With all the talk from both the left and the right about American democracy being at risk, perhaps it is timely to investigate the origins of American democracy. This post looks at the most influential people and events that prepared American founding fathers to first break from England, and then create their own unique compact of government, the American Constitution.
Our democracy owes much to British influence. Prior to the revolution, the colonies operated under England’s limited monarchy. Each colony had a Governor as the executive branch, appointed by the King, a Colonial Counsel (subject to England’s House of Lords), and a Constituent Assembly, elected by male, land owing American colonists. The governor enforced the laws which were based on English common law. So, even before the revolution, there was a system, governed by established law, of government in the colonies with an executive (the colonial governor) and a legislative arm elected by the people. The problem was that the King and the British parliament had absolute right to veto or institute new measures in the colonies if they so desired. This was seldom used but the right still existed. And, importantly, American colonists had no direct representation in the British parliament. When the British began to enforce taxes and actions against the wishes of the colonists, the colonists’ rebellion was primarily based on the writing of one man from a century earlier. More on this later.
It is interesting to investigate how England developed such a stable system of government with real representation by the citizens/subjects when much of the rest of the world was largely dominated by absolute monarchs or dictators. England’s journey in this regard started a very long time ago in 1215 with the signing of the Magna Carta. It was the first clear example of the power of an absolute monarch being limited. It was the first baby step toward a constitutional monarchy in England, even if only the titled aristocracy were the only one’s that could question the King. The next major step toward a representative government occurred in 1688 with the Glorious Revolution in England. It was actually an invasion by the Dutch King William, supported by key figures in England. William was married to the English King James’ daughter, Mary. The upshot of this “revolution” was that William and Mary were acknowledged as King and Queen, but not before they agreed to the supremacy of the British parliament and a bill of rights for ordinary citizens. Interestingly, several of these rights are included in the American Bill of Rights. So America’s journey toward a representative Republic was very much aided by England’s own journey toward a constitutional monarchy.
The ideas that had the most influence on the American Colonies’ rebellion against England, and the basis for forming a people’s compact, the American Constitution, is mostly due to one man, whom Jefferson wrote was one of the three greatest men who every lived, John Locke. He was a philosopher and is mainly known for his political philosophy although he had other groundbreaking ideas concerning human nature, a topic not for this post. He lived during latter half of the 1600s and was active during England’s Glorious Revolution in 1688. His ideas on government are mainly included in his “Two Treatises of Government” and “A Letter Concerning Toleration”.
Locke posited that individuals have “natural rights”. Like Thomas Hobbes before him, he imagined that an individual in nature is naturally free and and is able to pursue his needs as his reason dictates. But in the state of nature there are always bad guys who will either do him harm or steal his property or his possessions. To remedy this situation people will form a “commonwealth” and give up their natural rights to a society that makes and enforces common laws that all are bound by. The maintenance of this government depends on the majority consent of the citizens involved in the compact, “the consent of the governed” in Locke’s words. Therefore Locke states that “The great and chief end of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property (life, liberty and estates). To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.”
Unlike Hobbes before him, Locke insists that “no one is above the Law” and that the monarch or executive is bound by the same laws as everyone else in the commonwealth. Otherwise, an executive could easily take actions against the benefit of the people or against the will of the people, and in effect, become a dictator. But he also insisted that the people should not rise up against the government unless there are serious instances of tyranny by the government. He even suggests that “moderate tyranny” is not enough to justify rebelling against the government, and that any group that rebels must have serious grievances to justify such action.
One might recognize from the American Declaration of Independence the words and reasoning of John Locke. The preamble to the July 1776 Declaration states “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation” (underlining mine). A major part of the declaration provides a list of nineteen “grievances” that compel them to rebel against the British. One might also recognize Locke in the Declaration’s words “that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness …” The underlined piece is direct from Locke’s writings. The “Pursuit of Happiness” part is Jefferson’s. He was an avid follower of the ancient Greek Epicureans, whose goal was pursuit of well-being/happiness. Jefferson also wrote that John Locke is “one of the three greatest men that ever lived”. It is notable that Jefferson also was influenced by Locke’s “Letter Concerning Toleration”. This document was the primary source for Virginia’s colonial constitution, which included for the first time the idea of separation of church and state.
The next step was the writing of a new constitution for this new government. John Locke was heavily referred to by the founding fathers in writing this “compact” for the “commonwealth” of the people. One other example is Locke’s “Letter Concerning Toleration”, which was incorporated in the Constitution’s sections concerning separation of church and state.
In my opinion, there is one other person that had major influence on the structure of the Constitution: the French philosopher Montesquieu and his main work “The Spirit of the Law” in 1748. He outlined a process for the separation and balance of powers into a legislature, an executive and a judicial branch of government. James Madison, a writer of the Federalist Papers, that provided the reasoning for much of what became the U.S. constitution, made frequent references to Montesquieu. Madison wrote that Montesquieu is to the idea of separation of powers as “Homer is to epic poetry”.
Once could say that our democracy, our Republic, is heavily indebted to the British and two main individuals, one British (John Locke) and one French (Montesquieu). Of course, our founding fathers were aware of other writers, such as Hume, Voltaire and the ancient Greeks and Romans, but none were more influential than the two described in this post.
John Locke’s “Two Treatises on Government” was written a century before the U.S. revolution. It can be argued that none of this would have occurred without the Enlightenment in the West that started a century earlier than Locke. The Enlightenment is the period in the history of the West (Europe, North America) when people began to appreciate human reason over religious doctrine. This period began the serious investigation of the material world by science and the scientific method. Many attribute the start of the Enlightenment to one man, Descartes. Every school student of algebra may be familiar with Descartes. He described a method where the position in space of any point can be identified with two or three numbers, x, y, and z, for three dimensional space, known to students of algebra as cartesian coordinates. He was incredibly brilliant in many areas, but in my opinion his major impact led to political democracy. He imagined a thought experiment where anything he could think about may be influenced by an outside force (a demon) so he could never be sure that anything thought about was “without doubt”. He reasoned that waking thoughts might be illusions just as dreaming thoughts are, thus there is no certainty concerning the validity of waking thoughts. But what is surely “without doubt” is that “I think”. Thus, Descartes wrote in his 1644 “Principles of Philosophy” his somewhat famous phrase “I think, therefore I am”. He stated that “we cannot doubt our existence while we doubt’. He called this without doubt, irreversible certainty his “first principle”. After this the only thing left to do is reason, to use logic and reason to attempt to understand the natural world. Descartes’ “I think” includes sense impressions as well as thoughts. You may be wondering what this has to do with political democracy. What I suggest is that Descartes’ reasoning was the start of the prominence of the reasoning individual, a natural possession of every human being, no matter their station. This brings to mind Shakespeare’s character “Shylock” in the play “The Merchant of Venice” (1596). In this play, the much maligned Jew, Shylock, laments about the treatment of Jews, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” This quote may seem a long way from Descartes and even longer from political democracy, but it illustrates Descartes’ emphasis on the inherent, natural possession of every human, that “I think” and feel, and reason. A century later Locke would extend this reasoning to political rights within a voluntary compact of government that is formed for the sole purpose of protecting the natural rights of the individual.
So here we are in the twenty-first century and what might we make of how the knowledge of what got us here help us now? I suggest there are two main questions to ask about conditions in our current government: What are some of the pressures that weaken the “consent of the governed”?, and “Does this amount to serious tyranny?” I suggest the answer to the second question is “no”, so we all should just take a step back, relax, and use some of the reason that Descartes’ states is in each one of us. I suggest there are some areas of concern about the dilution of the “consent of the governed”. Here are a few areas where we could apply our creative juices for possible solutions: 1) The influence of money through political action groups, etc. 2) gerrymandering, 3) government buying of votes, 4) uncontrolled growth of government through wars or the funding of wars, 5) loss of confidence in democracy by too many. There are probably several others. I’d like to explore some of these. Perhaps in another post? In the meantime let’s all appreciate the wonderful system of government we have inherited.
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