A few years ago, I was witness to a lecture in which the lecturer claimed that those who voted against the Constitution in the ratification process should no longer be considered American. In other words, only those who supported the vote in favor of the Constitution by actually casting a vote are legitimate. Needless to write, I was aghast at the speaker’s claim. And yet, her words have stayed with me. Mostly, I think, because her claimed intrigued me—a puzzle of some sort. Not because I agree with her views, but because I suspect their source is a bizarre and twisted kind of nationalism that simply eludes my way of thinking.
This speaker came on campus armed with serious credentials and sponsored by a well-respected organization. Indeed, she served as a spokesman for that very organization, trying to recruit faculty as well as student support.
In the years—probably six or more—since I heard that talk, I’ve pondered who could be considered an American by her claims? Obviously, all Anti-Federalists would be out. There goes George Mason, Mercy Otis Warren, the Federal Farmer and Old Whig, and roughly half of all those who could actually vote in the ratification process. But, what about those who would’ve gladly voted one way or another but were ineligible because of gender, skin color, or property qualifications? Do they count? Until the day he died, John Taylor of Caroline suspected the Constitution as a trick by the bankers and the elites to control the government. Is he out? What about all of the people who from time to time worked and succeeded in amending the Constitution? Are they out? That is, by default, are they wrong because they didn’t see the Constitution as perfect? That would rule out Abraham Lincoln, whom I suspect this young woman admired immensely.
But, back to the Founding. It’s hard not to realize just how crucial the Anti-Federalists were to the ratification of the Constitution, even in their very opposition. As The Imaginative Conservative‘s own Bruce Frohnen has demonstrated so ably, we can only understand the ratification of the Constitution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights as a pre-ideological movement. The sides didn’t polarize so much that various armies and militias formed in opposition. There was no bloodletting in the streets, and pro-Constitution gangs didn’t terrorize the homes of their opposition. As Prof. Frohnen so beautifully notes in his work on the founding, the two sides had far more in common than not. They might fight like crazed partisans during actual debate, but they all went out together after the debates and celebrated their friendship in Madeira.
There are other problems with this young woman’s claims as well. Her view of history is one of inevitability and pre-destination. The Constitution was foreordained in God’s plan, if we take her seriously, and those who opposed it were merely fighting the natural order of things, trying to thwart what was to come. In this, she sounds like a right-wing version of a Marxist. Perhaps in her heart of hearts, she believes that the Anti-Federalist movement should be consigned to the “dustbin of history.”
I also hear the words of another Imaginative Conservative, John Willson: There was no “Founding.” There were many foundings, some overlapping and some not. There were many persons involved, many ideas discussed, and many institutions modified at a variety of levels. The thinkers who inspired the Revolutionaries (a term Prof. Willson would reject) varied as well. While John Locke might have been crucial in inspiring the Americans to write and defend the Declaration of Independence, he had almost nothing to say about creating a new Constitution. Yet, as republicans, they never forgot Cicero, Livy, or Tacitus, whether declaring independence or thinking about the Bill of Rights. Further, they loved the common law, an “institution” that possessed origins beyond human memory. No symmetry, no perfection—just human greatness, human failings, and a rag-tag tangle of Gothic desires.
Every fourth semester, I have the grand privilege of teaching the junior-senior level survey course, “Founding of the American Republic.” I begin in 1748 (with the Virginians setting their eye on Ohio), and I end in 1806 (with Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery returning to St. Louis). Every time I teach the era, I find new personalities, new events, and new ideas that never cease to amaze me. Yet, my own study of the period leads me to accept Prof. Frohnen’s and Prof. Willson’s claims more and more. There was no “Founding,” as the era in what was and what would become the United States was both anti-ideological and ante-ideological. The Americans were not French and no secret handshake will reveal the secret behind “the Founding.” No secret six will reveal the true meaning of “the Founding.” It was a moment, and it was a movement, but the latter had a million different parts, some that acted in harmony and many that operated in conflict.
And, in its confusion and chaos, we should rejoice. The messiness sharpened the best of its aspects while dulling the worst. As a moment in time in which virtue mattered (or, at least was not openly mocked), of course the best came out of even the mediocre. The best throve, but even the worst either shut up or contributed what they could. It was a time in which ideas and actions mattered, and it was a Stoic time in which a grievance was solved by fierce debate, not whimpering, and, if necessary, by bravado and not cowardice.
And, to my mind, they were all American, whether they voted a certain way or not.
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Good essay Mr. Birzer. If I had to guess it would be that this establishment woman could be said to be of the neoconservative stripe, and not new conservative in the sense that a Russell Kirk was once called. Those that speak of a Founding have often disturbed me as yes there was a government founded in 1789; but the culture that a Kirk or a Christopher Dawson would speak of existed and thrived well before 1789. The people, the diverse societies, small platoons, that comprised this country did not fundamentally change and it was those that made this country a great place to be. Fundamentally changing this country in the sense that an Obama would agree with was the work of so-called progressives for over a century now and why those of this woman’s stripe have always disturbed me, and why those such as George Mason, John Taylor, Patrick Henry, and the Federal Farmer do not disturb for they did not seek to enforce an ideology. I think you correct when you speak of right-wing Marxist, or an ideologue.
Thank you so much, Kevin, as always! And, it’s great to have this posted on Bastille Day!
This article is an welcome antidote to those who keep harping about what they perceive to be the Constitution’s failure to deliver Utopia. Bastille Day? You sneaky devil.
I have firmly believed most of my life that America was blessed by God to have a group of men unlike any other group, to be here at a certain time in history, with certain ideas and ideals to work, more or less together, to bring our country, America, into being. There has been no other time in history when such a thing has happened and we are blessed to have lived in this country. Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Monroe, Madison….it makes your heart sing to hear those names and all the others.
Interesting. I wonder what this woman would have called all of the citizens of the original United States following the Declaration of Independence but prior to the Constitution ? Indians?
The Lewis and Clark ending of your course is indeed the beginning to the reinvigoration of slavery. It settled just how much land could be worked from the slaves to be grown/bred/exported from Virginia. (The breeding of which, as opposed to import, was clearly known at the 1787 Constitutional Convention). All it took was the Missouri Compromise (wrought by the fourth Virginia-slaveowner president, elected on the backs of his 3/5 persons) to beat the bounds of the fertile national plantation, which would be stocked by the eugenically bred red-blooded slaves of Virginia. The figleaf of 1808 import ban would not stop this peculiar institution, nor would the banning of it elsewhere in the world. (After all, any British financier could own Virginia slaves by mortgage without fear of public shaming.) The “glorious mess” that had been wrought by the Constitution with its 3/5 personhood and fugitive slave moat would provide the basis for even more peculiar eugenic institutions of the 21st century.