Nowhere to be seen now are the old Jeffersonians, once a major American type, rebellious men who dared defend the rights of themselves and their communities from outside impositions. But buried somewhere deep in the American soul is a tiny ember of Jeffersonian democracy that now and then gives off an uncertain, feeble, and futile spark.
Scandalously, Thomas Jefferson once wrote to James Madison, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and is as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
In the same year, 1787, in regard to what is known as Shays’ Rebellion, he wrote another friend, “God forbid that we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” A lack of rebelliousness among the people would demonstrate “a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. . . And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?”
The “rebellion” in Massachusetts had alarmed many, especially the masters of that commonwealth, who were imbued with a Puritan longing for regulated behavior and saw the tax revolt of Capt. Daniel Shays and his farmers as a threat to their control. In Jefferson’s perspective, the “rebels” were merely adhering to good American practice. What, indeed, had the recent War of Independence amounted to but resistance to heavy-handed government? And such rebellions against unsatisfactory government officials and policies had been a regular occurrence during the long colonial history of the Americans, especially in the Southern colonies.
Persistent misrepresentation of Jefferson’s words here and elsewhere by later generations has obscured what he meant. A dangerous radical? A chronic upsetter of social order? No. Jefferson does not call for an overturn of society and its reconstruction according to some abstract plan. Think of the root meaning of the term revolution. Jefferson, in fact, is mostly satisfied with his society (Virginia), although he is interested in a few small reforms that might broaden its base. So are his followers satisfied with their portions of America. That is why they support him. Despite the hysterical and sometimes insincere denunciations of the New England clergy, the Virginia planter is no Jacobin. As he sees things, any government, with the passage of time and the accretion of abuses and bad precedents, becomes corrupted. It needs to be revolved back to its original principles.
This is not a radical program but a deeply reactionary one. What Jefferson fundamentally wants to tell us is that the people should never fear the government, but the government should always fear the people. This is not the battle cry of a movement with a radical agenda. President Jefferson comes to the White House with no agenda except to preserve the joint independence of the States United and their separate rights as “the best bulwark of our liberties.” To carry out this agenda requires a rollback of the economic and judicial corruptions introduced by the Hamilton/Adams innovators.
For the Jeffersonian democrats, Americans were fortunate to enjoy widespread property ownership, with a large body of independent citizens, and to be free of the class hegemony and conflict of the Old World, thankfully an ocean away. There is no French or Russian revolutionary fantasy here. The government is not to be used as a sledgehammer to destroy and rebuild society. In this way of thinking, the greatest enemy of society and of individual liberty is government itself. The tendency of power is everywhere and forever toward concentration. As a popular Jeffersonian saying has it, “Power is always stealing from the many to the few.”
It is this basic orientation that separates Jeffersonian democrats from “conservatives” of Jefferson’s own time and later. It explains the curious phenomenon that throughout American history the people have been “conservative,” and revolutionary changes have always come from the top down.
My point is illuminated by the argument between John Adams in his A Defense of the Constitutions of the United States and John Taylor of Caroline, the systematic philosopher of Jeffersonian democracy, in his Construction Construed, and Constitutions Vindicated. Adams’ view of history was that the popular majority always had a tendency to envy the wealth of its betters and use the government to appropriate it, and that this tendency was the chief source of destruction of a free regime.
He hoped to avoid the subversion of American republicanism by various devices that would dilute and delay an unwise popular majority: a bicameral legislature with an upper house remote from popular opinion, an executive veto, and an independent judiciary. All Adams’ devices have catastrophically failed to limit government and to preserve freedom, as Taylor plainly predicted.
For Taylor, Adams had got his history wrong. The people, in a society like that of Americans, were not dangerous. Most of the time they went quietly about their own business and demanded nothing—unless they were intolerably provoked by abuses of government. It was the “court party” that was the enemy of liberty and that would subvert the free commonwealth. History showed that there were always self-seeking minorities, would-be elites, ready to use the machinery of government to live off the labor of the majority. Sometimes this was done by force, and sometimes by fraud, as in the Hamiltonian maxim “a public debt is a public blessing.” The remedy was not to erect artificial “checks and balances” but to make sure power was widely dispersed, limited, and amenable to recall.
The Jeffersonian Constitution has been misrepresented as much as or more than Jeffersonian philosophy. It was not “strict construction,” a nonstarter, nor even states’ rights. It was state sovereignty. Jefferson (and Madison, too) may be quoted ad infinitum to this effect. The Virginia and Kentucky documents of 1798-1800 spell out beyond any doubt that the final defense of freedom in the American system is the people acting in their only constitution-making identity, that of their sovereign states. The states were the legitimate and peaceful resort to protect the liberties of their citizens and themselves as communities from federal encroachment.
Years after leaving the White House, Jefferson writes to an inquisitive foreigner,
But the true barriers of our liberty in this country are our State governments; and the wisest conservative power ever contrived by man, is that of which our Revolution and present government found us possessed. Seventeen distinct States, amalgamated into one as to their foreign concerns, but single and independent as to their internal administration.
In the last months of his life Jefferson suggested to influential Virginians that it was time once again to consider interposing the sovereignty of the state against unconstitutional federal legislation. Never for a day in his life did Jefferson doubt that the people of a state could exercise their sovereignty by leaving the Union, though it was not something to be encouraged rashly. He rather expected that the expanding country would break up into two or more confederacies. That was fine, if it was what the people wanted. Americans were rightly joined together by fellow feeling—shared blood and sacrifice—not by the armed force of Washington City.
Commentators have twisted themselves into incredible acrobatic postures and wholesaled semiplausible lies to assert that Jefferson did not really mean the plain language of what he said. Others have “explained” that Jeffersonian states’ rights was only a temporary and expedient device to defend liberty, a device now made unnecessary by the establishment of the American Civil Liberties Union. They miss the point, unwelcome to all adherents of elitist agendas and centralized power—for Jefferson, individual liberty and state sovereignty were indivisible. Properly rebellious free men defended themselves and their communities from Leviathan.
The eclipse of the Jeffersonian preference for limited power and economic freedom had less to do with politics than it did with changes in the spirit of society as the 19th century progressed. Almost from the first days of the United States, New England leadership undertook to establish the New England way as the true and only American way. This was carried out in politics, religion, education, literature, historical writing, and even in lexicography, with vigor and persistence. This is a subject worthy of a multivolume study of a phenomenon that is unrecognized today, although it was a decisive event in our history and clearly understood while it was taking place. Louis Auchincloss, in The Winthrop Covenant, gives a surface account of the persistence of this Puritan mission throughout American history.
The Puritan conquest of the North was not as easy as has been thought, but was accomplished by about 1850. James Fenimore Cooper in his Littlepage trilogy describes and laments how the unique Anglo-Dutch society of old New York was transformed by the swarm of immigrants from east of the Hudson. Meanwhile, Emerson went to Europe and absorbed the Germanized version of the French Revolution, which was really just going back to his Puritan roots. He came home a Unitarian. The mission was changed, but the intensity of the need to correct the world to conform to the New England plan remained the same. It soon brought to heel the West and the unruly Catholic immigrants.
The South was a different matter. It had developed from a different base and in a different way. Southerners were proud and determined to do it their way, individually and as a people. The South could not be converted or subverted, so it had to be destroyed, the grapes of wrath had to be trampled out. A 30-year campaign of slander and hatred, combined with economic developments, finally brought on in 1861 the circumstances in which this could be accomplished. Americans like to think that their campaign for the abolition of slavery was all about benevolence and liberty. A bit of genuine historical research into what they actually said at the time paints a different picture. The Yankees hated slavery because the slaves were a non-Anglo-Saxon element who had, in their view, hopelessly corrupted white Southerners. In the slaveholding society, white men had far too much liberty and independent power. Such liberty offended puritan sensibilities and created an evil disposition to thwart New England economic and cultural hegemony. It was not that the black man had too little liberty; it was that the Southern white man had far too much.
That crusade pretty well finished off Jeffersonian democracy. As Gen. R.E. Lee wrote to Lord Acton the year after his surrender, “the consolidation of the States into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home,” was the precursor of American ruin. Lincoln rightly remains the truly representative American. He is the symbol of the highly successful synthesis of capitalist oligarchy, puritan conformity, and perpetual social revolution from the top down that is the mainstream of American life. There are many who find that synthesis beautiful, though most often they do not really understand what it is, identifying with one or another of the elements and not with the combination itself. Money rules and permits a politics that consists almost entirely of sham battles between the old puritans, the “conservatives,” and the secular ones, the “liberals.” From time to time they all join together in a messianic war to destroy the latest menace to Lincoln’s vision: the South, the kaiser, the Red Menace, drugs, terror, etc.
They share the sense that the meaning of “America” is a mission to bring the abstract ideals of the American standard to all mankind. The only difference is that the “conservatives” want to do it by force, and the “liberals” by welfare. A Jeffersonian, if any still existed, would insist that Americans are not here to be used for anybody’s mission, and the proper point of reference is what is good for them.
The Jeffersonian spirit survived for a while underground, and now and then a weak and confused revival occurred, as in the days of William Jennings Bryan and populism. The last significant appearance was perhaps the agrarian, non-Marxist critique of capitalism in the 1930’s. Nowhere to be seen now are the old Jeffersonians, once a major American type, rebellious men who dared defend the rights of themselves and their communities from outside impositions. But buried somewhere deep in the American soul is a tiny ember of Jeffersonian democracy that now and then gives off an uncertain, feeble, and futile spark.
Republished with gracious permission from Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture (November 2011).
This essay first appeared here in May 2012.
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Without getting into the Puritan-as-demon thing once again with my friend Clyde, whose work and whose character I have admired for a great many years, I would submit that it is one thing for Jefferson to have cheered on the Shaysites (I would have, too!) and another for him to cheer on the Jacobins. Jefferson the Unitarian had no more discernment about such things than Emerson the Unitarian, although I admit I hate Jefferson's heresies less. They actually had more in common. The individualism that Jefferson (somewhat hypocritically, I think) espoused amongst yeoman farmers was not unlike Emerson's essay "Individualism," and both were leery of settled social customs. Neither could take care of his own affairs. Emerson was made comfortable by the proceeds from the death of his wife, and Jefferson was bailed out twice by the public. Having said this, I would also admit that after studying Emerson hard about 40 years ago, and coming across this sentence, "I am a transparent eyeball; I know nothing; I see all," I stopped studying. Jefferson remains at least interesting.
South Carolina's Dr. Clyde Wilson is an American treasure who, for a very long time, has been championing the idea of a unique liberty grounded on the idea of state sovereignty. Think of how different this country would look had the old Americanism won the day.
Messy, but better. I agree about Dr. Clyde.
John, I think 'messy' is an excellent word to describe the possible realities inherent in a fed/const/republic. But, given human nature, the 'fall', the libido dominandi, and the rest it is, I think, the best form available to safeguard liberty while providing order. As I said, to recapture the olde Americanism should be the first objective of American conservatism.
I'm curious what Dr. Wilson thinks about the many Southern Presbyterians (e.g., RL Dabney and Gen. Jackson) who fought for the CSA and who considered Puritanism their theological heritage.
State sovereignty is a wonderful idea, but what about individual sovereignty?
Re: “A bit of genuine historical research into what they actually said at the time paints a different picture. The Yankees hated slavery because the slaves were a non-Anglo-Saxon element who had, in their view, hopelessly corrupted white Southerners. In the slaveholding society, white men had far too much liberty and independent power. Such liberty offended puritan sensibilities and created an evil disposition to thwart New England economic and cultural hegemony. It was not that the black man had too little liberty; it was that the Southern white man had far too much.”
You’d think that Dr. Wilson might have provided a quotation or two to support his claim. Even if he were correct about the motives of Puritan Yankees–how does that, in and of itself, justify either slavery or secession? As for Dr. Wilson’s assertion that “Lincoln rightly remains the truly representative American”: I hope so–the nation could do (and has done) a whole lot worse.
I agree with the analysis of Jeffersonian democracy, but I’m not sure if Jefferson himself was the best proponent of it. I think that a comparison of Jefferson with men like Taylor or Randolph shows that Jefferson had little love for the permanent things (I just cannot ignore his words on the French Revolution).
If I may comment on Stephen’s old post re: Southern Presbyterians, I think the origins thereof provide the answer. While both coming from the radical Calvinist tradition, most of the Southern Presbyterians descend from Scots, where the Kirk reigned and society itself was thoroughly Presbyterian. Conversely the northern Puritans, being descended English separatists, had a history of and inherent tendency to attempt to control others. It is a myth that the Pilgrims fled to America for religious freedom – toleration was already law in England. They came to America because upon returning to England from Holland they found that the average person wasn’t too enthused about their attempts to Purify the church. The Southern Presbyterian descends from John Knox – a pious, though intense, man with a bible. The Northern Puritan descends from Oliver Cromwell – a self-righteous psychopath with a sword.
“Jefferson does not call for an overturn of society and its reconstruction according to some abstract plan.”
Well, maybe in his saner moments. What are to make of his observation that he would rather have the whole earth desolated than see the French Revolution fail? Jeffersonian republicanism has a complicated relationship with the broader conservative tradition, and it’s not something I’ve ever felt comfortable giving unqualified assent to.
Regarding the whole Puritan issue, it’s sufficient to say that each segment of America’s founding stock had its characteristic virtues and vices. Puritan New England was a dour, abstemious sort of place, but the chief engine of Puritan social control was conscience, not law. The profoundly guilt-based society of New England (in contrast to the shame-and-honor aristocratic culture of the South) produced, in many ways, one the freest societies to ever exist, if we understand freedom to be a product of virtue and not merely the absence of external constraint.
The irony of Jefferson is that he used the power of the central Executive to conclude the Louisiana Purchase–doubling the size of the nation–partly because it tilted the scales toward a decentralized society of yeoman farmers.
“ Never for a day in his life did Jefferson doubt that the people of a state could exercise their sovereignty by leaving the Union, though it was not something to be encouraged rashly.”
I am not familiar with anything Jefferson wrote explicitly in this regard. Can anyone point to a scholarly reference that supports this assertion?
In reconstructing our founding documents, what protections might be instituted that could further prevent centralized encroachment of state sovereignties? The naturally tendency is that power will always tend toward centralized control, if for no other reason that such power tends to serve the sociopaths who desire it.
It seems that he did not explicitly address it. But that it was James Buchanan who argued that “it would violate the spirit of the Union for the remaining states to make war on the others … the Union had to remain alive in the affections of the people … Jefferson’s original notion of a voluntary Union based on consent, affection, and interest rather than force.” Brian Steele (2008): Thomas Jefferson, Coercion, and the Limits of Harmonious Union, The Journal of Southern History. (In my humble opinion, it is another matter, whose consent, affection, and interest, for example, the southern negros, or the indigeneous tribes, who were never asked).
Wholy theoretically, if natural law known only to God, and to good people in their consciences, is gravely violated by positive law, issued by the Caesar, then, good people should indeed revolt. Whether the French revolution is an example of this Mengzian, “the heavens see what the people see,” or indeed conservative, principle, Augustine’s comparison between organized crime and the government’s violation of natural law, nobody knows, because the shock waves from it have not yet settled, through 1789–1914–1989. Conservatives must acknowledge that with human knowledge of good and evil, in principle privilege of the Creator, the Caesar cannot issue positive law in arbitrary conflict with natural law, least the people shall revolt. This gives only the negative definition of natural law, since its positive definition is only for God. The Caesar would for his own wellfare do well to promote theology and history, least he would not build his law on arbitrary sand and be washed away by the Jeffersonian storm. We do not know, here in the E.U., whether the French revolution was such a storm from an angry God. God bless, a little rebellion now and then, and take good care of your rebellious constitutional amendments. Law does not fall from heaven.
Why was slavery approved of, defended, when it was Black people who were enslaved? That is the pointed question. That fact meant that “liberty” was not really valued, and that even the right to “private property” was a sham. The only moral basis for the right of private property was that for a free person to possess “what was his own”- the root of the word property- was the dignity and freedom of the person. Not power relations. But slavery of Black people, defended as “property right” was a lie. For the South, property rights were nothing but a power structure making some persons superior as beings to others.
All revolutions centralize power
The American Revolution Was a Mistake
By Gary North:
I do not celebrate the fourth of July. This goes back to a term paper I wrote in graduate school. It was on colonial taxation in the British North American colonies in 1775. Not counting local taxation, I discovered that the total burden of British imperial taxation was about 1% of national income. It may have been as high as 2.5% in the southern colonies.
The colonists had a sweet deal in 1775. Great Britain was the second freest nation on earth. Switzerland was probably the most free nation, but I would be hard-pressed to identify any other nation in 1775 that was ahead of Great Britain. And in Great Britain’s Empire, the colonists were by far the freest.
The taxation rates didn’t really matter. In the end, the Americans no longer considered themselves Englishmen, instead identifying themselves as a separate people, and they thus desired to be free of outside rule.