Download AmPol Ch1 – Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism

American Political Tradition: Chapter 1
AmPol Ch1 – Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism
PART I
SUMMARY – Founding Fathers feel that government must be republican and derive authority from the ppl, but don’t’ believe
in democracy and the ppl as a good way to govern.
OUTLINE
Constitution – based on Hobbesian philosophy and Calvinian theology
- Calvin – human evil and damnation
- Hobbes – selfish and contentious
- See human nature that way b/c they are merchants, lawyers, planters, speculators, investors, etc. – experience with how
wealth and power are sought after
- Distrust of man => distrust of democratic rule, want constitution to control the masses and prevent the lower classes
from rising up
- More centralized gov that could not only control econ (regulate commerce, pay debts) but also CONTROL SOCIETY
(prevent currency inflation, enforce laws, check uprisings like Shays’ Rebellion)
Goal = Confine popular spirit from Revolution, a.k.a. don’t want demo
- Randolph, Gerry– evils of country from democracy
- Sherman, Livingston, Hamilton – ppl unfit to rule – too turbulent, can’t judge wrong or right
- Washington – avoid doing things just to please the ppl
- Pinckney (planter) – president should be rich
Upper classes don’t like demo
- demo gets strong in discontented oppressed classes, rising middle classes, or alienated/disinherited old aristocracy
- privileged class trying to retain and amplify its privileges (e.g., the Constitution writers and Revolution leaders) don’t
like demo
- Philadelphia Convention – men with position and wealth, inherited
- Upper-class contempt of ‘dirty mobs’ – demo ideas not respected
- Cynical intellectualism, Christian original sin  man needs to be controlled
BUT founding fathers also don’t like extreme right
- tradition of republicanism and faith in popular sovereignty, opposed to arbitrary rule (look to stuff like Glorious
Revolution and the importance of Parliament)
- Washington scared of going from one extreme of demo to the other of military dictatorship – John Jay notes that some
military officers and rich ppl were seriously considering it
- Feel that the ppl should have some sort of voice in laws – don’t want to violate the ppl’s will, even tho they think
straight-out demo is bad
- Ultimate power of gov resides in ppl (link to Enlightenment ideas, Locke)
- If they don’t follow ppl, they are just like their old Brit oppressors
PART 2
SUMMARY: Founding Fathers try to counter the aforementioned problems with a self-checking balanced government that
neutralizes different class interests.
OUTLINE:
Fathers think impossible to change man’s nature (Enlightenment influence and intellectualism here)
- 18th century belief in universals – universal badness of man
- inferential method from looking at history – see problems as man’s inherent nature
- scientific idea that same cause and principle always produces same effects
no change man, therefore check man’s vice with more vice
- Madison – gov = reflection on human nature; we need to check gov. for the same reason that we need gov. to check human
society
- Don’t trust laissez-faire attitude of self-interested vices bringing social benefits – scared of unbalanced state with one class
taking control (delegates most fear that the poor would rise up and plunder the rich)
Want BALANCED GOVERNMENT
- Enlightenment influence – scientific rational order should be in politics too – natural government that checks itself,
similar to nature mechanically functioning by itself – harmonious system of mutual frustration
Practical Constitutional goal is to force various interests to check and control one another
1. federated government maintains order against popular uprising
central government can step in if one faction takes over a state
widens number of ppl in political body – harder for one majority interest to gain power
2. representative gov.
direct demo = unstable passions of ppl
reps refine and enlarge public view – wiser and more deliberate than ppl
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American Political Tradition: Chapter 1
Hamilton views as wealthy and dominant members of a trade/industry repping others in politics, e.g. merchants rep
employees, landholders rep tenants
split assembly – aristocracy vs. democracy => rich and poor don’t plunder each other
two classes neutralize each other – each has own house of legislature
impartial executive holds veto over each
independent judiciary
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3.
PART 3
SUMMARY – The Constitution’s conception of liberty comes from the balancing of the interests of those who have a stake in
society – defined at the time as those who had property. Representing the propertied voices in government balanced the
merchant/wealthy class against the independent farmers, and at the same time prevented yielding to the propertyless
democratic masses.
OUTLINE
Const. Pol theory – demo is not same as liberty; rather liberty=property
What is liberty to founding fathers?
- no liberty for slavery, indentured servants
- not civil liberties – opponents of Const. Most active advocates for civil rights
- not freedom of trade – problems with Articles was that it didn’t regulate commerce
- not free access to wealth/resources – most delegates are land speculators who want to preempt ownership of unused land
FF’s conception of liberty = negative rights regarding economics and property,
freedom from…
- fiscal/currency uncertainty
- trade wars b/w states
- economic discrim from powerful foreign gov’s
- attacks of creditors or on property
- popular insurrection
want a gov that honestly balances propertied interests – protect all the interests from each other and from common enemies
protect property = protect men in exercise of their natural faculties
- men who have no property don’t have an incentive to maintain order in society cuz they will want to take property
from others, hence the fear of propertyless ppl – ‘common soc. Interest’ defined by having property
- if unchecked demo, then majority takes over, and arbitrary redistrib of property => destroy liberty
- demo lead to tyranny, anarchy, or just another aristocracy – can’t maintain it, so go for different gov to maintain liberty
all property should have proportionate voice in gov.
- broad dispersion of landed property, moderate plots => ppl have stake in obeying restraints of balanced gov
- balance merchants and greatlandholders (Rich) vs. small property-owners – all have voice
- BUT partnership doesn’t really succeed – southern planters don’t like hamilton’s pro-north commercial policies, so
band with farmers, which makes an overwhelming majority interest, so Const. Principles aren’t fulfilled. But no one
notices, cuz their nationalism makes them love the founding fathers.
Criticism of scholarship
- contemporary – fear destruction of local gov. and popular institutions
- modern – founders are selfish reactionaries -- Charles Beard – Economic Interpretation of Constitution – progressive era
- FF view selves as moderate republicans b/w pol extremes – motivated both by class interests and republican philosophy
- The property stake-in-society theory doesn’t fit today – modern middle class is propertyless, urban proletariat is half the
population
- Humanistic thinkers – try to change human nature and attitudes itself instead of assuming self-interestedness and trying to
mitigate harm through balance
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