Is the Tradition and Reality of the American Republic Worth Saving?

Michael Streich

 

During the American Revolutionary War, delegates of the Continental Congress created a new government for the soon-to-be independent United States that was called the Articles of Confederation. At the end of the war in 1783, the Articles formed the basis of the national government even as individual states wrote constitutions. Because the Articles proved inadequate, by 1787 it became apparent that a new Constitution needed to be written. That effort resulted in a central government that has governed the nation ever since its ratification. The question often raised, however, is why this happened in America.

 

The Enlightenment and a Constitutional Tradition

 

From the very beginning of seventeenth century colonial efforts, colonial charters detailed not only the formation of colonial communities but political relationships. In rudimentary form, the Mayflower Compact established a social order agreed to by the consensus of Separatists. Other charters were more elaborate and went through several incarnations, such as that of Pennsylvania.

 

Puritan thinkers advanced the notion of a covenant or contract form of government that was later employed by John Locke at the time of the Glorious Revolution. William and Mary accepted these principles, embodied in part in the English Bill of Rights, and constitutionalism replaced divine right theory that had been held so dearly by earlier Stuart kings.

 

Ben Franklin, perhaps the greatest example of colonial Enlightenment thinkers, advanced an early blue print of colonial union with his Albany Plan at the start of the French and Indian War, but it was rejected both by colonial leaders and Britain. Most colonies, mirroring the English Parliamentary system, had Assemblies comprised of upper and lower houses. In short, the notions of representative government were planted long before the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

 

The Lessons of History and Enlightenment Writing

 

Colin Goodykoontz writes that the crafting of the US Constitution called attention to “the contributions of the Americans to the development of the convention method of forming constitutions and giving reality to the compact theory.” Goodykoontz demonstrates that the delegates sought inspiration from the experience of history rather than reason, recalling Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic. Yet the greatest example for the framers was the unwritten English Constitution.

 

While providing a vehicle for self-government, however, the framers also understood the dangers posed by “the violence of popular bodies,” according to Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania. This view, held by almost all of the framers, helps to explain the later fears associated with the French Revolution and the mob rule during the French “reign of terror.” Yet it was one French Enlightenment thinker, the Baron de Montesquieu, whose book The Spirit of the Laws, inspired the separation of powers.

 

Goodykoontz quotes Pierce Butler at the Constitutional Convention: “We had before us all the Ancient and modern constitutions on record, but none of them was more influential on Our Judgments than the British in Its Original purity.” American Constitutionalism developed out of a constitutional and covenant tradition, something other European societies lacked. Coupled with a strong agricultural base and the growth of manufacturing, the American democracy would evolve into what Gordon Wood called the “most egalitarian society” the world had ever seen.

 

Sources:

 

Scott Douglas Gerber, To Secure These Rights: The Declaration of Independence and Constitutional Interpretation (New York University Press, 1995).

Colin B. Goodykoontz, “The Founding Fathers and Clio,” The Vital Past: Writings on the Uses of History, Stephen Vaughn, Ed. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1985).

Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution: How a Revolution Transformed a Monarchical Society Into a Democratic One Unlike Any That Had Ever Existed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).