#91: Post-Revolution American Politics … and Now

February 25, 2011

I am still wrestling with understanding the relationship between post-revolutionary American politics with the present. Let me begin by reminding readers of the presidential time-line of the period.

George Washington: April 30, 1789 – March 4, 1797 (2 terms) John Adams VP

John Adams: March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801 (1 term) Thomas Jefferson VP

Thomas Jefferson: March 4, 1801 – March 4, 1809 (2 terms) A. Burr, G. Clinton VPs

While there were no established parties at Washington’s time, there were two distinct political positions jockeying for power, one group called “Federalists” and one groups called “republicans” (whether these held positions identical to today’s Republicans remains to be discussed). While Washington worked hard at neutrality between these two groups, it is clear in retrospect that his sympathies lay almost entirely with the Federalists, who were led by the brilliant and aggressive Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury. The republicans, on the other hand, were led behind the scenes by the cunning Thomas Jefferson, who worked secretly against the Washington administration for which he was the Secretary of State. Again, while Adams was identified as a Federalist, he also attempted to walk a careful line between the two extremes. It was only when Jefferson acquired the office of president that the republicans achieved a significant victory, which was marred only by the fact that a Federalist, John Marshall, sat as Chief Justice of a court he completely controlled (a last minute gift left by Adams for Jefferson).

So, what was a Federalist and what was a “republican.”

Very generally, Federalists believed in the necessity for a strong central government, in the absence of which they thought the fragile union of states would disintegrate (read The Federalist Papers). In greater specifics, they believed that states’ rights could not be universal or absolute; Federalists tended to come from the Northern states; they tended to be anti-slavery; they were in favor of the development of a national roads and rivers infra-structure and encouraging the development of a national manufacturing component for the economy, as well as a national banking system. The Federalists were in favor of the maintenance of a national army and navy, while the republicans wanted only State-based militias. Further, the Federalists were more attached by tradition and inclination to Britain than France, while the opposite was true of the republicans. And, finally, the republicans tended to reject tradition and history, while the Federalists wanted to build upon it.

The republicans, on the other hand, at least in the form of Jefferson’s vision, longed for a system of government in which the government was virtually invisible, a system that assured almost total independence for each citizen. As little taxation as possible, as little regulation as possible. Jefferson’s version or republicanism was based on a fantasy of rural, bucolic, agrarian happiness, each farmer joyously tilling his fields with no fear of intrusion from anyone, his own government included. He hated and distrusted the banking system introduced by Hamilton, he wanted no standing army or navy, and he defended the state’s prerogatives over the federal government’s at every term.

We can easily see why current Tea Party people would hearken back to Jefferson as their ideological antecedent, but the story is a bit murkier than this suggests. The main reason is that we can find in Jefferson a number of positions and beliefs that would make the average Tea Partier nauseous.

Here are some thoughts. Jefferson was an aristocratic Virginian slave-owner to the end of his life, while at the same time marketing himself as anti-slavery. Quite apart from what we might feel about his slave owning, the style reminds us of nothing today so much as wealthy Democrat liberals (rather than Tea Partiers). Similarly, the most significant contribution his administration made, the Louisiana Purchase, was done at the Executive level, an extra if not un-constitutional act. And this was from the man who argued that the function of the constitution was to limit the power of the federal government. This has all the earmarks of the arrogant high-handedness of modern liberals who believe that the end justifies the means.

So what is it that we can conclude happened to the original sources of our parties?

I suggest that the Federalists have morphed over time into our modern Democrats, while the republicans have morphed into our current Tea Party Republicans.

The Federalists did not want a tyrannical central government, though this was what Jefferson fantasized. They wanted a federal government powerful to ensure both internal and external security as well as enough guidance and control so as to ensure a thriving economy. They were as conscious of the risks associated with a powerful federal government as Jefferson was, and it was for that reason that they were so careful in the crafting of the constitution, which was indeed supposed to be the adamantine leash on the dangerous creature at the top.

Jefferson was almost paranoically afraid of the creature, he simply did not believe that the constitution was itself strong enough to restrain it from turning into a tyrant. I suppose, in retrospect, he may well have been right about this. Perhaps Jefferson was America’s own Cassandra, foreseeing the future and yet not being heeded. Our current Idiot-in-chief seems to have absolutely no respect whatsoever for the curbing power of the Constitution. Yet, it cannot be denied that the United States could not have become what it did without the Federal forces as powerful has they have been; indeed, the United States might have ceased to exist entirely without its Federal government in place and at work.

The Federalists were right, the country simply could not prosper or defend itself without a powerful central government. But Jefferson was right in believing that a central government powerful enough to ensure domestic and international security was simply too powerful to be easily stopped by the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers were indeed extraordinary men. They recognized the full extent of this most serious fundamental problem at the core of representative democracy and they used the full range of their exceptional intellectual powers to come to grips with it. Their solution in the form of the U.S. Constitution is not perfect in the sense that it has protected us perfectly from the schemes of ambitious men (like Obama) or the consequences of the acts of stupid men (like Obama), but it is perfect if what one means by this word is “as good as it could possibly be.”

What we have today would have pleased neither the Federalists nor the republicans of the American post-revolutionary scene. The former would have been appalled by the excesses of the current federal government, particularly the debt that it has amassed. The latter would have been utterly aghast and considered the America of the present a tyranny.