History books and historians look at history in ages or eras. In the
case of American history, for example, there is the colonial period,
foundation of a New Republic, Expansionism, Age of Jackson, Wild West, the Progressive Era, et cetera. In Morton Keller’s book of political history it is divided in what he calls “regimes”[i] –
Deferential-republican, running through the colonial period and the early Republic to the 1820s
Party-democratic, from the 1830s to the 1930s
Populist-bureaucratic, from the 1930s to the present [ii]
In Keller’s introduction he correctly states:
It is widely assumed that ours is a special time in American history: of a uniquely bitter politics and disillusioned electorate; an exceptionally dysfunctional president, Congress, and bureaucracy; a highly polarized Supreme Court. Title of recent books on public affairs make the point: Dark Ages America, Politics Lost, American Theocracy, The Twilight of Democracy, Protofascism in America, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. Is this sense of special malaise accurate? That question requires an answer grounded in history.
Whether termed as “regimes”, “eras” or other methods of dissection, the American political history and its evolution is definitely divided into three parts.
To write about the beginning of American history and its politics is to begin with colonial America, which is the prelude to a revolution.
That revolution was not just physical, but a revolution of ideas based
upon a changing world. And once that revolution became independence it
marked the beginning of a Republic. The idea of a republic goes as far back in history as Plato.
People
assumed that because the colonial, revolutionary and first years of
the new Republic had been successful in several ways, there was general
unity in respect to the political atmosphere after the break from the Old World British imperial system. When the colonial Americans
were offered the choice between continued rule without representation
and a republic system, the foundation of the new state was not as clear
cut as one may think. And while it is quite evident that the founders
did an excellent job at producing a republic that met the
qualifications they desired as separatists from Mother England,
which was also not a unified stance among the populace, despite that
there wasn’t any model to go by in that effort. And despite the fact
they declared that
All Men are created Equal …
Slavery was still allowed to exist – but not without reservations and comment from the founders and drafters of the United States Constitution.
However, it was not as if they had no reference at all to guide them
in their formation of politics, government and law – they had a base to
choose from the European ideology and institutional processes, whether it be against or agreement upon using it. Thus, in the period known as the Early Republic, some of the Old World political culture remained to an extent.
The major events that is known as the Revolution, Independence and Confederation of the colonies
as states that comprised the government entity, the new nation was
developed, the Constitution drafted and accepted (after much discussion)
and culminated after the physical revolution against England and the
King into an eight-year political and cultural revolution. And while the
American colonies were developing and finding a niche in the scheme of
things, Europe was undergoing change within itself – in religious
thought, philosophical thought (often both intertwining into an
enlightening discussion), as well as a sort of political revolution
despite still retaining monarchy with a diluted form of a parliamentary democracy
in place. The emergence of science and logic thought over
superstitious and stifling religious doctrine also helped to open the
doors to the enlightenment that developed. In the period prelude to the
Industrial Revolution[iii] - the age of Robert Walpole, William Pitt, John Wesley, David Hume, John Sebastian Bach, Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa, Diderot Proteus, Jean Meslier, Helvétius, and Voltaire (François Marie Arouet, 1694-1778).
The
triumph of philosophers melding with religious thought, science versus
religious edict, and cultural and educational changes were the
founding instruments of the formation from colonialism to the American
republic. In France the cultural, political, religious, philosophical
and educational revolution had already begun. Voltaire’s revolution
was primarily aimed at the established Christian leadership and
Christianity itself, or what it had become under organized leadership
after the days of the Apostles wandering among the Gentiles to spread the word of their religious leader, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.
Voltaire declared war against the Christian leadership, spearheading the assault against the priests, who he viewed as destroyers of nations. Voltaire concluded:
I hated priests, I hate them, I shall hate them till doomsday.
François Arouet evolved into Voltaire while imprisoned in the Bastille
(1717-1718)[iv]. Voltaire also dreamed of free enterprise, social and
educational reform, and he rejected nationalism and patriotism as
Emotions narrowed the conceptions of humanity and moral obligation and made it easier for kings to lead their people into war.
In
effect, it also made him an anti-war activist; yet he wrote a
patriotic elegy for the officers who had died for France in 1741 and
blessed the army of France for their victory at Fontenoy.[v]
Lessing, Kant, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller in Germany were seeking similar reformation. Philosophy
arose in terms of acceptance and popularity among the educated, as
well as the spread of the French language and culture across Europe.
Voltaire warned the French to
Moderate
their boasting of superiority in language, literature, art and war,
and reminded them of their faults, crimes and defects.[vi]
After the Seven Years’ War, under Napoleon, France began to recover from the high taxes of Louis XV and the economic problems initiated under his rule.
Pierre-Samuel du Pont wrote Physiocratie in 1768, which provided the influence for economic reform. Another fellow with a similar name, spelled “DuPont” carried the physiocratic philosophy of economics
with him to America, and established what would become one of the
wealthiest families in American history as well practically a “household
name”. (Excuse the unintended pun).
It was men like these who helped establish the ideology of the physiocrats. Reformers paid heed to Voltaire and revolutionists to Jean-Jacques Rousseau – the rival of Voltaire.
The
development of the idea of democratic republic flourished during this
turbulent cultural period in Europe and the rise of socialism and
communism to emerge triumphant over what Europe had come up in terms of
revolution and reform.
Almost
before the ink had dried on the Constitution, two political parties
arose whose name and political platform would change/progress
…from Federalist to Whig to Republican, from Democratic-Republican to Democratic.[vii] … The American state was one not of bureaucrats and armies, but of parties and courts.
Law also was innovated and combined with the politics prevented the class-defined and top-down character of its European counterparts.
The
main beginning arose from the concept and fulfillment of independence
from England. The republican entity managed to break from British rule
and create a representative republic of which the likes had never been
constructed or seen before.
The democratic party defeated the secessionists, ended slavery, and survived industrialization and immigration of unique rapidity and scale. The modern populist-bureaucratic regime created a welfare state (however limited), overcame the international threats of fascism and communism, and oversaw a large-scale expansion of individual and group rights at home.[viii]
However,
in order to understand this development, the reader must project their
mindset into the minds of the colonists who arrived in America in the
early 17th century, as well as their descendents who founded the American republic.
Colonists
brought with them to English-American colonialism time-established
ideas of government. Colonization was nothing new to England who began
the enterprise in the 16th century by royal charters,
which established Pennsylvania, Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland, and
Georgia. And from those initial colonies arose Connecticut, Rhode
Island, New Hampshire, and North Carolina, who also became legitimate
through the royal charter. New York was established by the Dutch and by
1664 became the proprietary colony of the duke of York, which automatically became a royal colony after the duke became King James II in 1685. And there was diversity within the colonial conglomeration:
Virginia was the abode of pro-Stuart Cavaliers, Massachusetts Bay of Cromwellian Puritans … Pennsylvania set up by the Quaker William Penn, or Maryland, established by the Catholic Calvert family.
Christian
religion in its evolved condition remained the basis of government and
law for a lengthy period in colonial history.[ix] However, the
remoteness in the New World required the populace of the New World to
adapt to its new surroundings and develop in a land far removed and not
just in terms of miles from Mother England.
The
European colonists had a different concept of international relations
in terms with the relationship with the Native Americans whom they met
after landing on the shores of the North American continent.
Tribes were called “nations,” agreements were called “treaties.”
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| Arab Slave Traders |
Consider the sad story of Sir Danvers Osborne. Recently widowed and seriously depressed, he became governor of New York in 1753. He set out to make his fortune in the accepted style of the empire. He expected the New York assembly to give him a salary, budget, and perks sufficient to support a grandiose lifestyle appropriate to his rank and station. But Osborne ran into a stone wall of resistance. “The what am I come here for?” he plaintively asked one day. That night he hanged himself.
In the 17th century in England, the English Puritan Revolution took place and the French Revolution
followed it. The American Revolution has often been compared to these
two occurrences. All three revolutions were against royal monarch
power. Each of them began from formal protest to a revolt, decided by a
legislative body and majority vote.
In
the process of creating a constitution for the new republic the
French’s efforts could be examined – and also what not to do. Rousseau
stated
…no people could ever be anything but what the nature of the government made it.
John Adams believed that
The government ought to be what the people make it.
The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 can be compared to the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Bill of Rights
(1791). The difference was that the French declaration was produced
from 2,500 political pamphlets and 60,000 statements of grievances (cahiers de doléance) before the French Declaration had been completed. The American Declaration was a manifesto that Tocqueville called
…the politics of the impossible, the theory of madness, the cult of blind audacity.
The
Declaration contained no list of rights to freedom to assemble, trial
jury or right to counsel, et cetera; but instead, asserted the right to
America becoming a supreme and sovereign nation as an entity of people
because the English ruling authority class refused to listen to
colonial grievances and its insistence upon representation.
James Madison realistically accepted the fact that factionalism would be an entity of a free republic. Robespierre said
There are only two parties, the party of good intentions and the party of evil ones.
The
differences between the three modern revolutions mentioned was also
because of the historical figures that represented them: Cromwell, Napoleon, and Washington.
If one looked at them as personal background, I guess that was the
only thing they had in common. Cromwell and Napoleon had a lust for
power. Napoleon was the first modern dictator. His brother had
commented that Napoleon had a “strong leaning toward tyranny”.
However, Napoleon had great respect for George Washington. He kept a
bust of Washington on his desk, and when he died in 1799, he ordered a
day of mourning in France. During Napoleon’s period of exile at St.
Helena, Napoleon wrote of him in his memoirs, and wrote of himself and
Washington in comparison:
If Washington had been a Frenchman at a time when France was crumbling inside and invaded from outside, I would have dared him to be himself; or, if had persisted in being himself, he would merely have been a fool … I could only be a crowned Washington. And I could become that only at a congress of kings, surrounded by sovereigns whom I had either persuaded or mastered. Then, and only then, could I have displayed Washington’s moderation, disinterestedness, and wisdom. In all reasonableness, I tried it. Can it be held against me?
It
was the attitude that George Washington held in regards to power that
set him above his European counterparts. Cromwell and Napoleon did not
voluntarily relinquish his leadership position and power, as did
Washington.
George Washington had no children, and he wrote:
I have no child for whom I could wish to make a provision – no family to build in greatness upon my country’s ruins.
Surprisingly, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
were worried about George Washington and his capabilities of becoming a
lifetime monarch instead of President of the United States. But
Washington had his concerns when he told Lafayette
in the spring of 1788, when the Constitution was hung up in political
discussion among the drafters and powers of authority to ratify it:
A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come.
In Washington’s first inaugural speech he stated:
…nothing less than the destiny of the republican model of government was at stake.
Italy at the time was reaching the crossroad of political reform and the 19th century Italian revolutionary Massimo d’Azeglio stated:
We have made Italy. Now we have to make Italians.
Once again, the principle was opposite of the American revolution where the people “made itself”.
In
that background and respect, one can wonder at why the American
Revolution didn’t end in social division and political bitterness as
what happened in the English and French revolutions. Keller writes:
For one thing, the American revolutionaries were more effective than their European counterparts in getting rid of their adversaries. There were about a half a million Tories [xi], and some eighty thousand of them were forced to leave the colonies – about six times the proportion of supporters of the French monarchy who fled after their cause was lost.
More important, most of what John Adams called “the people of parts and spirits” joined the rebellion. The supple Ben Franklin, a strong royalist until the eve of the Revolution, quickly became one of its doughtiest champions. Merchants (except the Philadelphia Quakers), the major Virginia planters, and the ablest lawyers and public figures were early and ardent supporters first of resistance to British policy and then of independence and the willingness to fight for it if necessary.
So, why did men like Franklin,
who was comfortable in seeking a place within the British Empire, the
soldier-planter George Washington who once had ambitions of rising
through the ranks of the British army, successful Massachusetts lawyer,
who represented Boston merchants, John Adams; Alexander Hamilton
who had social status, hierarchy and rank within the British system,
join the other revolutionaries like Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Tom Paine? Keller writes[xii]:
There is no single answer. John Adams, Jefferson, and Washington did not come to the patriot cause out of social or economic or political alienation. Instead, the imperial crisis became an open sesame to the public demonstration of what they already were: not colonials but Americans. Of the original fifty-five members of the Continental Congress, nine out of ten were native-born, most to the third or fourth generation. The only member of Congress not of American or British origins was a Swiss-born Presbyterian minister, and he opposed independence. Unlike their French counterparts, the American revolutionaries did not get caught up in the business of destroying inherited institutions and reshaping human nature.
Division
of thought on the matter was not confined to America, but extended
across the seas to England, where political liberals feared that the
war against the American colonies would strengthen the position of
Tories against the Whigs, and the King against Parliament; one liberal the Duke of Richmond thought of moving to France to escape royal despotism.[xiii]
The Earl of Chatham
approached Parliament and made a public record clearly against the
forceful suppression of America and its wish for independence on
November 20th, 1777. At this time the British had suffered
several defeats in the American colonial conflict and France was sending
subsidies to the aid of the American colonies under the leadership of
General George Washington. Addressing the House of Lords he stated:
I rise, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious subject … I cannot concur in a blind and servile address which approves, and endeavors to sanctify, the monstrous measures that have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us – that have brought ruin to our doors. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a time for adulation … It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth … This my lords, is our duty; it is the proper function of this noble assembly, sitting upon our honors in this House, the hereditary council of the Crown. And who is the minister – where is the minister – that has dared to suggest to the throne the contrary, unconstitutional language this day delivered from it? …
House of Lords in Session
My lords, you cannot conquer America … You may swell every expense and every effort still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles …; your efforts are forever vain and impotent – doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely, for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies. … If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms – never – never – never![xiv]
Edmund Burke was another Englishman who tried to persuade Parliament
from a forceful campaign against the Americans. He represented had
represented the city of Bristol in Parliament from 1774 to 1780, whose
majority of merchants had been against waging war against the American
colonies from the beginning.[xv] In the end, when King George and the
Parliament decided to withdraw troops from America and acknowledgment
of the independence of the American colonies was signed it included the
relinquishment of all the territories between the Alleghenies,
Florida, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes. The British people was
glad it was over, but was upset about losing so much territory to the
American revolutionists.
Will Durant writes of the historical entry of world history:
The American Revolution gave added prestige to republican ideas. That Revolution, too, took its force from economic realities like taxation and trade, and its Declaration of Independence owed as much to English thinkers as to French; but it was noted that Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson had been molded to free thought by the philosophes. Through those American sons of the French Enlightenment, republican theories graduated into a government victorious in arms, recognized by a French King, and proceeding to establish a constitution indebted in some measure to Montesquieu.[xvi]
Will & Ariel Durant
From
the First Continental Congress of 1774 to the creation of the
Constitution, as well as the creation of what would become known as the
United States, twenty-five years passed.
George
Washington was not initially elected by the people as we are
accustomed today – he was appointed by the Congress. Washington was
adamant at following the majority rule of Congress and never even hinted
that he would use his military leadership to gain power over the
authority of the congressional membership – even though his popularity
afforded him the opportunity.
The American revolutionaries were also part of the Great Awakening of the early 18th century, where figures like John Adams were likened to the religious revolution of Martin Luther. Samuel Adams, the fiery revolutionist could be likened to John Calvin.
Religious background was strong.
The Continental Congress refused to meet on the Sabbath, and in 1777 it ordered twenty thousand Bibles to be distributed to the army. … Congress dutifully discoursed on its duty “to maintain, defend and preserve those civil and religious rights and liberties, for which many of our fathers fought and died”: not a call to defend (or for that matter to assault) the ramparts of Orthodoxy. Frequent references to Old Testament Israel co-existed with no less frequent references to the pagan Roman republic.
This demonstrated that the founders sense of history as well as religious foundations were intermingled.
While
the drafter of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Jefferson,
it was a conglomeration of ideology of a forming American political
culture. Thomas Jefferson was the prime drafter, but there was a
committee made up of Jefferson (Virginia), John Adams (Massachusetts),
and John Dickinson (Pennsylvania). The document’s roots came from the English Declaration of Rights of 1689, the writings of John Locke, and the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment.
The preamble was indeed a declaration; however the rest of the
document reads like a lawyer’s brief presented to a civil authority
with a list of grievances against the King of England. As a side
historical note, 26 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of
Independence, a document that could have been a signed death warrant
upon themselves for treason, was lawyers by trade.
Indeed,
Benjamin Franklin reminded his fellow patriots that if they didn’t
hang together, they would be hanged separately, in the process of
seeking an independent American republic.
The
new state’s constitution was written after the period of July of 1775
and its main purpose was to link together the colonies as one unified
people, but the separate colonies, now each a separate state had
changed their colonial charters to newly written constitutions, except
for Rhode Island and Connecticut who kept their colonial charters, but
removed any reference to the Crown of England.
The
next edition covers the period concerning the Constitution, the people
behind it, thoughts about the new republic. The government still had
no clear political parties, although ideas and policies intertwined in
the arguments of how the new republic would be constructed into the
foundations of the American government. Essays and commentaries were
written by the prominent founders that would become known as the
Federalist Papers. Stay tuned at LP Journal as Part 3 of American Politics continues
with the engagement of the historical and developmental background of
our political system. Its foundations, its prescribed principals, where
it has been, what is occurring now, and where it may possibly be
going.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, Carl Becker, New Haven, 1951.
An Introduction to the History of Civilization in England, Henry T. Buckle, New York, 1913.
History of the English Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill, London, 1957.
Saints and Revolutionaries, David D. Hall, 1984.
A Freeborn People: Politics and the Nation in 17th Century England, David Underdown, 1996.
Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress, James H. Henderson, (1969).
The Creation of the American Republic, Gordon Wood, 1969.
An Introduction to the History of Civilization in England, Henry T. Buckle, New York, 1913.
History of the English Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill, London, 1957.
Saints and Revolutionaries, David D. Hall, 1984.
A Freeborn People: Politics and the Nation in 17th Century England, David Underdown, 1996.
Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress, James H. Henderson, (1969).
The Creation of the American Republic, Gordon Wood, 1969.
[i] America’s Three Regimes, Introduction, p. 3.
[ii] “Present” being 2007 in terms of Keller’s book.
[iii] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume 9, Age of Voltaire, p. 45.
[iv] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume 9, Age of Voltaire, p. 17, 33, 35-36.
[v] Durant, Volume 9, p. 779.
[vi] Durant, Volume 9, p. 780.
[vii] Keller, America’s Three Regimes, p. 4.
[viii] Thomas Keller, p. 5.
[ix] Thomas Keller, Differential-Republican Regime, p. 12.
[x] Thomas Keller, Differential-Republican Regime, p. 34.
[xi]
American colonists that had grievance against the way England treated
them, but still remained loyal to the King of England, and thus were
called “Tories”.
[xii] The Differential-Republican Regime, p. 30.
[xiii] William E. Lecky., History of England in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1887, Chapter III, p. 530.
[xiv] Houston Peterson, Treasury of the World’s Great Speeches, New York, 1954, p. 143-146.
[xv] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume 10, New York, 1967, p. 713
[xvi] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume 10, New York, “Death and the Philosophers”, p. 899.
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