I will attempt to define the philosophies our founding fathers had towards government then compare it with the philosophies of more recent US Presidents. Further, I will attempt to show how during the past century, US Presidents have ignored the wishes the founding fathers for small Federal government and have at times out right ignored the US Constitution.
US citizens must look to our founding fathers and ask ourselves about the prevailing atmosphere, conditions, and types of government that ultimately led to the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the birth of America. One must further examine if citizens are living up to the great principles that our country was founded upon. One must account for the classical philosophies held by the founding fathers and whose philosophies were they influenced by. Further, upon this reflection one can get a sense of what our founding fathers had in mind for this great nation and should be able to infer if they would approve of our political philosophy as it has developed over the last 200 plus years. One may ask, why is it important to peer back through the veil of time and try to understand what the founding fathers intended, the philosophies employed to build this nation, or if it is even relevant in today’s society. These are all fair and relevant questions.
It is my summation that if we as US citizens do not examine our past, how our country came to be, and the philosophical leanings our founding fathers, we do them and ourselves a great disservice. If it were not for them, we certainly would not enjoy the life and liberties currently available in this great nation. If we do not study our past, our failures, and our successes as a country how can we know if we are on the right path doing what the founding fathers intended? All of these are deeply rooted in our nation’s political philosophy, both past and present.
I will focus on the following founding fathers; George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. I believe their political philosophies contributed the most to the founding of our nation and the writing of the US Constitution.
Oddly enough George Washington political views were shaped by their times, not by classical political philosophy as some of our other founding fathers. However, Washington had an ambitious vision for America. Washington envisioned a strong unified nation. Washington deeply believed political parties by their very nature were divisive and as the President would be the overall elected official to speak for all Americans he felt a President could not appear to speak for only those represented in a specific political party. Washington believed the President had to speak for and represent all Americans.
John Adam’s concepts of government were based upon the arguments of Aristotle and Montesquieu; he staunchly defended the governmental system of checks and balances against the demands for centralized power or an extension of democracy.
Ben Franklin had high hopes for America and believed that in its bid for independence it should not seek the aid of foreign powers; he had great confidence in America’s strength. At the Constitutional Convention of 1786 he was asked if America was a republic or monarchy. He replied, “a republic…if you can keep it.” Franklin feared that corruption and nepotism may be the undoing of the newly founded republic.
Thomas Jefferson based his writing of the Declaration of Independence on John Locke’s (1632-1704) philosophy that the State is created by the will of the people, who retain sovereignty by virtue of their God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Locke further advocated a system of checks and balances between government branches and advocated religious tolerance. Lock defined the primary duty of a government was to protect the property of its citizens. In chapter 11, section 135, of Locke’s book The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Locke stated; “Though the legislative…is not, nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people: for it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person, or assembly, which is legislator; it can be no more than those persons had in a state of nature before they entered into society, and gave up to the community: for nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself; and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the arbitrary power of another; and having in the state of nature no arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of nature gave him for the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind; this is all he doth, or can give up to the common-wealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative can have no more than this.”
During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency he believed that the central government would conscientiously withdraw within the boundaries that they believed had been established when the Constitution was adopted and believed that the States were the most suited for domestic concerns. Further he believed that the national debt would be retired as rapidly as preexisting contracts would permit, not be clung to for broader economic uses while the interest payments steadily enriched a nonproductive few.
James Madison was heavily influenced by John Witherspoon (1723 – 1794) who was the sixth president of Princeton. Witherspoon closely mirrored his thinking on Aristotle’s politics. By the time Madison completed his studies he had become an ardent student and admirer of John Locke. In enumerating the powers of the legislature, Madison followed the precepts of John Locke in formulating a set of restrictions designed to protect property rights. He believed human rights and property rights reinforced each other and were indispensable to each other.
As one looks closely at a few of the framers of the US Constitution, one can get a sense of their political philosophies and views. One can extrapolate the framers certainly believed in a strong but limited federal government, in fact these men, and 50 others, created the US Constitution to control the federal government, giving the federal government enumerated and specific abilities, all others were to be left to the States and individuals.
The goal of US Constitution was set to the forefront; we know it today as the Preamble. It states, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The people were given control of the government. Not direct control as one would have in a democracy, but indirect control as a republic. The Constitution provides the necessary tools for the US citizens to elect and/or appointed representatives. It also provided tools for removing officials deemed to be not acting the in the best interests of the people. If the people do not agree with the laws passed by those that represent them, they have the ability to vote them out of office and install a person they believe will faithfully represent their best interests. If politicians’ offenses are egregious, the people have the ability to impeach them. The US Constitution is not a closed ended document, it has the ability to be amended, and it has been amended 27 times. The first 10 amendments are the most widely known, they are also known as The Bill of Rights. The founders created the Bill of Rights to ensure the federal government would never encroach upon these rights. The rights were very specific as to what the government could not do to its citizenry. These Bill of Rights are enumerated as seen here:
• First Amendment - Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly
• Second Amendment - Right to Bear Arms
• Third Amendment - Quartering of Troops
• Fourth Amendment - Search and Seizure
• Fifth Amendment - Grand Jury, Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, Due Process
• Sixth Amendment - Criminal Prosecutions - Jury Trial, Right to Confront and to Counsel
• Seventh Amendment - Common Law Suits - Jury Trial
• Eighth Amendment - Excess Bail or Fines, Cruel and Unusual Punishment
• Ninth Amendment Non - Enumerated Rights
• Tenth Amendment - Rights Reserved to States
With the basic understanding of our founding fathers philosophical principles and their specific reasons for writing the US Constitution, we must now take a small sampling of more recent US Presidents to compare and contrast their governmental philosophies. Understanding these philosophies is crucial to being able to determine if modern Presidents are in keeping with the original intent and decree of the founding fathers and the US Constitution.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was President for four terms starting on 4 March 1933, until 12 April, 1945. This Presidential longevity would never happen again due to the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution. The 22nd Amendment states; “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” This Amendment was proposed on 21 March, 1947. As amendments are by design very difficult to write and enact as law, this near 2 year period from when FDR left office to the creation of the 22nd amendment would be considered lightening fast.
Roosevelt presided over the largest expansion of government in US history. A few of his laws created “The New Deal.” The New Deal created entitlement programs never before seen in American history. These entitlement programs and massive expansion of federal government put even more stress on the collapsing economy. This stress caused the Depression to grow into The Great Depression. A majority of these laws and entitlement programs are still in use today, such as Social Security. Social Security will have an unfunded liability of eleven trillion dollars by the time our children are ready to retire. Roosevelt was a prolific user of Executive Orders (EO). Executive Orders are not mentioned in the Constitution; however, they have been used since the first Presidency. What has changed since the first Presidency until now is the scope of these EOs. Several times throughout FDRs Presidency the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) deemed FDRs policies and EOs as being unconstitutional. In 1937 FDR proposed a law to Congress that would allow him to appoint new SCOTUS judges, ones that would agree with him. This proposal was defeated in Congress, but it clearly shows FDRs philosophy on limited power and his contempt for the separation of powers that are spelled out in the US Constitution.
Ronald W. Reagan was President from 1981 until 1989. Reagan described himself as a libertarian or conservative-libertarian. Reagan was quoted as saying, “if you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” Congressman Ron Paul had the following put into Congressional record on 9 June, after Reagan’s death. “Ronald Reagan was one of the most eloquent exponents of the freedom philosophy in modern American politics. One of his greatest achievements was converting millions of Americans to the freedom philosophy; many he inspired became active in the freedom movement. One of the best examples of President Reagan’s rhetorical powers was his first major national political address, “A Time for Choosing.” Delivered in 1964 in support of the Goldwater presidential campaign, this speech launched Ronald Reagan’s career as both a politician and a leader of the conservative movement.”
George W. Bush was President from 2001 until 2009. Bush describes himself as a conservative; however, many would use the term neo-conservative, meaning “new” conservative. During Bush’s Presidency there were many egregious attacks on the Constitution, while most dealt with “The War on Terrorism,” they were attacks on the Constitution none-the-less. The constitutional writ of habeas corpus was all but ignored by Bush. The executive branch would often invoke the Commander in Chief clause of the US Constitution to create and enforce otherwise unconstitutional practices, such as The Patriot Act. Here is a table showing some of the differences between the US Constitution and The Patriot Act:
US Constitution (Bill of Rights) vs. Patriot Act
Amendment I – Freedom of association. / To assist terror investigation, the government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity.
Amendment I – Freedom of speech. / The government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
Amendment IV – Freedom from unreasonable searches. / The government may search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
Amendment VI – Right to a speedy and public trial. / The government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
Amendment VI – Right legal representation. / The government may monitor conversations between attorneys and clients in federal prisons and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
Amendment VI – Right to liberty. / Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them. US citizens (labeled "unlawful combatants") have been held incommunicado and refused attorneys.
The current President is Barrack Obama. It is early in the current administration’s tenure; so one must peer into the philosophy of President Barrack Obama by looking at his proposed policies and the advisors he surrounds himself with. To date, one of the major policies that the President has enacted is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a.k.a. the stimulus package. In the wake of the recent economic turn down in 2008-2010, this piece of legislature was passed by the 111th US Congress. This legislation intended to cease the US economic free fall and will cost the American tax payers $787 billion, adding to the already staggering total federal debt, pushing it to over $12 trillion. Japan, China, and the United Kingdom are the foreign powers that hold massive shares of this debt, to be paid to them by the US treasury. I bring up the fact of total National debt as it directly impacts the quality of life (i.e. the ability to pursue happiness as promised by our Constitution) lived by Americans. Of course the pursuit of happiness has many different meaning for different people. It is my summation that the founding fathers intended “the pursuit of happiness” to be defined by each citizen and to be accomplished to the best of their respective abilities; however, the founding fathers believed it was necessary for the federal government to never interfere with the citizens pursuit. This national debt, which has dramatically ramped up over the past few years, will most likely have a massive impact on our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren, as it will fall to them to pay it and they can look forward to ever increasing taxes and reduced government services. So, with less money retained and fewer options for help, the fiscal future of America is gloomy at best. These fiscal fire storms will most likely be fueled even further by the President’s proposed bills of the global warming bill known as “Cap and Trade” and the nationalization of health care. All of these bills have one thing in common, massive amounts of spending; spending money that America does not currently have and the furtherance of relying on our Nation’s debt holders, which as previously stated those debt holders are partially made up of foreign powers. Couple all these facts with the fact that America’s current tax scheme is merely a system of redistributing wealth, and these debts will be paid via taxes, thereby necessitating those who earn the most must pay the most, and the President’s intentions of redistributing wealth from those who do for themselves to those who do not, admitting adherence to this philosophy during his Presidential campaign.
To further divine the President’s political philosophy we can look towards whom he aligns himself with in thought. The President stated in a New York Times 2007 interview that his favorite philosopher is Reinhold Niebuhr. Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 – 1971) was a prominent leader of the militant faction of the Socialist Party of America. He promoted adoption of the United Front Agenda of the Communist Party USA in the 1930s. Niebuhr lived through one World War and the Great Depression, he wrote about the injustice of humanity and the need for people to tear down the systems that increased the injustice in the world. His book titled Moral Man and Immoral Society—written during the period of the Great Depression—insists on the necessity of politics in the struggle for social justice because of the sinfulness of human nature, that is, the egotism of individuals and groups. In this book he states “All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. Every group, as every individual, has expansive desires which are rooted in the instinct of survival and soon extend beyond it. The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power. Thus society is in a perpetual state of war”
With the few examples given above, one could easily conclude that those in Legislative and Executive branches have all but forgotten the US Constitution, as the years progressed from the conception of the Constitution, Presidents and those deemed fit to represent us have viewed the document as a barrier, something to be overcome or blatantly ignored so that they may institute their idea of what America is or should be, and doing so with legislation, executive orders, and signing statements. I would argue that in recent history our representatives have forgotten whom they serve and what the principles are that this great country was founded upon. As the US Constitution is the very bedrock of America’s foundation, why has it become an obstacle instead of a guide? When will Americans stand-up and say “no more?” In reality that is for each citizen to decide. If American citizens decide to uphold progressive ideals and big government, that is fine, America should have that debate, in the open. However, as it stands, the Constitution is being ignored and subverted in shadow, with back room deals, signing orders, executive orders, broken campaign promises, and other unpalatable tools. Is this the America you wish to leave our future generations? Should the founding fathers be forgotten? Should our most basic tenants of freedom be discarded? Should the Constitution be forgotten? Should America be fundamentally transformed to something else? Those answers must be decided by each citizen and openly debated. It is my analysis that the founding fathers would no longer even recognize America, let alone approve of it.
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