Alex Hembree took first prize of $1000 for this essay.
First Prize (One Winner) $1,000
The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition
by Alexander Hembree
2011 07 22
America today faces a crisis of the worst kind. She has forgotten her inheritance and is in the process of experiencing a fundamental change in the way she identifies herself. A lack of comprehension of our American political tradition has led to its derailment. In turn, this derailment has brought about our current predicament – our government attempting to overrule and replace the principles, commitments, and mechanisms of our original tradition in favor of an ungodly, un-American, and untraditional distortion.
Original Tradition
When looking through the annals of history, a political pattern is apparent in the early maturation process for all new nations. This pattern, known as self-identification, begins when a people start to develop a collection of symbols. This collection reflects the core values that define the people as unique and independent. The symbols of our American tradition can be described as “the symbols of a virtuous people, through deliberative processes, striving to achieve and advance their declared purposes which involve, inter alia, better ordering of justice”..” (Kendall and Carey 112-113)
The Birth of Freedom
The pillars of our early tradition were our Christian faith, the common law, our English heritage, and the new experiment of self-government. Using these pillars as a foundation, our forefathers wrote our first collection of symbols, the Mayflower Compact. The Compact signified a remarkable transition from a government with nearly limitless power to a local government with a limited power and a defined operation. In contrast to their previous government, this structure gave the new government, consisting of the civil body politic, five goals or general powers, originating what would be known as delegated powers. These broad goals of the Compact were dedicated to the “Glory of God”, “Advancement of the Christian Faith”, “Honour of King and Country”, “our better Ordering”, and the “general good of the Colony”. (Kendall and Carey 31-34)
It is important to note that these goals were devised and implemented with the principle of a deliberative sense of the community, which involves an open, transparent, and thoughtful process. This also requires an educated, informed, and involved constituency to ensure the general good is the purpose of the government. In the Compact, this process was allowed to continue indefinitely, forming the bedrock of all further progressions in American political thought. The wording of the Compact encouraged a self-improving system, in which the civil body chose to “…enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.”
Building upon the Past
In the years following the Compact, two more documents were created which built upon our ideology. These documents were the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut and The Body of the Liberties of Massachusetts Bay. In the Connecticut Compact, two more symbols emerged in the way government worked, namely “to maintain the peace” and to maintain “union”, which foreshadowed key language from the Preamble of the Constitution, “to insure domestic Tranquility” and “to form a more perfect union”. There was also an alteration in rhetoric that shifted “advancement of the faith” from a social enterprise to a governmental responsibility “…to maintain and preserve the liberty of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the Churches….” This symbol of a united church and government had a deteriorating affect by reverting to our English heritage and breaking stride with our American tradition, creating what is known as a derailment. There is another feature originating with the Fundamental Orders that is an essential milestone for our political tradition – a government “guided…according to such Laws, Rules, Orders and decrees shall be made, ordered, and decreed, as followeth.” In simpler terms, this symbol set a precedent that led to our Constitution.
Lessons from the North
The Body of the Liberties of Massachusetts Bay united church and state even more than the Fundamental Orders did. The workings of the church and state were blended in such a manner as it was impossible to determine where one started and the other ended. Despite this derailment, it makes two important advancements. First, it helped the people realize that the goals placed upon government were inadequate to guide the government in its daily affairs. Therefore, it identified areas in which the power of government and the freedom of the people could not easily be distinguished. It applied certain parts of the common law to give clear limits to the stated authority of the government. This mitigated potential human error of overextending the general welfare purposes of government, thus, it enhanced the symbol of limited government. The distinctions in the Body of Liberties generally falls into two categories: (1) limiting powers such as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, ‘double jeopardy’, ‘slavery’ or (2) protecting valued civil liberties such as ‘habeas corpus’, ’ life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness’. Of all the limits listed however, none limit the power of the legislative body, apparently making it unrestrained in its ability to exercise power.
This apparent lack of governmental limitation in the Body of Liberties can be explained in its second progression: “One of the high symbols it evokes is, as we have seen, humanity, civility, and Christianity, which we are told ‘call for’ certain things, which the Body of Liberties performed. The people of Massachusetts understand themselves, then, as servants of humanity, civility, and Christianity…And the breath-taking powers attributed to the General Court must be understood in that context: The General Court that is to pass laws in the sensitive areas from the standpoint of freedom, is to be made up of servants of humanity, civility, and Christianity, sitting as a deliberative body, and subordinate to the ‘call’ of humanity, civility, and Christianity.” (Kendall and Carey page 55).
A final symbol gleaned from the Body of Liberties, in the light of the tradition passed down thus far, is an evolution of the symbol passed down by the Mayflower Compact. The Body of Liberties, in concert with the Fundamental Orders, articulated this symbol as the practice of thorough deliberation by the body politic endowed with Christian character. Only this system of a Christian government was found to be capable of success, for it maintained an uncorrupted government, a virtuous people, and tempered the destructive human will, allowing men to impartially seek the general good.
General Good
Over a century later, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, we find the spirit of liberty expressed in the Body of Liberties has become deeply embedded in conventional American thought. The immortal phrase written in the Declaration of Independence (written two weeks after the Virginia Declaration of Rights) echoed the theme of: “…namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” This crescendo of thought highlights the transition from individual rights, which prohibit an unlimited government, to the ultimate right of the people. Although the previously named individual rights are an important point in our tradition’s advancement, there were a series of driving questions that the Virginians and their forefathers sought to answer – What is good government?, What constitutes good government?, and How can our freedom be assured to us?. These questions were answered for the first time in history with this declaration: the rights of individuals and those rights of the people will be safest, the best form of government achieved, if the people govern themselves. (Kendall and Carey 65-66) This answer, seemingly obvious to us today, was the culmination of an experiment lasting nearly two centuries that resulted in the most incredible political achievement in history.
As monumental as this concept is, the document manages to produce still further progressions in our tradition. Another symbol, expanding upon the Mayflower Compact clause “thought to be most meet and convenient”, led to article three in the Virginia Declaration. The symbol in article three was developed further into our amendment process in the Constitution – “That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public [well being].” Other than the previous symbol, this is the most uniquely American we have seen thus far; it allows for the alteration of power and amendment of the currently held rule of law in a bloodless transition. This echoes the clause “thought most meet and convenient”…”for the general good” found earlier in our tradition outlined in the Mayflower Compact.
Advancement of the Faith
Among the symbols left, there exists one more progression which answers a question that presents itself when reading both the Declaration and Constitution – Where is God’s place in government? The only mention of God is in section sixteen of the Declaration, which states “the duty which we owe to our Creator…can only be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence…and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.” This point serves to eliminate the confusion developed in Massachusetts between God and the government. It is clear that the writers of the Declaration cherish the symbols expressed in the Mayflower Compact, including the glorification of God. They realized that government (which sustains its commitments mainly through force) is not truly capable of glorifying God. To this end, “God is not given a place in the area of law and coercion.” In response to this insight, the authors of the Declaration created a secular mechanism for the self-government of a Christian Society. (Kendall and Carey 73)
Preserving the Blessings of Liberty
The Declaration may be, as will be explained later, one of the most controversial documents today because of a lack of understanding of what it meant in the context of our tradition. First and foremost, the Declaration’s purpose was to announce that England had violated our sacred tradition and was intent upon destroying the experiment of self-government in its infancy. As such, the thirteen sovereign states (not the United States) declared the shattering of the bond between themselves and England. The authors of the Declaration of Independence saw two supreme symbols of our tradition as having come under assault by the English King. They appealed to the ‘Supreme Judge’, who bore witness to their tradition’s rise, for the vindication of their commitment to His glory and the general good of their people, from whom they have been delegated authority. The Declaration described how the King, intent upon crushing our will, attempted to find the symbols of our tradition and destroy them, venturing even to slaughter his own people. After reading the Declaration’s stunning accounts of numerous crimes, including “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”, the course of action seems laid out to the American people (now that we have seen them in the light of their tradition). Thus, we find that the Declaration and War for Independence fall directly in line with the rest of our tradition.
Magnum Opus
Finally, we come to the pinnacle of our traditional documents, the Constitution. The Preamble of the Constitution has at least a twofold purpose; the first is a repudiation of the Articles of Confederation, stating exactly what our aspiration is for the Constitution. The Constitution provided the secular machinery that was first articulated in the Virginia Declaration, and when used by a people guided by our tradition, allows for the fulfillment of the commitments of our entire tradition including that portion of it found within the Preamble. In concert with the Federalist Papers we can see the Constitution embodies our greatest symbols and arrives at the fullest expression of our tradition – a virtuous people (made virtuous by their faith), represented by a supreme assembly (chosen from, and watched over by a Christian society), guided in its daily affairs by a higher law, bound by a secular mechanism of government which enforces the process of thorough deliberation to achieve consensus in how to act for the general good.
Derailment
When analyzing our past, three avenues of derailment are found. The first began just after the commencement of the nineteenth century, sparked by the opposition of some of the early leaders of the War for Independence to the Constitution. The first derailment truly began in 1860 with the Gettysburg address in which Lincoln states that “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” With the help of Kendall and Carey, we can see this infers that the United States began with the signing of the Declaration. Furthermore, when Lincoln said our nation was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”, he assumed that it was a tradition of ‘equality’ unbroken from the time of the Declaration to the Gettysburg Address.
Misinterpretation
In establishing equality as our ultimate symbol, Lincoln assumed responsibility for making that proposition the ultimate commitment for all Americans. To appoint the ultimate symbol of our people, the Declaration would have had to achieve constitutional status, for only a document of that nature has the ability to establish our supreme symbols and bind us to them. Several clarifications can easily dispel any uncertainty on this point. First, is the fact that the Declaration formally established, not a singular nation, but thirteen (as is evident by reading the state’s constitutions). Second, the Constitution, conceived thirteen years later, was specifically designed to unite and govern the colonies as a new, unified nation (dispelling any thought that the Declaration occupied a constitutional position) and, as such, deserves constitutional status. Third, in the preamble of our Constitution, there is no mention of equality, which should surely find a place in our nation’s mission statement if it were our highest aspiration. This indicates that it is not, as Lincoln suggested, our foundational commitment.
Decline and Fall
Although equality wasn’t entirely accepted as our supreme symbol after Lincoln’s address, the perception of our original tradition was shaken and distorted even more, accelerating the trend away from our founding principles. Thus, Lincoln became one of the first heralds of egalitarianism, which steadily grew in popularity with subsequent generations of leaders as it became entrenched in the American psyche. As the last vestiges of understanding about our tradition slipped away, the things meant to ensure our freedom, even the Constitution itself, were turned against us.
We can track the misuse of power in recent history directly back to the point when the background and meaning of the Bill of Rights were distorted. To understand how this occurred, we must first see the destruction Lincoln’s distortion wrought. With the traditional understanding gone, the purpose of the Bill of Rights was lost and was re-interpreted as a reliable means of ‘paper walls’ for the government by the people. Its original intent was best stated by James Madison, “If we can make the Constitution better in the opinion of those who opposed it, without weakening its frame or abridging its usefulness, we shall act the part of wise and liberal men…”
The Founders, however, did not and could not place a check in government against the loss of our tradition. Once the principles of the government were compromised, the pursuit of power became too great a temptation to resist, making the concept of delegated powers an inconvenient obstruction. Thus, a ‘chink’ in the otherwise impenetrable armor of the Constitution was found in the Bill of Rights. To understand this ‘chink’, one must follow this line of reasoning – since a right is defined as a limit of governmental power, those rights in the Bill of Rights should be considered the extent of the state’s power (ignoring the concept of enumerated powers), and thus, government had the ability to use the power within its perceived limits. After the government was ‘freed’ of the shackles of both our tradition (which were no longer enforced by the people) and the concept of delegated powers, it completed its metamorphosis into the oppressive which was an unlimited government we see today.
Derailment and Tyranny
Before we freed ourselves from British rule, our system of government could be defined by what power it could not have (what things it could not wrest from its people). With the adoption of the Constitution, the Founders changed that system to a government defined by what powers it could have (the people decided what authority the government could wield). When we began to lose sight of our tradition, made the symbol of equality supreme, and used a misinterpreted Bill of Rights to finish off the fading principle of delegated powers, our government regressed back to the barbaric state all other regimes in history occupied, that of a government defined by what powers it could not have. This trend is not only incompatible with our original tradition but it actively seeks to undo what our forefathers created for us; thereby robbing us of the blessings of liberty, and supplanting our last living symbol – that of a Christian society dedicated to the glorification of God with that of a people taught to worship the almighty state.
“On my honor before God, the essay I am submitting is my own work and not that of any other.”