Policy Director, Economic Growth Program
lind@newamerica.net
Posted on 01/06/2011 11:34:47 AM PST by markomalley
Will conservatives restore America to constitutional government? The new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has promised not only to begin the new congressional session by reading the Constitution in its entirety, but also to require that every new piece of legislation cite the passage in the federal Constitution that authorizes it.
These gestures are certain to please the conservatives of the Tea Party movement who are the ascendant force in Republican primary elections. But Tea Party constitutionalism represents a deeply flawed understanding of America's founding, which ought to be based on the revolutionary idea of the power of the sovereign people to make and unmake constitutions of their design, not on superstitious veneration of particular constitutions handed down by wise demigods.
Tea Party constitutionalism blends several American traditions. One is the tradition of hostility to the federal government chiefly associated with the South, which adopted states' rights ideology in order to resist federal interference first in Southern slavery and then in Southern racial segregation. Now that the Republican Party, founded as a northern party opposed to the extension of slavery, is disproportionately a party of white Southern reactionaries, dominated by the political heirs of the Confederates and the segregationist Dixiecrats, the denunciation of many exercises of federal authority as illegitimate would have been predictable, even if the president were not a black Yankee from Abraham Lincoln's Illinois.
But there is more to the constitutional theories of the modern GOP than neo-Confederate ideology. Beginning with the adoption of the federal Constitution, some Americans have sought to promote reverence for this particular Constitution, while others have emphasized the power of the Constitution-making people. Thomas Jefferson thought that laws and constitutions should be updated frequently, while his friend and ally James Madison thought that constitutions and laws should be changed only infrequently in the interest of stability. John Adams thought that the founders of constitutions should be revered, as in ancient Greece and Rome.
Madison and Adams won the argument. The folk culture of American constitutionalism blends themes from 17th-century English Protestantism and 18th-century neoclassicism. From Protestantism comes the rejection of the "Catholic" idea of an evolving scriptural tradition interpreted by an authority -- the Vatican or the Supreme Court -- in favor of the idea that the Christian or American Creed is in danger of corruption if it strays too far from the literal words of the original, perfect revelation. According to the Washington Post, one Tea Party member in Louisiana "has attended weekend classes on the Constitution that she compared with church Bible study."
From 18th-century neoclassicism comes the idea that citizens of a republic must be taught that their constitutions are perfect and were handed down by superhuman lawgivers or "Legislators" -- Solon in Athens, Lycurgus in Sparta -- and must be preserved without alteration as long as the republic endures.
The blending of Protestant fundamentalism and neoclassical Legislator-worship explains the semi-religious reverence with which the Founders or Framers or Fathers of the Constitution have long been discussed in the United States. Other, similar English-speaking democracies -- not only Canada, Australia and New Zealand but modern Britain itself -- achieved self-governance or universal suffrage generations later, when these Protestant and neoclassical traditions had died out in their domains. The Canadians do not revere their first prime minister, John Macdonald, and to this day the British do not even have a formal, written constitution. Our Anglophone peers regard American constitution-worship as bizarre and quaint, like our fondness for displaying the national flag.
English-speaking democracies tend to be stable and free even when, like Britain, they lack a written constitution. But Latin American republics have been afflicted by dictatorship and civil war for generations in spite of having formal constitutions modeled on that of the United States. The contrast demonstrates that the true security for freedom is a culture of constitutionalism, not a particular constitution, or any written constitution at all. The details of a particular democratic political system -- presidential or parliamentary, bicameral or unicameral, unitary or federal -- are ultimately less important than the unwillingness of the citizens to resort to violence when they lose an election, unlike the Confederate ancestors of so many of today's white Southern Republicans, who tried to destroy the country upon losing an election.
The federal Constitution drafted in Philadelphia in 1787, as amended, is still in effect in the United States. In contrast, France is now under its Fifth Republic. An old joke has an American in Paris asking a bookseller for a copy of the French constitution. Irritated, the Parisian bookseller replies, "We do not sell periodical literature."
But the joke is on Americans, not the French. Indeed, the 50 states are very "French" in their populist approach to constitutionalism. Most states in the Union have gone through several constitutions, with no apparent harm. Many of today's state constitutions in the Northeast and West Coast date back only a few generations to the Progressive era, and show the influence of belief in apolitical, technocratic executives in the number of state officials appointed by a strong governor. At the other extreme, many constitutions adopted by the defeated Confederate "Redeemers" following the Civil War create weak state governments and feeble governors. The influence of Jacksonian populism accounts for the fact that in some states most executive branch officers and even state judges are directly elected.
In no state, to my knowledge, is there a cult of the all-wise Founders of the State Constitution, who drafted the most recent of several state charters. Few legislators, even few conservative Republicans, would be able to tell you the date at which their latest state constitution was adopted, much less name any of the drafters or ratifiers.
The treatment of state constitutions as mere charters of government to be periodically updated or replaced, not secular versions of holy scripture, gets it right. The essence of American republican liberalism is found in Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Indepedence: "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Here there is no implication that a perfect code of laws has been handed down to later generations by a superhuman generation of Lawgivers, who should be worshiped as demigods century after century. Constitutions are above ordinary statutes, to be sure, but both constitutions and laws are ordinary rules agreed upon by members of the sovereign people, not to promote their eternal salvation or to conform to some mystical law of nature discerned by philosophers, but to "effect their safety and happiness." Not only are later generations in a free and democratic republic likely to include as many intelligent, patriotic and virtuous people as the founding generation, but later generations have more knowledge of what works and does not work in politics in their country and other societies.
Of course federal laws should be constitutional. But if we as a people want the federal government to do something that the present constitution does not permit, let's amend the much-amended constitution once again, or replace it with a completely new constitution, as the states have frequently done. The U.S. Constitution is not the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, and James Madison and John Adams were not Lycurgus and Solon.
You are engaging in dangerous thought.
Please report for re-education immediately!
I forget — is it Salon or is it Slate which publishes from an insane asylum?
I respect the Constitution, love its place in our country's history, submit to its legal authority, and have fought to defend it in the causes my civilian leaders saw fit to define as such. That's it. Anything more is conceptually confused. And if you think that connotes acquiescence in it's removal, I would respectfully submit that you should rethink that proposition.
Codswallop!
He got the commie talk down right.
Of course we don't worship the Constitution. Neither did the Founders. We worship the True and Living God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Alpha and Omega, the Ancient of Days. Anyone who says different (the Left) is trying to distract us.
LOL! I think you've got a pretty good bead on how the Left thinks!
Ya, you be talkin over peeps heads here.
Falderal!
Once I learned about Hegel, all the deceitful stuff the Left does makes so much sense; I mean, from their twisted Godless perspective. Of course, they're going to Hell for it, but at least we can figure out why they say what they say.
Hey Mikey Lind, the Constitution is the LAW OF THE LAND and you will live by it or die by it!!
Yes. People are no longer taught how to think. They are taught what to think. As a result, critical-thinking skills have been replaced by the use of logical fallacy as ‘argument’ and 99.9999% of people can’t even recognize fallacy any longer.
While such weakness is expected in the arts (IMO), it seems to have infected the sciences as well. Many so-called ‘learned men’ display a shocking inability to think clearly. I don’t think there is much chance that civilization can recover.
Michael Lind can kiss my ass.
Free-Per!
Not to mention the fact that most of Mikey's Anglophone peers (counting by country) are subjects of Queen Elizabeth II.
The libs don’t seem to understand. The Constitution is the only thing standing between them a fair number of citizens who would be happy to win the policy debates with a gun.
The Constitution is our contract to solve our differences with fair elections, representative government, and due process of law. If they break the contract, all heck will break loose.
Given the rest of the article this sentence seems to be nothing more than lip service.
But if we as a people want the federal government to do something that the present constitution does not permit, let's amend the much-amended constitution once again, or replace it with a completely new constitution, as the states have frequently done. The U.S. Constitution is not the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, and James Madison and John Adams were not Lycurgus and Solon.
By all means, have the democrats submit a bill to dissolve the US constitution. Of course they would be dissolving the federal government, assuming they magically produced the votes to pass it.
The Constitution has provisions for amending it and even addresses discarding it...so if you think you have the votes Dims...go for it. It'll just confirm what we already think of liberals.
Dry heave city...
Policy Director, Economic Growth Program
lind@newamerica.net
You are playing the same game just diff perspective......this not about some messy political party history made easy like Beck does.....this is about truth...conservatism and culture. .....its not about parties historically
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