The Greensboro News and Record recently published a piece on the Tea Party by Joseph Moore, a graduate student in American history at UNC-Greensboro. Unfortunately, the piece is behind the subscriber's wall so I have posted it here:
"Revisiting 1787 with Tea Party Fervency"
The Constitution was written to constrain movements like the Tea Party. Ironic, then, that Tea Partiers espouse such a religious reverence for it. They collapse evangelical views on the Bible (as written by divinely inspired men and therefore inerrant) into conservative views of the Constitution (same, same). When faced with problems, Glenn Beck proclaimed to a group of kids this summer, "The answer is always 'restore the Constitution.'" In August, a Greensboro crowd carrying weapons met for a "Restore the Constitution" rally. they have turned 'don't tread on me' into 'don't tread on the Constitution.'
The paradox of this crusader's zeal for the Founding Fathers is that the Tea Party more closely resembles the groups that opposed the Constitution than those who wrote it in 1787. The world was different then, but not so different.
Our Constitution was a reaction to a great recession. America couldn't even pay the interest on the national debt taken out to finance the Revolution. Cheap imported goods flooded the market, diving American workers out of a living. These patriotic people, many of them war veterans, had financed their homes with loans. With no one buying American anymore, regular people couldn't pay their mortgages, and banks foreclosed on homes across the nation.
In Massachusetts, a war veteran named Daniel Shays espoused something like the modern sentiment, 'we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.' Shays and other farmers took up arms, took to the streets, and became the faces of a movement sweeping the country. In the spirit of American patriotism, they demanded that state lawmakers pass legislation protecting hardworking people against bankers and taxes. Thomas Jefferson noted approvingly, "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing."
Thomas Jefferson was in Paris when he said that. George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were not. Those Founding Fathers called for a new government to stave off groups like Shays'. The document they created, the Constitution, put distance between the people and their government. Politicians, not the people, chose Senators. Not one private citizen voted for George Washington to be president. The original Constitution did not include the rights to free speech, religious choice, bearing arms, due process, or trial by jury. "We the People of the United States" was added in the final day of editing- to save space.
Enter the Anti-Federalists. They were panicked that the new government would enable "the rich to oppress and ruin the poor." This annoyed Washington, who privately remarked that the protesters gave "the tone" of being "obnoxious," and that it was best that citizens should not have opportunity to "peak behind the curtain" of US government.
What frustrated our first President were the Anti-Federalists; emotional appeal and their conspiracy theories about strong central government colluding to take away people's freedoms. "This government, " one opponent prophesied, "will set out a moderate aristocracy."
The Anti-Federalists lost, mostly because in the midst of economic crisis a strong national government made the best sense. Along the way the Anti-Federalists browbeat ten notable concessions called the Bill of Rights out of Washington and 'the establishment.' We woe them our thanks. But that cannot change irrefutable historical facts:
The Constitution was written to protect government from movements like the Tea Party. It was written to ensure the power of the federal government to direct economic policy. It was written to Keep control away from angry men with guns. It was, in short, everything Tea Party advocates like Beck and Michale Savage think it was not.
Ironically, the Tea Partiers have embodied what their most sacred text opposed. This does not delegitimize them.They stand in a meaningful tradition even as they misunderstand it. They have channeled the old angst of Anti-Federalism, good and bad, into the present by combining Jeffersonian fear of government with anger for anger's sake. Their zeal is both tremendous and historic.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the political moderation the Tea Party hates and the Founding Fathers loved is now represented not by politicians, but by comedians. One week before the mid-term elections, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart will hold his "Rally To Restore Sanity" on the National Mall. The restoration of sanity was what the Constitution was originally about.
Joseph Moore will teach the "The Age of Democratic Revolutions," covering Revolutionary and Constitutional periods, at UNCG in the spring. Members of the public are invited to audit the course.
10 comments:
While I agree with Moore's general comparison between the anti-Federalists and modern Tea Party folks, he fudges on a few of the details.
He implies a similarity between Shays and the Tea Party, but while the Tea Party is annoyed by government intervention on the behalf of banks, Shays was protesting the absence of government intervention on the behalf of debtors. Shays wanted the government to annul debts, an expansion of government intervention. The Tea Party is calling for less government intervention.
Then, Moore relies upon a faulty Keynesian interpretation of the post-Revolutionary War economic problems. That recession was not driven by "cheap imported goods" that cost workers their jobs, but the rampant inflation caused by the Continental Congress's mass inflation of the money supply. Every additional dollar printed by the Congress decreased the value of the dollars held by individual Americans. Congress paid for the war by impoverishing Americans. Whether or not that was a sound monetary policy is open to debate, but Moore has clearly misdiagnosed the economic problem.
That said, I agree in principle with Moore's conclusions. It is very ironic that the Tea Party movement has embraced a document designed as a check on individual liberties and local and state autonomy. But it also points toward the incredible expansion of the federal government beyond even the wilder imaginings of the Federalists.
So rather than be surprised that modern conservatives have embraced the constitution, we should think about the dramatic shifts in American society and government that have precipitated that embrace. Isn't it amazing that the scope of the federal government has become so extensive as to make the Constitution a check on federal authority rather than the expansion it was originally intended to be?
Moore doesn't go far enough. It's more like Paradise Lost, and the Tea Party is like Satan and his bad angels revolting against God.
I'll be happy when the election's over and these idiot comparisons of the Tea Party to various historical villains end.
I think Moore needs to view this whole matter in greater historical perspective.
Yes, the Tea Party might be more like the Anti-federalists than like the Federalists. But in having an overly narrow historical perspective, Moore fails to realize that the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists are more similar than different. If we compare the two to each other, then of course the two are very different. But if we compare them both together with other political philosophies, then we see they are both of the same classical liberal, constitutionalist, limited government school. The Anti-Federalists and the Federalists were both two different opposing factions of the same general school of thought. Had Moore studied these two factions against the backdrop of the entire history of the classical liberal and federal traditions, he would have seen how similar the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists really were. In fact, most of the differences between the two come down to mere tactics; i.e., they differed not on the theory, but on how to enshrine that theory in practice. It is one thing to believe in limited government and social contract, but it is something else to determine how to put those into effect. The Anti-Federalists and Federalists mostly disagreed merely on practice, not on theory. And whatever theoretical differences they did have, were relatively minor when put into a greater perspective.
For example, Moore compares the Constitution to the Articles of Confederation, and draws his conclusion from that. For example, he says, "The Constitution was written to constrain movements like the Tea Party." Now, he is correct that compared to the Articles, the Constitution would indeed limit movements like the Tea Party. But this is only compared to the Articles. Compared to the unwritten British constitution, and even more, compared to countries without any entrenched and influential classical liberal perspective at all, the Constitution of the United States empowered Tea Partiers more than limited them. Relative to the Articles, the Constitution empowered the government, but this is like comparing an SR-71 to an F-16 and saying the F-16 is a slow aircraft. One has forgotten to include propeller-driven aircraft in the comparison, and had he, he would have realized that relatively speaking, the F-16 and SR-71 are relatively similar.
to be continued
continued from above
The Federalists, like the Anti-Federalists, also feared that a strong government would take away their freedoms. After all, that is exactly why the American Revolution was fought! The Federalists may not have been as libertarian as the Anti-Federalists, but they weren't Tories! The Constitution was still an incredibly novel and advanced limitation on government, more than any other country then in existence. And we should not mischaracterize the Bill of Rights. When the Anti-Federalists asked for a Bill of Rights, the Federalists did not respond that men lack rights to freedom of speech, to bear arms, and such. Rather, they responded that a Bill of Rights would imply that any rights not listed were not to be protected. In other words, it was a legal/exegetical/hermeneutical dispute, not an ideological one. The Federalists, as much as the Anti-Federalists, were part of the classical liberal tradition, and believed that all men are created by God, and as such, have the rights to speak freely and bear arms, and that the government is created by social contract and has only those powers delegated by the people. For that matter, even Locke and Hobbes were both part of the same social contract school, and while they disagreed on what kind of social contract was preferable, they both agreed that whatever contract was ratified, was binding. Locke and Hobbes, for all their differences, were still part of the same school of thought, at least relative to their opponents. (I am not saying the Federalists and Anti-Federalists are like Hobbes and Locke respectively, for both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists are more like Locke than Hobbes.)
It may very well be that "It was written to ensure the power of the federal government to direct economic policy." But even Federalists would be aghast at how the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses have been interpreted. Given the fundamentally illiberal government we have today, the differences between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists pale in comparison.
to be continued
continued from above
I value Paul M.'s observations about Keynesianism and Shays's Rebellion. But he makes the same mistake as Moore when he says, "It is very ironic that the Tea Party movement has embraced a document designed as a check on individual liberties and local and state autonomy." Compared to the Articles, the Constitution indeed checked the individuals and the state and local governments. But this is only relatively. Compared to all the competing political ideologies, the Articles and the Constitution were both classical liberal. They both limited the government with a constitution and by declaring that all powers were delegated and were subject to social contract theory. Paul says, "Isn't it amazing that the scope of the federal government has become so extensive as to make the Constitution a check on federal authority rather than the expansion it was originally intended to be?" But again, the Constitution was a expansion on the powers of the federal government only when compared to the Articles! Compared to every other political ideology on earth, the Constitution limited the government, not expanded it.
We cannot have such a myopic and narrow view of history. The American Revolution cannot be viewed in isolation. It must be viewed alongside the Dutch, English, and French Revolutions, and viewed as the sequel to the first two that it truly was. The cartoon "An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America" depicts John Calvin and Algernon Sidney as being partners of John Locke, and John Adams recommended John Ponet and the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos. We know who Calvin was, while John Ponet was a Protestant Christian during the time of Mary Tudor, and the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos was a Huguenot tract, and Sidney was a partner of Milton and Cromwell. In other words, the American Revolution was part of the general Reformed Christian movement of federalism and limited government that was behind the Dutch and English revolutions, and we must study it as part of that movement, not in isolation. And this Reformed Christian movement was closely related to the Whig and classical liberal tradition (after all, Locke's father fought under Cromwell, and Locke was familiar with Puritan and Congregationalist trends in England), and the two traditions remained very closely allied to each other.
end
Let us also note that the Mayflower Compact displays a mature social contract theory decades before Locke was even born.
Locke may be the most famous exponent of social contract theory, but he was not the first. Personally, I am more impressed by Johannes Althusius than I am by Locke.
Also, I believe that the advocacy of loyalty to the Constitution is not so much a religious worship of the Constitution per se, as much as it is two similar but slightly different things:
(1) The Constitution is what we already have. Anyone concerned with the rule-of-law and federalism (meaning "covenantalism", i.e. social contract) is going to advocate loyalty to the Constitution not only because of its intrinsic value and goodness, but simply because it is what is already on the law-books.
(2) The Constitution enshrines principles greater than itself. The Constitution is a specific instance of federalism, and so anyone who supports federalism in general - i.e. classical liberals and libertarians - is going to see the Constitution as a good approximation of what they seek. It does not mean the Constitution is perfect, but it is among the closest things to perfection in today's world. It provides a good starting point, and once we reinstate it as the lawful king that it ought to be, then we can talk about improving on it. For example, I have advocated privatization of marriage based on the First Amendment. Now, the Framers obviously did not believe in this, but I believe that privatization of marriage flows from the same basic principles the Framers espoused. Similarly, when James Madison cited Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms as the source for the First Amendment, he surely knew that he was taking this principle further than Luther had ever intended, but at the same time, Madison correctly knew that he was simply taking Luther's principles to their logical conclusion. The Anabaptist-type principles of separation as found in, say, Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance" or Locke's "Letter on Toleration" might be more extreme than anything Luther or John Calvin envisioned when they advocated a separation of church and state, but nevertheless, the extremist Anabaptist-type separatism still followed the same basic principles that Luther and Calvin did, only in exaggerated form. Similarly, then, those who advocate adherence to the Constitution are likely planning on moving past the Constitution, towards a more completely libertarian government, but they rightly see the Constitution as a step in that direction.
So regarding my post just above:
When Tea Partiers advocate adherence to the Constitution, they do this instead of advocating for the Articles of Confederation because (respectively, according to my two numbered arguments above):
(1) The Constitution merely happens to be on the books, but were the Articles on the books, they'd advocate for it instead.
(2) Because the Articles and the Constitution are both relatively similar. Both are enshrining basically the same principles, and so a classical liberal or libertarian can advocate adherence to the Constitution when really, what he means to advocate is adherence to the entire classical liberal-type canon, including not only the Constitution, but also the Articles, common law, the Magna Carta, John Locke, etc. etc. The Constitution is merely a shorthand.
Indeed, see what is included in the Patriot's Edition of the 1599 Geneva Bible; the Constitution is joined by other documents as well.
Moore's piece is smart critique. All of you seem to lack what Moore obviously possesses: a sense of audience. This is an editorial, folks, not a frickin' doctoral dissertation. It is meant to speak to a general reading public--the kind that would read the local Sunday newspaper--and inspire some historical reflection. In short--get over yourselves.
-Will Duffy
Post a Comment