A History of American Political Theories

Charles Merriam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351535359
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

A History of American Political Theories is a comprehensive attempt to understand the full sweep of American political thought since the founding. Working within the liberal-progressive tradition, Merriam reviewed American political history in its entirety, from the founding down to his own day. He was not out to reduce political thought to a single element such as economics alone; his aim was to encompass the whole of modern social science.

The political science of the liberal-progressive tradition has roots and assumptions that were born in this period and nurtured by scholars such as Merriam. The progressive tradition in general and Merriam in particular interpreted the rise of a new science of politics that would be required for the liberal-progressive world view he represented. His work stands at a momentous fork in the road; two great traditions of how American democracy should be understood, interpreted, and analyzed parted company and afterward each went their separate ways. These traditions are represented, respectively, by the founders and the liberal-progressives. There was much at stake in these academic debates, though the consequences were not entirely foreseen at the time.

An overview of the authors, works, and general source material covered in History of American Political Theories is impressive. Merriam viewed the study of American democracy as an eclectic activity embracing the broadest definition of the social sciences, with particular emphasis on psychology. Such a transformation required that the social sciences be grouped as a whole rather than fragmented into separate and distinct academic departments.

A HISTORY OF AMERICAN
POLITICAL THEORIES

CHAPTER

THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE COLONISTS

A STUDY of American political theories may appropriately begin with an examination of the ideas of the colonists who laid the foundations upon which the national structure now rests. In view of the fact that the Puritan ideals, political and moral, have been so potent a force in the development of American national characteristics, attention will first be directed to the Puritan political tenets.

Puritanism was primarily a religious and not a political movement.¹ Its central doctrine was that the spiritual element in worship is of far greater importance than the ceremonial element. The Puritans condemned a ritualistic service as not only unnecessary and superfluous, but positively injurious and sinful; and they demanded a style of worship from which the ceremonial features were as nearly as possible eliminated. The Anglican Church they bitterly denounced for its failure to carry through the desired reforms, and its retention of so many of the features of the Roman worship. Theologically, Puritanism was closely allied to Calvinism, and it resembled Calvin’s system on the political side also. In common with the other adherents of the Reformation, the Puritans denied the binding force of Church tradition, precedent, and law, asserting that the Scriptures are the only authoritative guide of human conduct. In a study of Puritan politics it is essential, therefore, to remember that the spirit and purpose of the Puritans’ movement was only incidentally political. Their aim was to found a spiritual, not a political, organization — a church rather than a state. They were interested above all things in the true worship of God, which meant to them, of course, the Puritan style of worship.

It is important to observe at the outset the basis upon which the Puritans rested their commonwealth. Having rejected the authority of the Church and ecclesiastical law and precedent, they relied solely upon the Scriptures as a guide for all conduct, public as well as private, and considered the Bible as the only proper foundation upon which either a state or a church could rest. They at tempted to deduce from the Old and New Testai ments their whole system of public law, finding in these writings, expressly or by implication, authority for the government as organized and administered. As their theology and their form of church government rested upon a scriptural basis, so must their political theory and their state have the same foundation. This idea was well stated by John Eliot in his work on The Christian Commonwealth; or, The Civil Policy of the Rising Kingdom of fesus Christ¹ when he said that “there is undoubtedly a form of Civil Government, instituted by God himself in the holy Scriptures, whereby any Nation may enjoy all the ends and effects of Government in the best manner, were they but perswaded to make trial of it. We should derogate from the sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures, if we should deny it.” In the establishment of New Haven Colony, one of the questions submitted to those participating was, “Whether the Scriptures doe holde forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties which they are to perform to God and men, as well in the government of families and in the Commonwealth, as in the matters of Church?”²; and to this all assented. This idea runs through the Puritan thought of that time. They devoutly believed that somewhere in the Scriptures there must be a rule of public as well as of private conduct, and they further believed that they had discovered and were applying this rule in the development of their political institutions. The particular part of the Bible upon which they relied for this purpose was the Old Testament, with its frequent references to the political experiences of the Children of Israel. This was a rich mine of precedent, to which the Puritans frequently resorted when in need of such support to justify their conduct.¹

It is not to be assumed, however, that the Puritans really constructed their entire political system from an interpretation of the Scriptures.² They brought with them to the New World the English common law, English political precedent and tradition of centuries’ growth. This was beyond question the real basis of their system, and the additions to this from interpretation of the Scriptures were less important than the Puritans themselves thought. It would be near the truth to say that they did not begin with the Scriptures and build up a complete system, but that they attempted to justify a system already in existence by finding for it a scriptural basis. In the general tendency to test all things by Scripture, it was only natural that the state should be subjected to the same treatment, and that an attempt should be made to find a scriptural model for political institutions.

The system of government adopted by the Puritans was what might perhaps be called theocratic in character. The most cursory view could not fail to reveal the predominant position of the clergy. From the beginning, the life of New England was largely under the influence of the ministers. In many cases men of marked learning and sagacity, whose Puritan morals and theology did not conflict with shrewd worldly wisdom, they dominated the political as well as the intellectual and religious life of the community. They were consulted upon all matters of public policy, such as Indian affairs or relations with the mother country; they frequently preached political sermons bearing directly on public questions; there was never, perhaps, a body of clergy that exercised greater influence on affairs of state than did these New England leaders. Especially in Massachusetts Bay, they established an ecclesiastico-political régime, recalling in many of its features the Geneva system of John Calvin. In two of the colonies membership in some approved church was essential to full citizenship. Only those who were church members could become “freemen” in Massachusetts Bay and in New Haven, and it is not likely that other than church members were actually received in Plymouth and Connecticut As late as 1660 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay resolved that no person could become a “freeman” who was not in full communion with some orthodox church. The exclusive character of the Massachusetts Bay system is shown by the fact that down to 1674 only 2527 were admitted as freemen, one-fifth of the total number of adult males.¹ Of the other features in the theocratic regime it is not necessary to speak at length. The Sabbath Laws, taxation for purposes of church support, compulsory attendance on church services, the anti-heresy acts,—all were part of the general system in which the civil power was invoked to stimulate the religious sentiment and practice of the community. The same tendency is also shown by the attitude of the Puritans toward adherents of other religions. In the controversy with Roger Williams, with the Antinomians, with the Quakers and the Baptists, a determination was manifested to preserve the Puritan type of religion by force if necessary. Liberal use was made of fines, imprisonment, disfranchisement and banishment as means of grace for the spiritually perverse. The Puritans themselves were dissenters from dissenters, but they did not intend that the process of dissent should be carried farther.

Their theory of the relation between church and state was clearly brought out in the famous controversy between Roger Williams and John Cotton, the spokesman for the Massachusetts theocracy.¹ An examination of this controversy may seem somewhat remote from the field of political theory, but only through such an inquiry is it possible to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of the political ideas of the Puritan. The gist of the Williams-Cotton debate is found in three pamphlets occasioned by the banishment of Williams. These were, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution fof Cause of Conscience (1644), by Williams; The Bloudy Tenent washed, and made white in the Bloud of the Lambe (1647), by Cotton; The Bloudy Tenent yet more Bloudy (1652), by Williams.²

Two of the most significant topics discussed may be considered here : first, the nature of the church and the state; second, the extent of the civil power in religious affairs. First, then, the theory as to the nature of the church gives the key to the understanding of the entire dispute. Williams’s contention was that the state is distinct from, and may exist without, the church, as, for example, among heathen people. “The church,” said Williams, “is like unto a corporation, society, or company of East India or Turkie merchants, or any other societie or companie in London, which may... wholly breake up and dissolve into pieces and nothing, and yet the peace of the citie not be in the least measure impaired or disturbed.”¹ This is true, because the “essence” of the church and the state is different, and consequently the religion may be radically changed, while the government of the city or state remains unchanged; or the government may be altered without affecting the character of the religion. Ephesus may cease to worship Diana, and still be Ephesus; or it may happen that there are different religions in the same city, the aim of all these religions being distinct from that of the state.

Cotton, for his part, agreed that the church is a separate society, distinct from the state; but held that the church is the chief society in the state, and that the growth and welfare of the state are dependent on the purity of the church. The church, although not the “essence” of the state, nevertheless “pertains to the integrity of the city”; it is among the “conservant causes” of the state, and cannot be broken up without affecting profoundly the welfare of the body politic.² Cotton conceded that there are historical examples of states which have flourished under heathendom; but he declared that after the true church is once introduced, then this true worship must be protected by the state.

The crucial question in the controversy was that concerning the proper extent of the power of the civil magistrate in religious matters. Williams held that the true church is spiritual in nature, and, as such, has no need of the support of the civil magistrate in order to maintain its proper position. It does not require worldly means of defence, but should use only the spiritual weapons, such as “the breastplate of righteousness.” “the helmet of salvation,” “the sword of the spirit.”¹ Civil magistrates had never been made defenders of the faith in the Scriptures, and the omission shows that there had been no intent to confer such authority on them. The civil officers should not proceed to organize churches; they should not inflict punishment on those adjudged heretics, or impose civil penalties or disabilities for any religious reason. Williams contended that if civil magistrates had rightful power in spiritual affairs, then even in a barbarous Indian tribe rightful jurisdiction over the church of Christ would be vested in the Indian civil authorities, and the Christian religion would be entirely at the mercy of rulers with pagan consciences.¹ It is clearly evident, then, that Williams’s view of the state was decidedly secular in character. He limited its activity in religious affairs to ‘what were called at that time “breaches of the second table.”² Transgression of any of the last six commandments might be punished by the state, but over violations of the commandments in the first table they should have no jurisdiction. “Scandalous (offence) against parents,” he said, “against magistrates in the fifth command, and so against the life, chastity, goods, or good name in the rest, is properly transgression against the civil state and common weal, or the worldly state of men.”³ Such offences the government may rightfully punish, but those crimes which concern the relations of man to God it should not attempt to suppress. They are spiritual in nature, and civil penalties cannot properly affect them. On this ground Williams denounced in vigorous terms the treatment to which he and others had been subjected as wholly unwarranted and unjustifiable.

Cotton replied to these arguments that “it is a carnal and worldly, and, indeed, an ungodly imagination, to confine the magistrate’s charge to the bodies and goods of the subjects, and to exclude them from the care of their soûles.”¹ He maintained that it is the evident duty of the magistrates to use all available means to prevent the pollution and corruption of the church, and to strive in every way to preserve its purity.² He even attempted to show that laws about religion are, strictly speaking, civil laws. “Whatsoever concerneth the good of the city and the propuls-ing of the contrary,” is a civil law, said he. “Now religion is the best good of the city, and therefore laws about religion are truly called civil lawes.”³ But Cotton’s reasoning would have been inadequate and ineffective ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Preface
• Chapter I The Political Theory of the Colonial Period
• Chapter II The Political Theory of the Revolutionary Period
• Chapter III The Reactionary Movement
• Chapter IV The Jeffersonian Democracy
• Chapter V The Jacksonian Democracy
• Chapter VI The Political Theory of the Slavery Controversy
• Chapter VII Political Theory in Relation to the NATURE of the Union
• Chapter VIII Recent Tendencies
• Chapter IX Conclusion