Continuing the Founders’ debates
On this Independence Day, I am prompted to reflect on the Founding Fathers, as we often use them in arguments as though their statements and principles are sacred and infallible. Any reasonable look at the historical record shows otherwise.
The most prominent example is slavery. Often called America’s Original Sin, it was considered the untouchable issue at all of the early debates. While many wanted the institution abolished, most knew that the whole experiment would fall apart if it were seriously proposed. So the issue was tabled, with disastrous results.
A while back, I was reading the Federalist Papers, and much of the content surprised me. In discussing it with others, people had often described these writings as the founders’ arguments for limited government. In fact, the authors, mostly Alexander Hamilton, with help from James Madison and John Jay, spent most of their time arguing for the need for a centralized government. In opposition, and now lesser known, were the Anti-federalist Papers, written by several founders, including George Clinton, Patrick Henry, and others, arguing against ratification of the new constitution with its expanded powers for the national government.
The Federalists won the day, it seemed, with the ratification, and the first two presidential administrations. But after that, three presidents, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, pushed back against the centralized government and offered a radical alternative.
These early debates were often fierce, and violent. Many early Americans viewed any form of taxation at all as oppression and staged rebellions to oppose them. Asked how we should fund even the minimal government expenses they supported, they often had no answer.
The most striking thing to me, well over two centuries since the founding and constitutional debates, is how we continue the same arguments today.
It isn’t just about federalism and the role of the national government versus that of the states. That’s often a false narrative. If you look behind those who argue that things like education, environmental protection, or the enforcement of civil and human rights should be left to the states, you will often find that they don’t want the states to have any role in these things either. Look at the 1950s and 60s civil rights debates for just one example. Leave it to the states generally meant the preservation of segregation.
It is similar with the role of religion. The founders were a mix of various Christian denominations and Deists and most were suspicious of organized religion. Nearly all historical context shows that Thomas Jefferson was serious when he advocated for a “wall of separation” between church and state.
John Adams was more religious than Jefferson, but likely equally skeptical of organizations and doctrine. But one of the early debates was between Adams’ supporters and those of Jefferson and the Adams camp exploited Jefferson’s alleged atheism (he was a Deist) to create fear among Christian voters. While Adams had been explicit in writing as vice president (in the treaty of Tripoli) that the US government was “not in any sense founded on the Christian religion,” he was happy to exploit those fears for political gain.
Separation of church and state and most of the Bill of Rights was extended to the states because of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, but that hasn’t ended the debate. Those who insist on Christian supremacy are dismissive of that separation to this day. They want not only religious freedom for themselves, but the right to use government resources to proselytize.
This is perhaps the prime lesson of reading any of the founders’ debates. They never end. Even when we seem to have resolved on certain principles, the losers continue, and are often successful in implementing their views into policy. Slavery ended, but segregation and the disempowerment of the African American population continued another century. After integration, mass incarceration began in earnest.
Today, perhaps the biggest debate is about who really counts as an American. Are we built on a foundation of whiteness, male supremacy, and Christianity, or shall we treat all as equal participants under the law? It remains to be seen which we will become in the near future.
Many of the founders were brilliant men, but they were not saints. They compromised, often not because it was right, but because of necessity or deadlines. We should never assume that what they agreed to is sacrosanct simply because they wrote it down.
The one thing they lacked is the one we still don’t have: national consensus.
Michael Carley is a resident of Porterville. He can be reached at mcarley@gmail.com.