture of the southern colonies and then the southeastern states.  It is characterized by a general cultural orientation that supports an elite class (southern plantation owners and their families).  This power position should be secured by establishing a caste system in which political, economic, and social status is mostly determined by conditions of birth.  It was also heavily embroiled in racist politics. 

Of course, this subculture and its beliefs was significantly responsible for the Civil War.  The subculture, a pre-industrial view, supports and maintains a strict social and political hierarchy.  Under their paternalistic control, elites can accomplish good things, but goodness is basically defined by elitist interests.

Political parties, for example, are of little value and basically are used to recruit those who perform the legalistic requirements of governance necessary to maintain essential governmental services – such as policing services.  Politics is more a function of personal relationships.[5]

Due to mostly historical events, prominently among them the South losing the Civil War, this subculture is judged to be the least viable of the three.  Limited to the southeastern states (the old Confederacy), the subculture has been, to a great degree, regarded with less legitimacy in the rest of the country. 

Elazar, if alive today, would be perhaps a bit surprised, however, by how some southern thinking seems to be making a comeback.  For example, because of Texas prominence in the choice of textbooks used in our classrooms, – due to the size of its population and therefore its position in the textbook market – recent demands by Texas education officials regarding these books’ content might have significant influence on what texts around the country may contain.[6]

For the purposes of this blog, though, the main issues of excessive individualism are an expression of the tension between the moralistic subculture and the individualist subculture.  It is the result of the bifurcation between these two belief systems that a newer set of beliefs might evolve; a synthesis might emerge.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966).

[2] 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), 78-101.

[3] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States.

[4] James McGregor Burns, Leadership, (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1978).

[5] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States.

[6]Tim Walker, “Don’t Know Much about History:  Controversial Changes May Be in Store for Your Textbooks, Courtesy of the Texas State School Board,” National Education Association, accessed September 14, 2016.