The Wisdom of the Anti-federalists - Part One

I've had the great honor to visit two great Catholic institutions this week - one of long-standing fame, Notre Dame, and another newer institution, smaller, leaner, and less conflicted about its mission - Christendom College. It was an honor to deliver a lecture at both institutions on the subject of the Anti-federalists. Thank you to the sizeable and interested audiences who attended both lectures, and for the probing questions I received at both places.

I posted a working version of the introduction earlier this week, here. I offer here a leaner and revised introduction and first part of the lecture in this post, which concentrates mainly on (a different telling) of the political philosophy of the Framers. A second part, on the positive vision of the Anti-federalists, will follow shortly.
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The Wisdom of the Anti-federalists


For many years, the dominant debates over the nature of the Constitution have pitted conservatives against liberals – with conservatives taking the view that we must become strict interpreters of the Constitution in accordance with the intentions of the Framers or those who ratified the document, and with liberals arguing on behalf of a “living Constitution” that should and must change in accordance with evolving community standards. Conservatives have become ardent defenders of the vision of the Framers, seeing there a strong and forceful articulation of a conservative direction for the nation.

However, if we revisit the debates at the time that the nation was considering adoption of the Constitution, we discover that the conservatives opposed adoption of the Constitution, while it was the "liberals" who urged its ratification. What does it mean now to be a "conservative" of a liberal regime? What of the original arguments by the conservative opponents of the Constitution - can it offer any resources for contemporary conservatives (or some liberals of a more localist stripe, for that matter)? Does their vision have any relevance for our age?

I think there are reasons to question our the well-established narrative about our Founding, and these are particularly important times to do so. We are, of course, in the midst of a remarkable national moment, a fundamental reassessment of the role and place of the central government in the lives of American citizens, a massive expansion of the role of the government in the economic and personal affairs of the daily life of the nation. Anyone who has observed the behavior of our two "parties" should be struck by the singularity of purpose when it comes to certain core features of contemporary politics - namely, growth, mastery and dominion, all justifying ever-increasing power to the center.

Taking a slightly longer view, for over the past half-century in the United States, and longer still in the wider Western world, the political scene has been divided between these respective partisans of liberalism and conservatism. During those fifty years, conservatives were often in the ascendancy, with conservative gains particularly of note in the United States in the Presidential victories of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes, with a pause during the two terms of President Bill Clinton during which arguably many conservative policies were realized. Yet, even during this time of seeming bitter partisan ire and considerable conservative achievement, over that time frame the expansion of what outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower called “the military-industrial” complex has continued unceasingly. The aim of both American parties – irrespective of different means – has been to promote economic growth and to pursue American military predominance in the world. More fundamentally still, both seek, with some different emphases, to expand the modern project of human progress in the sciences and applied technology, extending the human mastery of the world that was the stated aim of one of modernity’s inaugural thinkers, Sir Francis Bacon. Both agree that human happiness is measured by the achievement of “the American Dream,” a dream whose content is often evanescent, but which often tends to mean our material abundance, free movement from place to place, the ownership of a house and two cars, the chance to run in the race for success, the opportunity to “pursue happiness,” a society of meritocracy, mobility and opportunity. To that end, both have recently dedicated themselves to the revival of an economy premised on unending growth and expansion, at whatever cost. For all of the many differences in particulars, which take the form of means, the ends shared by both parties are remarkably similar. It is an end that does not seem to me to be particularly conservative.

To expand the dimensions of this well-worn debate, even to insert a more truly conservative perspective into the mix, it is of great profit to consider one of the earliest debates in the nation’s history. Some two-hundred and twenty years ago, a great many men were fearful of the likely consequences of the adoption of the proposed Constitution, believing it would be destructive of the self-governing capacity of the American citizenry. They feared that these consequences would not be immediate, but that, given tendencies within the framework and assumptions of the proposed Constitution, its tendency over time to shape the nation and its citizenry would lead eventually to the evisceration of the basic and essential features of republican self-government in America, and would perhaps even lead to its demise.


Particularly in this time when both so-called conservatives and so-called liberals are largely in agreement that the main aim of modern Republicanism is little different than that aim first articulated by Machiavelli and developed further by Bacon, Hobbes, Locke and Smith – namely, national glory, power, wealth and growth – Americans who would attempt to discern some possible divergence from this main project are hard pressed to find any articulation of a true alternative among today’s major parties. How strange perhaps the words of the Impartial Examiner sound, particularly the use of the words “prosperity” and “luxury” laced with negative connotations when today they are wholly positive! Such strangeness we are well advised to confront and to consider as a way of being shaken from the narrowly conceived political differences of our day, to consider a true and forceful opposition to our predominant worldview. We are well-advised to look at articulations of what might be called a submerged but powerful “alternative tradition” in American – and indeed, Western – political thought, one that was powerfully articulated by the original opponents to the Constitution.
Before turning to some of the specific arguments of the Anti-federalists, however,

I will take some moments to reflect on the particular regime that was established by the American Founders. By regime I hearken consciously back to the original meaning of the word constitution, not merely the document about which we argue on matters of interpretation, but the entire regime that was being set up – its mores, its ends, above all the citizenry it sought to constitute. I need to spend a bit of time discussing the political philosophy of the Constitution – a political philosophy that was more evident at the time of the Founding precisely because of live alternatives that were available, and one that is daily more difficult for us to perceive because we are shaped so fully in its image. Like water to a fish, we are largely incapable of seeing the very element in which we swim.


Constitution as Regime

While we tend to think of the Constitution as a document that laid out the various arrangements of our government, the Constitution was informed by a deeper political philosophy that was reflected in those governmental arrangements. Nowhere was that philosophy made more explicit than in the main document defending those arrangements, The Federalist Papers. In particular, I will focus on three core assumptions of the Framers, namely a regime of self-interest, individualism and rule of elites. Later, I will contrast this to three core elements of the theory of the Anti-federalist, namely the centrality of virtue, political liberty and common sense knowledge lodged broadly in the populace.

1st. The Framers drew on the philosophy of early-modern liberalism and its forbears, Machiavelli and Hobbes. As such, they had a specific view of human nature that derived from these philosophies, ones that had rejected the teachings of the ancients, and particularly ancient and Christian views. In particular, the Framers drew on the early-modern state of nature theorists who held that humans are understood to be by nature free and independent from obligations to fellow creatures. We are defined above all by the separateness of our bodies – bodies that we own – and that above all we are driven by two fundamental and at times contradictory impulses, namely fear – above all, fear of death – and desire, above all the desires for bodily satisfaction. In the primary instance we seek self-preservation; securing that basic desideratum, we are driven to pursue the pleasures largely of the body, whether described as “the indolency of the body” by Locke or “commodious living” by Hobbes.

Our only means of securing either self-preservation or “commodious living” is through consensual relinquishment of full dimension of our natural rights. Together we agree to put ourselves under a sovereign who will enforce terms of a consent-based “contract” whereby we agree to live under law, law that aims largely (or at least initially) to prevent us from harming one another while leaving us free to pursue our individual goods, particularly by means of legal protection of property.

The sole motive that can be relied upon for the functioning of this modern political project is self-interest. Self-interest motivates us into the Social Contract in the first place, and it keeps us in adherence to its precepts, through fear of punishment and allure of greater gain. Self-interest is the engine for human progress in the modern project aimed at the conquest of nature, and our ineradicable desire for self-preservation is the main wellspring. As Leo Strauss wrote of the modern philosophy inaugurated by Machiavelli, the moderns built on the “low but solid ground” of self-interest, understanding that fear of pain and desire for pleasure were the two most reliable building blocks for human society. Similarly, James Madison acknowledged in his famous Federalits 10 that “neither moral nor religious motives can be relied upon” in building a regime. “Moral and religious motives,” – motives that seek to tame self-interest and foster a degree of selflessness and aspire to a shared understanding of the common good – are unreliable and always imperfect, thus always rendering dubious the success of any regime that attempts to foster such forms of public virtue.

2nd . The manner of this channeling becomes of utmost importance in the design of the new Constitution. The government itself is designed to foster competition and jealousy amongst the various elected officials, through division and balancing of powers, and channeling their ambitions toward the productive end of national glory. The more difficult challenge, it could be argued, becomes how to restrain the self-interested electorate from overwhelming the government with a concerted effort to achieve its narrow self-interested ends. Madison addresses this major fear in Federalist 10 especially. A minority driven by self-interest will be defeated by the “majority principle”; simply put, they will be defeated at the ballot box. More of concern is the potential for majority tyranny, a concerted and long-standing majority that will seek to control the levers of government for narrowly partisan ends. Madison proposes two solutions to this thorny problem (here dismissing “moral and religious motives”), namely the role of representation (which I will discuss shortly) and a vast expanse of the nation that is to be created. “Extend the sphere,” he writes, “and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked, that where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust, in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.”

For a long period, this argument of Madison’s has been considered to be the ur-source of a theory of interest-group pluralism, an explanation of and justification for the promotion of a large variety of interest groups that compete with each other in the public sphere in order to determine (according to Harold Laswell), “who gets what, when, and how.” Yet we should notice that this is not exactly what Madison is arguing here. What he is in fact arguing is that a large geographic space composed of many interests will, in fact, be a deterrent to widespread political involvement. In the first instance, it will be difficult; in the second instance, aware that the motives of our fellow citizens are self-interested – that is (as Madison says), “where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes” – we will be hesitant to join in any public endeavor with fellow citizens that may put us in a tenuous public position. “Communication is always checked by distrust, in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary,” writes Madison, meaning that the more people are likely to be involved, the less likely we will be to know them, and the more we will necessarily distrust their motives and intentions. We will, in fact, have significant incentives and warrant to avoid public involvement, an inclination that is fortified by the opportunities and motivations that we have to pursue purely private means of satisfaction. Interest group pluralism may be one consequence of Madison’s arguments, but those interest groups will be composed of a small number of elite, professional operatives who speak on our behalves but with whom we share only an impersonal relationship, if any.

This solution is particularly attractive to the Federalists given their theory of human nature, which holds that humans brought together in concert are prone to irrational passion and even madness. Not only, Madison argues, are “men not angels,” but even men who might be considered be decent and rational are only likely to be so because of relative isolation from their fellow citizens, not because of any internal quality of character. While a nation of philosophers might be wished for, Madison avers, it would not matter how accomplished and rational a philosopher once placed in a political setting with a sizeable company of fellow citizens. As he wrote – quite remarkably – in Paper 55, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” This stunning assertion follows from the Framer’s theory, namely that human passion cannot be educated – “neither moral nor religious motives can be relied upon” – and should not be excessively controlled in a liberal government, and hence, in the best case, is simply rendered inert. The passions can be disciplined without much force because, as Madison suggests, humans on the whole are rendered tractable when individuals live largely separated from one another: “The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone; and acquires firmness and confidence, in proportion to the number with which it is associated.” (Fed. 49). Individuals living in a large state where they find it difficult to “communicate and concert” and even, when able, distrust the motives of their fellow citizens, are likely to feel “timid and cautious.” We are to be largely alone – existing in that condition that Tocqueville would later describe as “individualism.”

3rd. Lastly, also in response to fears of majority tyranny, the Framers argue on behalf of a particular vision of representation and administration that will ensure the advance of the modern project of dominion and is intended to have the long-term effect of drawing the devotions and attention of the citizenry away from their local settings and instead turning their focus toward the national government. The modern principle of representation, Madison argues in Federalist 10, plays a key role in reducing the likelihood of majority tyranny. Representatives drawn from large districts or the entire state are likely to be the most prominent and ambitious men in their areas. Their visibility will be the result of their efforts at achieving greatness, and thus will be more likely to have ambitions that go far beyond the local sphere. Responding to one particular Anti-federalist worry – that the national government will usurp the functions of the State governments – Hamilton offers a back-handed assurance that nothing could be further from the truth. In paper 17 he avers that the mundane functions of the State governments would hold out little attraction to men of affairs: “The regulation of mere domestic police of a state, appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition. Commerce, finance, negotiation and war, seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds, governed by that passion; and all the powers necessary to those objects ought, in the first instance, to be lodged in the national depository.” The affairs of the states, confined to such minor concerns as agriculture and operations of the civil courts, “would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, to the splendor, of the national government.”

The men who will be attracted to, and are more likely to be elected to serve in, the national government are drawn precisely by those activities that hold out “charms for minds”: they are men of ambition who seek an appropriate stage for their and the national “dignity…, importance…, and splendor.” Thus, representatives are not simply to be vessels for the more limited and local concerns of their constituents, and in particular will not be charmed by less than lofty aims of even majority factions (were any ever to come into existence). Rather, as Madison writes in Federalist 10, representation is intended in the Constitutional system “to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen, that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good, than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for that purpose.” While Madison does not say as much here, what will constitute “the true interest of their country” is consonant with what later Hamilton describes as “dignity, importance, and splendor.” The very nature of the representatives likely to be sufficiently prominent and ambitious to be elected will ensure that the leaders of the national government have a fairly uniform view of the fundamental goals of the regime – namely, national ambition – regardless of the various checks and balances that will check individual ambition. If the Framers mistakenly believed that parties would not be a presence in the government that they devised, nevertheless it could be argued without too much overstatement that there has really been only one successful party in American political history, the party of national splendor.

Over time, the Founders believed, the citizenry as a whole would come to adopt the regime’s priorities of national splendor, greatness, power and wealth. While much of the citizenry during the time of the ratification identified more strongly with their localities or States than any national institution, over time the Framers believed that a successful national government would displace those localities in the affections of the citizens. Hamilton believed that human sympathies lay naturally closer to local bonds and circumstance, but that those natural sympathies could be superseded by successful national government. As he wrote (further) in Federalist 17, “Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large, the people of each state would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments, than towards the government of the union, unless the force of that principle should be destroyed by a much better administration of the latter” (Fed. 17, emphasis mine). Given the assumption of the Framers that “speculative men” of ambition would be drawn to the national government, and the orientation of the Constitution toward economic integration and the means to achieve military power, there can be little doubt that the Framers assumed that more natural local attachments would eventually be displaced in preference to the activities of the national government. That the very functions of State governments that they deemed to be too uninteresting for the national government – such as agriculture and civil justice – would in fact be eventually accrued to the center, and that a train of state governors would leave their posts to join a national administration of those sorts of activities would someday become the norm, might not have been foreseen by the Framers, but is not out of keeping with the general direction and trajectory of the regime that they designed.

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I will turn in my next post to consider a few features of what the Anti-federalists sought to defend, preserve, or inculcate – not only what they were against, but what they were for.