The foundation texts of American politics are obvious: The Declaration, The Constitution, The Federalist. Let’s add a new (2020) Dover book, The Anti-Federalist Papers. After all, The Constitution was debated; why else the newspaper advocacy that became The Federalist? The Constitution was a compromise.
The Declaration consists of a two paragraph philosophical introduction and a list of grievances. It served its immediate purpose, and attracted little further attention from those who considered limiting the franchise, and counting a slave as 3/5ths of a man. Only with Lincoln did the public really envision a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Constitution begins more mundanely; Jefferson and his pen were in France.
The constitutional convention and ratification were contested territory. Basically, the advocates of the Constitution got what they wanted: a viable nation-state that could make decisions and take action on behalf of the whole, subordinating the narrower concerns of locales and regions. And, as they hoped but could not be sure, their creation has lasted.
Objections were largely of two very different kinds: concerns about liberty, and what’s in it for me. Would an aristocratic Senate overwhelm a less influential House? Or would popular majorities respect minority rights? Did government have too much power over citizens? These sometimes contradictory concerns produced concessions: more popularly elected representatives, indirect election of Senators and President, a Bill of Rights, etc.
Southern planters sought free trade, Northern manufacturers sought protective tariffs. Some slave states sought to protect that obscene trade. Merchants feared that the new nation would tax them effectively.
Nevertheless, majorities agreed with Franklin that an imperfect Constitution was better than none.
What an extraordinary group of men. (Sadly, only men, though women, notably Abigail Adams, would surely have done well given the chance.) Franklin; Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison; Paine, Hamilton, Jay, Henry, Lee, Marshall… Surely, among today’s Americans there must be women and men of that caliber. Why aren’t they in politics? Its grubbiness isn’t new: late 18th Century newspapers published things that would match any supermarket tabloid. (Ditto the back-biting: Adams didn’t stay around for Jefferson’s inauguration.) Was shaping a nation more interesting, perhaps heroic-seeming, than trying to keep one functioning?
David R Jones doesn’t know the answer to that question.
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