The Founding Fathers

 

MRP, 4/12/14

 

In accepting his party’s nomination for the Presidency in 1920, Warren Harding said, in part, “It was the intent of the founding fathers to give this Republic a dependable and enduring popular Government.” So far as we know, this is the first use of the term ‘founding fathers’, so by his utterance we have Harding to thank for what has become a bothersome issue today.

 

Over the years since Harding’s speech, more and more people have taken to defending this or that political opinion by invoking The Founding Fathers, as in, “it’s what The Founding Fathers intended”. Conversely, many speak out against this or that political position by saying “it’s not what The Founding Fathers intended.”

 

Both sides of the political spectrum fall back on this trope, but more often than not it tends to be used by those on the right, and for obvious reasons. An instinctive, reverent reliance upon a fixed, immutable source of Original Truth is a more conservative habit – in the same manner that the more conservative strains of Christianity tend to have a more literal and inerrant view of the Bible.

 

Precisely who are The Founding Fathers, though, and what was it they intended? And, do we shortchange them and handicap ourselves when we try find answers to all our present problems by scrutinizing their lives and works as if they were some sort of historical Ouija board?

 

Who Are The Founding Fathers?

 

Are The Founding Fathers that group of a half-dozen or so famous names we learned in School House Rock videos and history classes? Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin and Madison seem to be the most common men associated with the honorific Founding Father. Or, are The Founding Fathers a broader group – say, those who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence or to the Constitution? What about the men who signed the Articles of Confederation? Are they part of this exclusive club? Perhaps, in fairness, our definition should include the various jurists, writers, ministers and others who helped spread the cause of independence. Actually, a sound argument could be made that anyone who took part in fighting the Revolution should be considered part of the The Founding Fathers – surely, the hardships endured fighting in the Continental Army earned them that right. Perhaps the Founding Fathers should properly be considered to be the entire Revolutionary generation – the men and women who fought, agitated, wrote, suffered, sacrificed and persevered so that the United States could be an independent nation.

 

The point is if we cannot agree on who The Founding Fathers are (and I submit we cannot), how wise is it to attribute any particular idea or set of ideas to them as a group?

 

What The Founding Fathers Wanted

 

Regardless of what definition we might chose to use as to who is and who is not a Founding Father, there was little outside of the immediate goal of independence from the British crown that they agreed upon. Even using the most limited subset of these individuals, there were significant differences in their philosophies of government.

 

And yet, many people cite The Founding Fathers’ intent as if it were a monolithic marker – a monument to a time when America was pure and all agreed on the right path to national prosperity and goodness.

 

Hogwash. The Founding Fathers, however we define them, were as divided then as we are today. Washington, Hamilton and Adams, at times, would have described Jefferson as a hopelessly naïve and unrealistic man-child; a dilettante more suited to academia than governing. Jefferson, at times, might have said that Washington and the Federalists were despotic monarchists who wanted to establish an autocracy for their own benefit and for the benefit of the moneyed elites. There were bitter, angry rivalries between these men, as bad as anything we fret about in politics today. Editors and like-minded partisans also took up the venom, to wit:

 

In 1796, the Philadelphia Aurora, an anti-Federalist paper, had this to say about George Washington:

 

- “If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington."

 

Writing an open letter to Washington, Thomas Paine once said:

 

- “And as to you sir, treacherous to private friendship...and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principals, or whether you ever had any..."

 

In 1792, Representative William Loughton Smith of South Carolina said of Jefferson:

 

- “A ridiculous affectation of simplicity, styling himself in the public papers and on invitation cards, plain Thomas, and similar frivolities....under the assumed cloak of humility lurks the most ambitious spirit, the most overweening pride and hauteur.”

 

In 1804, Senator Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts wrote of the squire of Monticello:

 

- “The Coward wretch at the head, while, like a Parisian revolutionary monster, pratting about humanity, could feel an infernal pleasure in the utter destruction of his opponents. We have too long witnessed his general turpitude.”

 

Many would have said Franklin was nothing but a dirty old man, and still more would have sworn Hamilton was a lunatic.

 

None of this is meant to drag any of these men down. It is an attempt to show that these whom many Americans today uncritically adore, and in whom few dare to find fault were, even in their own times, the subject of harsh and sincere criticism. In something of a paradox, the harshest and most sincere criticism often came from others in whom many Americans today find no fault.

 

As to the Constitution, it contains scarcely a word or phrase that had the unanimous concurrence of all the delegates in Philadelphia. And, all sides in the debates over how the country should be governed after its ratification believed that the Constitution supported their particular ideas to the exclusion of all others. The notion that there is a single correct way to interpret most portions of the Constitution is nonsense – there wasn’t as its ink dried, and there isn’t today.  

 

How Should We Approach The Founding Fathers?

 

The Founding Fathers were, to use a word which is out of favor with many today, intellectuals. The notion that their progeny would seek to divine their intent in order to solve problems which they couldn’t have conceived of in the 18th and early 19th centuries would drive them to drink. It might make them wonder if the sacrifice of the Revolution had been worth it, if only to have it give rise to a nation of people too intellectually timid or insecure to use their own judgment and experience to chart their own course.

 

They gave us a brilliant outline of governance. They provided us with a recitation of fundamental rights which is invaluable. However, they can offer little or nothing to help us as we debate health care reform, income inequality, a broken infrastructure, poverty, terrorism, environmental issues and other critical matters. Don’t like taxes? Don’t ask The Founding Fathers for help. Their objection to taxation came when they were taxed by an absent King. Once independent of the Crown, there were few things they didn’t tax or try to tax. Even on an issue like guns, they provided only a conditional endorsement of the personal possession of firearms: the new nation needed a militia to guard against attack, and for that reason the people had to be allowed to own firearms. Fast-forward 250 years, and they’d shake their heads at our reflexive deference to their 18th century sensibilities as we discuss and debate the role of guns in our country today.

 

However we chose to define The Founding Fathers, let us honor what they did. Let us remember and respect their shared sacrifice, but let us also remember they were human beings like ourselves. No political or intellectual vice which besets us now was not present among them, and no political or intellectual virtue they possessed cannot be found in our country today.