some thoughts about the Founding
my takeaways following some reminding
My likely last completed read for the year was H.W. Brands’s, Founding Partisans. It covers ground well-trod in our history but is an appropriate reminder of the adage that little is really new; most history is only recycled or repeated (I prefer recycled as each instance has variety but that is just me). Published earlier this year by Doubleday, Brands’s work reminds us of how volatile they central questions have always been. Yet, the Founders made a sincere effort to address things rather than harangue one another incessantly.
Brands asks us to recall how fragile the path towards our constitution in the mid-1780s. In different era. when so many of the authors were keenly aware of the philosophical arguments from Greece, Rome, England, and France, actually having read the texts (most often in the original foreign tongue) rather than 140 character ‘synopses’ of ideas. The richness of the debate ensuing our first four years stumbling as a nation forced extended, sophisticated written dialogues conducted across hundreds of miles by letter. From those dialogues, suggestions to convene a reforming body to address flaws in the Articles of Confederation arose.
States received invitations to convene here in Annapolis but insufficient interest cancelled that meeting. Madison held his breath to see whether people would come to Philadelphia a few months later instead.
My thoughts upon looking back illustrate how hard this is and the themese not unique to our present day but so pervasive in our political history.
Nothing about the constitutional process was simple but the solutions they created were simply the best the meeting of 1787 allowed. Probably my favourite reminder is Brands’s assessment, at the close of chapter 16, shared by Benjamin Franklin and James Madison as the final document began circulating to the states for their ratification—or rejection.
The final draft of the constitution was nothing like what Madison had hoped for.
Without a veto of state laws…Without truly proportional representation…Without
a clear demarcation between national and state authority, the country would
lurch from crisis to crisis.
But Madison agreed with Franklin that it was the best that could be done in
present circumstances. The wonder was that the delegates had been able to
agree on anything at all. ‘It is impossible to consider the degree of concord
which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle’, Madison told Jefferson.
Indeed, let’s review a bit of history. The advertised meeting in Philadelphia was to amend the ineffectual Articles of Confederation under which the thirteen states were bumping along as ‘United States of America’ between 1783 and 1787.
Whether Madison, Hamilton, or any of the other delegates actually views their effort as subversive to undermine the existing state-centric, decentralised Articles is instructional. Once such a powerful body convenes with the powers to carry out the nation’s business, one does not know precisely where revisions will occur. (Another way to look back is to remember Martin Buber’s quotation, ‘All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware’.). Occasional suggestions today of the need for a constitutional gathering to revise the nation’s founding document require serious understanding of this point.
After a summer in hot, steamy Philadelphia, the outcome entirely satisfied absolutely no one. The next step for the nation was understanding that to assure success as an independent nation, some compromises were inevitable. Today, we have forgotten this unavoidable reality which still pertains.
These were men determined to assure that a minority did not completely ignore the will of the majority. This is why we are a Republic rather than a democracy as that fine balance between minority and majority views is always in play.
It’s worth recalling the Founding era was fraught as ours is today. The personal attacks and insidious nature of the 1800 campaign between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was horrendous. Our current assumptions of the dire conditions we confront are hardly unique in our history but differences exist.
Four particular continuities struck me in reading Brands’s retelling of our founding experience.
Political parties and partisanship.
While George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address described his particular concerns
‘However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men [and women—cw] will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.’
Madison had similarly worried about parties and the associated divided ambitions threatening the fabric of the nation as he wrote Federalist 10 a decade earlier as he attempted to encourage ratification of the new constitution despite drawbacks he acknowledged. Madison opined that a strong constitution functioned as the bulwark against the factional infighting becoming too strong.
By the third presidential election in 1800, the differences creating partisan factions hardened. The bases for emerging Republican and Whig parties were philosophical beliefs for establishing and institutionalising a new nation. Sixty years later, the Civil War between a pro-slavery/pro-states’ rights orientation of the Confederacy and the anti-slavery/unionist approach brought this into bloody contrast.
It’s tempting to argue things are worse because of personalisation of ambition but Brands reminds us that ambition ran through the Founders as well. Perhaps today’s partisan splits are more confrontational because of the 24 hour daily media ranting but I don’t think that explains the difference entirely.
The role of government.
The question of what a government’s role is another perennial American debate. The Founders split on government’s usefulness on debt, on foreign policy, and on taxation among a long list of items they addressed at the Constitutional convention and the ratification phase. They went round and round because it was such as fundamental issue for the range of issues our nation confronts. Centureis later, this remains a thoroughly open question because neither the Founders nor any subsequent leaders have satisfied all perceived dangers emanating from any government. Jefferson’s overt fears of a strong central government clashed repeatedly with Alexander Hamilton’s almost mythical support for the emerging British monarchical system we know today.
As true as far back as the arrival of the colonials in this land, the questions surrounding taxation were a core reason for the concerns. The Founders’ familiarity with other philosophical traditions debated this question is a manner different from our own. The Founders debated the implications of various tax schemes because they feared the implications of foreign debt. Today’s politicians hurl insults and innuendos rather than discussing substantive implications of various approaches.
State versus federal governments.
The balancing point for national governments becoming too large versus those too weak has bedeviled us for our entire history. The Founders failed to solve this problem immediately following Yorktown because they focused on government within the states where they lived. The national government was largely ignored because the localism still ruled. The argument a central government might be necessary for measured governance for all citizens was hardly acceptable to all—before, during, and long after the Constitution became law of the land with its ratification by Rhode Island in the spring of 1790.
Adams and Jefferson, as the second and third presidents, had different philosophies on how to use the state apparatus—as has each Chief Executive since. The Founders debated this question in excruciating detail both to build public support for the new system and to ensure similarly thinking partisans joined in efforts to continue the releant philosophy.
The Founders implemented a system intended to garner backing from those men who met the citizenship criteria (excluding slaves, women, native Americans, and immigrants upon arrival, of course) but explaining government’s role to supporters and opponents an expectation.
Today’s political discussions about the government, its use, and limitations on it are aimed at supporters rather than the other side. Too many rhetorical flourishes aimed at proving one’s credibility with partisans seems the key rather than educating on differences in beliefs and outcomes.
The role of the ‘foreign’ people and ideas.
Similarly, we have a curious hypocrisy about immigrants in this country. Casting aspirations on ‘foreign ideas’ and the threats they pose implies there has been some single pure eternal ‘American’ view. No one, repeat no one, in this nation in the 1780s or today is anything other than an immigrant at some point, even if the ancestors arrived tens of thousands of years ago as did the native Americans. It’s hard to find a more bizarre idea than the one that foreign ideas are inherently unAmerican as we don’t have a single definition of American.
Recognising today that immigrants play a role in our society does not throw open the door to their unfettered welcome (contrary to something I read this morning about our ‘open border’. It is hardly open even if illegals enter the United States). We have a challenge of enormous proportion to address the inequities of opportunities outside and inside of this country. I am not endorsing illegal migration as it has a tremendous cost but it’s difficult to find any wealthy society that isn’t confronting foreigners entertaining migrating to improve their standard of living. Actions create consequences: higher standards of living draw people seeking higher standards of living.
The challenge is how we as a society address this extraordinary situation. In the late eighteen century, we welcomed foreigners because we could not supply sufficient workers to meet the demand but there were always worries about them not being American enough. The anti-immigration laws of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries unveiled the reality of who we excluded. This was painful for the race questions it implied: Northern Europeans were more likely to arrive without as much fuss as Mediterraneans or Asians.
Today, we are no longer seriously talking about solving this problem, despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s assertion last week that the Senate would soon offer a plan. We are accusing the immigrants of being bad people destined to make our country a less safe, less traditional place. As far as I know, every single part of this country has crime.
We pay insufficient attention to the mechanisms and conditions drawing people here, much less recognising many, if not most, immigrants work multiple jobs which ‘Americans’ don’t deign to take on. Some sectors such as apple picking need immigrants—period. Yet, too many accusations fly about the negatives rather than the positives of which there are some. It’s a political bomb but no politician in any party has proven anywhere near able to address it as it requires a national effort which we are not pursuing. We don’t do details well in such a fractured environment and this problem requires many details.
No longer shifting coalitions.
What I most noted from Brands’s history was the lack of shifting coalitions that characterised this country. Ossification of political views within a party—both parties are profoundly guilty of this—mean that problems noted above (and countless others) remain unsolved because we are not seeing a political system rewarding those who work with the opposition to find a solution acceptable to the majority. Accusing one’s adversaries of ill intent as a starting position doesn’t get us far but that is where we are.
And that is the crux of our trouble. Each side sees its position as the majority, therefore no coalitions shift.
The Constitutional convention in Philadelphia was an effort to find begin tweaking through compromises. The Connecticut Compromise was a huge effort that early in the process seemed unachievable as Virginia, Massachusetts and New York sought to preserve their size advantage over smaller states like Rhode Island or Delaware as the Founders struggled with the legislative bodies of our new government. Ultimately, the Senate preserved the power of each state to have two appointed (later elected) Senators so smaller states were not wiped out by bigger ones. The House of Representatives established a far different system focused on proportional voting power of the states with larger populations. The two bodies working in concert with the Executive were a fascinating compromise unimaginable today.
The unifying objective for the Founders was establishing institutions and a form of government to survive long term. They were willing to acquiesce on individual beliefs, at times, and to rescind some of their actions at other times but, as Madison noted above, it wasn’t perfect. We have some sustained challenges but one overarching void today remains the profound gulf in even seeing the other side as human.
That, my friends, is creating consequences. I look to all of us to find solutions as I fear, as the Founders did two hundred forty years ago, we have no option to survive. I am not minimising how hard compromise can be but I don’t see how we thrive without it.
Your thoughts? I welcome them—every single one. Have you read Brands’s or some similar history you want to offer all of us? Where should we start? How do we start? Thank you for reading this and other columns.
The days are, believe it or not, lengthening already. I also saw two rose buds this afternoon on an Eastport walkabout.
The little white flowers were day before yesterday.
Be well and be safe. FIN
H.W. Brands, Founding Partisans. New York: Doubleday, 2023.
George Washington, ‘Farewell Address’, 17 December 1796, retrieved at https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/past-projects/quotes/article/however-political-parties-may-now-and-then-answer-popular-ends-they-are-likely-in-the-course-of-time-and-things-to-become-potent-engines-by-which-cunning-ambitious-and-unprincipled-men-will-be-enabled-to-subvert-the-power-of-the-people-and-to-usurp-for-th/
James Madison, The Same Subject Continued. The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection From the New York Packet. 23 November 1787. Madison retrieved at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp