Chapter 1
Theories of Government, Early American History, and the Politics of Class Conflict
Framer of the U.S. Constitution and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Jay was hardly democratic in his politics. He famously sided with members of the upper class when he wrote that âthe people that own the country ought to govern it.â1 Although respected today by many in the scholarly legal community, Jay was no savior of the working man or woman. Born to a wealthy New York merchant family, Jay was opposed to slavery, but his politics in the run-up to the Revolutionary War were far from radical. His interests were with the upper class; his own background was one of decadent wealth, as his family was one of the richest in New York City. He owned multiple homes at a time when most Americans owned no land. His wealth was drawn from numerous sources, including his salary as a lawyer, banking assets, and the large amounts of land inherited from his father.2 If any framer of the Constitution was a strong supporter of propertied elites, it was John Jay.
Jay was just one of 55 framers of the Constitution, but his background is symbolic of a broader phenomenon in which those who founded the United States disproportionately held personal economic interests in creating a Constitution that served the wealthy. One historical researcher argues that the framers actively sought to foster âa conservative counterrevolution against what leading American statesmen regarded as the irresponsible economic measures enacted by a majority of state legislatures in the mid-1780s,â which demonstrated an âexcess of democracyâ via prioritizing aid to the masses and poor by promoting tax and debt relief during a time of economic depression.3
This chapter is devoted to laying out an âeconomic interpretationâ of U.S. Constitutional history, to borrow a phrase from historian Charles Beard. As Beard argued, the Constitutionâs framers were strongly motivated by their own personal economic interests. Their economic backgrounds as lawyers, land owners, debt holders, slave owners, and businessmen with mercantile, shipping, and manufacturing interests meant they were part of an upper class, which was more likely to side with the priorities of their fellow class members, rather than with those of small land owners, non-propertied males, and other socially disadvantaged groups.4
Image 1.1. John Jay, Framer to the U.S. Constitution.
Most Americans are ignorant to the historical details of the countryâs founding. We are taught we live in the âland of the freeâ and the âhome of the brave.â We are told that the Founding Fathers created American democracy. They are practically deified in classrooms, and celebrated as central to our cultural heritage. But this whitewashing of history obscures the class tensions characterizing American society during the founding. The myth of the benevolent Founding Fathers obscures the ways in which they distrusted and opposed democracy. In this chapter I reject many of the myths associated with the founding, while also discussing positive values of the Enlightenment period that contributed to the eventual democratization of U.S. politics. Western history is characterized by a conflict between democratic and elitist values, and the American people have seen many successes in democratizing American society over the last two centuries, contrary to upper-class efforts to limit democratization.
Liberalism in Context
When we talk about modern government, we are really talking about liberal government. Modern history is defined by the ascendancy of liberalism. This means the prevalence of representative government over dictatorship. When I speak of liberalism, I am not talking about modern day Republicans and Democrats. Historically, liberal theory refers to a governing framework based on respect for human rights, representation, and limited government. The rise of liberalism was a serious challenge to monarchies. Under monarchical systems, the kings, queens, and aristocrats who controlled the state saw themselves as societyâs rightful rulers. Liberal governmentâin which political officials are restrained by the publicâdid not for the most part exist during the era of monarchies.
John Locke (1632â1704) is widely credited with developing the intellectual rationale that eventually led to modern, liberal representative government. Locke was more concerned with what government could do to protect the public during times of turmoil. He helped establish a system of thought that was more representative of public wishes than anything imagined by previous Western philosophers.
Lockeâs liberalism was based in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was a historical period of intellectual thought in Western Europe during the eighteenth century, which continued into colonial America, with the thinking and writings of the Founding Fathers and framers of the Constitution. As one scholar explains, the Enlightenment produced âpeople [who] started to question all forms of authorityâ existing prior to the emergence of representative government. It was âa movement against religious intolerance and arbitrary ruleâ and was responsible for âthreatening courts, princes, and lay and clerical oligarchiesâ that ruled contrary to the interests of the masses.5 The Enlightenment popularized the idea of representative government. It embraced the notion that people were endowed with rationality and reason, and that monarchies were illegitimate, because individuals can be trusted to govern based upon their own self-interest and capacity to hold political leaders accountable. The Enlightenment forwarded the radical notion that kings were not divinely ordained to rule, and that individuals have natural rights guaranteed by their creator. For government to be legitimate, it must establish a social contract with individualsâwith public demands represented by political leaders elected by the people.
In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke wrote of the need for government by consent, with all men being born equal and holding âa right to freedom.â He wrote of the âpublic goodââunderstood today as the greatest good for the largest number of people. The public good was tied to the idea that men are born with God-given rights. Locke wrote of the âequality of men by nature.â Individuals enjoyed a human right to security, and are not to harm othersâ âlife, health, liberty, or possessions.â âThe preservation of propertyâ was the primary âend of governmentâ and the main âreason why men enter into society.â6
Locke felt government was needed to protect individuals from each other. He felt government should do more for men than âkeeping them safeâ from fellow citizens and foreign dangers, as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes had previously argued. Public consent is based on political systems in which people unite, authorizing government âto make laws for [them] as the public good of the society shall require.â7 Locke did not lay out a step-by-step plan of what constituted a violation of the public good. But this is the point. Determining government violations of the public trust and human rights falls on the public.
Still, Locke had in mind some grievances when he spoke of government violations of the rights of man. He wrote that âwhenever the legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavor to invade the property of the subject ⌠whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people.â Locke referenced the problem of taxation without representation. He wrote of the problems of âabsolute obedience and submissionâ which officials expect under âabsolute monarchy.â These expectations are âindeed inconsistent with civil society.â Locke also supported limited government in his call for ârestraining any exorbitances of those [government] to whom they [the public] had given the authority over them, and of balancing the power of government, by placing several parts of it in different hands.â8 Attempts to ensure âchecks and balancesâ later appeared in the U.S. Constitution, seeking to prevent arbitrary authority by a president, congress, or the courts.
Image 1.2. John Locke, 1632â1704.
Lockeâs liberal ideas served as a foundation for the principles embraced in the American Revolution of 1776. Lockeâs influence is apparent in the Declaration of Independence, which overlaps heavily with his Second Treatise of Government. The Declaration borrowed directly from Lockeâs notion of God-given rights, stating: âWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.â The Declarationâs reference to rights to life, liberty, and happiness corresponds with Lockeâs discussion of the rights of man, which include life and liberty, and property. This overlap is not coincidental, as Thomas Jefferson was strongly influenced by Lockeâs writings.9
The Declaration of Independence addresses the need for government via representation: âGovernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.â And the Declaration incorporated Lockeâs social contract. With a social contract, citizens vote for officials, and confer power upon them to govern; in return, government is to promote the common good of the people. The social contract is violated, however, if government fails to fulfill its duties to the public. The Declaration states: âwhenever any Form of Government becomes destructive ⌠it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.â Spotlighting violations of the social contract, the Declaration listed a âlong train of abuses and usurpationsâ committed by the British, including:
â˘âSuspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.â
â˘âImposing Taxes on us without our Consent,â with rebels angered over their lack of voting power in the British Parliament, despite being taxed by the British.
â˘Keeping âamong us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures,â and the âquartering large bodies of armed troops among us.â
Class Conflict, the Constitutional Framers, and the Threat of Democracy
To say the Declaration set the stage for government based on representation is not to say that it fostered democracy. To the contrary, most of the Constitutionâs framers had contempt for democratic representation, instead favoring a political-economic system that favored various segments of the upper class. This preference contradicts popular depictions in American government textbooks of the framers as heroic and benevolent supporters of democracy. This is not to say that democratic impulses were entirely lacking in the founding era. As one historical account argues, many of the framers were opposed to the centralization of political authority in a national government, and instead favored more democratic state-based policies that appealed to popular demands.10 But this group was a minority, considering the Constitution received the support of nearly three-quarters of the framers.
Much of what is written about the Founding Fathers in textbooks is mythic, fashionable nonsense, or outright distortion. In Interpreting the Founding, Gibson reminds readers that ânineteenth century studies often celebrated the framers as disinterested patriots and maintained that the Constitution embodied objective principles of justice and was a reflection of the will of the whole people, not the product of a single interest or class.â11 These depictions appear in textbooks too. American Government: Roots and Reform claims âthe Framers charted new territory when writing the Constitution in 1789. Their achievement has survived for more than 200 years, and constitutional democracy has spread to many other countries. How did they do it? What issues did they face? What logic did they use? How can we understand their results?â The book discusses the âmiracle at Philadelphia,â referring to the Constitutional Convention, seemingly deifying the framers in an aura of selfless sacrifice and benevolent concern with the public good and democracy.12 American Government and Politics Today discusses the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as populated by a âgroup of nationalists ⌠of a more democratic stripe,â which was âled by James Madisonâ and other âdemocratic nationalists [who] wanted a central government founded on popular support.â13 Government by the People claims Americans are ignorant of the framersâ alleged sacrifices, in giving the gift of democracy to future generations, and in creating a system that âenables the ruled to check the rulersâ: âWe Americans take democracy for granted. We somehow consider it inevitable. We take pride in our ability to make it work, yet we have essentially inherited a functioning system. Its establishment was the work of others, ten or more generations ago. The challenge for us is not just to keep it going but to improve it.â14
The main problem with the narrative of the framersâ commitment to democracy is that it is largely inaccurate. American society, prior to ...