4. THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
THE FINAL PRODUCT
| CONTENTS
 The process of coming to an agreement
 A Federation replaces the Confederation
 A government that draws its powers from the people – not vice versa
 What were the guarantees that this would work?
 The Federalist Papers and the process of ratification
 The geographic redesign of the Union
The textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work
America – The Covenant Nation © 2021, Volume One, pages 156-173.
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A Timeline of Major Events during this period
| 1780s |
The American Union's new Republic (1787)
1787 A Convention of the various state representatives meets during a long hot summer in Philadelphia (May-Sep), debating the interests of the small states (equal representation of all states vested in the New Jersey Plan) versus the interest of the large states (proportional representation according to population size vested in the Virginia Plan)
With debate
largely deadlock between the contending interests, the American sage,
Ben Franklin, in late June, calls for daily meetings to begin in prayer, to get the
representatives to think higher than merely their own
state's political interests ... reminding them that God had plans for
America that had nothing to do with their respective political interests
Roger Sherman's "Connecticut Compromise (or "Great Compromise") is
gradually (Jul) accepted, finally opening the
way finally to the drafting of a Constitution for the new Federal Union
The Continental
Congress meanwhile passes the Northwest Ordinance (Jul) setting up
plans for a number of slave-free
states, eventually to become members of the new Federal Union
1788 Federalists (nationalists) and Anti-Federalists (states-righters) debate constitutional ratification; Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay write The Federalist Papers, (some 85 articles) advocating ratification
The Federalists
carry the day, bringing the new Constitution to ratification (summer)
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THE PROCESS OF COMING TO AN AGREEMENT |
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A
note of caution here
It is extremely important to note that the
delegates who gathered in Philadelphia to devise a new political
formula for the purpose of a closer political union among the thirteen
states, were not (like the French) inexperienced in republican
self-government. Not only had Americans been operating for years under
the Confederation government, but the states these delegates
represented had already put into effect their own constitutions as
independent states. Thus each of them had a pretty good idea of what
American government was to look like, at least in principle.
Indeed, Americans had been practicing some form or
other of constitutional self-government since their ancestors put
England behind them in coming to America, some century and a half
earlier.1
Thus it is important to note that these Founding
Fathers of the late 1700s were not inventing self-government. They
already understood quite well the principles involved in effective
self-government. Rather, they were trying to figure out a formula for
collective self-government that would allow them to continue to work
together as a union at a level higher than each newly independent
state.
They were not naive (like the French, and like
many Americans today), believing that some utopian formula discovered
by some political genius among them was what they needed. Rather, they
knew that each delegate that gathered there had a somewhat different
political agenda he would be pursuing – and they were going to have to
work together in full respect of those different agendas or interests
if together they were going to find the necessary common ground on
which to build a new union government.
With the benefit of considerable political
experience, and with God's counsel opening their hearts to each other,
they would succeed.
In short, American government itself was not
birthed in 1787 – as we so often tend to imply when we talk about the
birth of the Republic that year. Actually, long-standing traditions in
American government were simply adjusted to meet the ever-clearer needs
for a more effective union among the thirteen newly independent states.
Divergent interests
By no means did the
fifty-five delegates who gathered in Philadelphia at the end of May in
1787 have the same idea, some widely agreed upon logic, as to what was
supposed to result from their work. They represented not only a wide
array of states, big and small, but also different life-styles (major
plantation owners, prosperous urban tradesmen, lawyers, etc.). The
states they represented also found themselves in deep contention about
how exactly their particular borders extended to the West beyond the
Appalachian Mountains. And most important, they held very different
ideas about what kind of government reforms they wanted to see take
place.
Federalists and Anti-Federalists
Some like
Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison were
strong nationalists or Federalists who were hoping to see a much
stronger political hand holding the thirteen states together. But
others who came to Philadelphia were of the opposite opinion, thus
strongly Anti-Federalist, fearing that just such a political union
would usurp the very freedoms they had so recently fought to secure
against the ambitions of the English King George III. In fact, major
figures in the recent War of Independence, such as Samuel Adams and
Patrick Henry had refused to participate in the Convention, fearing
that it would saddle them with just such a government. Likewise, the
tiny state of Rhode Island did not even bother to send participants to
the meeting, fearing the loss of their independence to the interests of
the larger states such as Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and
Virginia.
The Virginia Plan
Almost immediately upon arrival to Philadelphia the delegates set aside
the idea of merely amending the Articles of Confederation. Indeed,
James Madison had busied himself in drafting up a proposal before the
Convention had even convened. His proposal set out some basic
principles which pointed to a national government with a number of
strong powers, which his own Virginia delegation and the Pennsylvania
delegation were quick to agree on, thus giving it considerable weight.
Indeed his Virginia Plan was put forward at the Convention as the
opening document, calling up countering documents, or at least offering
itself as a document to which amendments and details could then be
added.
His Virginia Plan provided for a bicameral
legislature of two separate bodies, an upper and a lower house, on the
order of the English Parliament with its House of Lords and House of
Commons, a principle followed as well in the design of the governments
of most of the individual states. In this it departed from the
Confederation's single or unicameral assembly (the Continental
Congress), which had demonstrated how a unicameral legislature tended
to be easily susceptible to the swings of political mood which
accompanied popular politics (politics of the people). The hope was
that a second legislative body could counterbalance the passions of a
popular assembly because, like the English House of Lords, the second
body would be expected to be made up of a smaller group of more
distinguished statesmen. However, how that group might be chosen was
left open as a key question.
Also Madison's Virginia Plan provided for a
stronger, more independent executive, not quite like a king but
stronger than the executives of the Confederation – and many of the
states – who were largely dependent on the legislative bodies for their
powers, and thus lacking in any significant power to direct and lead
the nation. Anyway, most of the delegates were expecting Washington to
head up the new government, and it was important to assign him
sufficient powers and independence of action to bring his talents to
full service to the country. But the question remained: was he to be
the sole executive (and thus more like a king) or was he to share his
function with one or two others (as was done anciently)? What would be
his term of service: serving for life (and thus indeed like a king), or
elected, and probably re-elected, annually or for periods of greater
length?
And there was the matter of the judiciary or body
of judges, who by English tradition were extensions of the king's
authority. Efforts of the states to make their judges instead dependent
on the appointive powers of the legislatures had produced less than
distinguished judges, and elements of well-known political corruption.
How such judges should be selected was thus a major problem that
brought on much debate.
The debate begins
The first issue to come
under heated debate was the selection of the representatives to the new
Congress. The Virginia Plan assumed that the size of the representation
in Congress (both upper and lower houses) would be on the basis of the
number of voters in each state, which would clearly give the bigger
states a dominant voice in the new government. But Virginia seemed
willing to listen to some kind of compromise that would bring the
states together in their thinking.
1The royal charters of the 1600s that birthed each of the American colonies
were themselves "constitutions" of sorts, describing precisely the
purposes and practices that the colonies were to live by.
| The smaller states were hoping for equal
representation by the states, irrespective of size. Representing the
interests of the smaller states, the New Jersey delegates thus offered
a counter-proposal to the Virginia Plan which called for the continuing
existence of the Continental Congress as a single unicameral body, with
each member state holding equal representation, despite the size, large
or small, of each state.2 But it would be given new powers such as in
the collecting of taxes and the power to override the state laws. This
gave the smaller states a rallying point to put forward their political
interests. But overall it was an idea that the larger states clearly
were unwilling to accept.
The Connecticut Compromise
Then Roger Sherman of Connecticut offered an idea supporting the
Virginia Plan's call for a bicameral Congress, but with one chamber
(the House of Representatives) giving the states representation on the
basis of the relative size of their population, but the second chamber
(the Senate) giving each of the states equal representation (desired by
the smaller states). At first Sherman's idea was rejected, as the
states large and small were holding out in protection of their
respective political interests.3 Also there were other issues that
undermined the spirit of compromise necessary to break the political
impasse.
One of the issues that would long stir turmoil in
the new Republic was this matter of slavery. Almost half of the
delegates to the Convention (and all of the Virginia and South Carolina
delegates) were slave owners. But in general Northerners tended to be
adamantly opposed to the idea and practice of slavery; indeed many of
the Northern states had included a total prohibition of slavery in
their new state constitutions. But Southerners could not bring
themselves to imagine seriously a Southern economy able to function
without slavery. Some made it clear that they would not join the new
Union if slavery were somehow disallowed.
Moreover, the Southern states were adamant on the
matter of including their slaves in the calculation of the
representation in the House of Representatives. But Northerners were
quick to point out that slaves weren't citizens. Thus should they be
counted at all? Some Northerners even quipped that since slaves had
merely the status of property rather than of free citizen, Northern
cattle should be added to the count for the Northern representation in
the House of Representatives!4
Ultimately another compromise was eventually reached when it was decided that slaves should count as three-fifths of a person!
Anyway, most of the Southern Framers were of the
opinion that slavery would soon die a natural death, though they had no
idea of how that might happen. And so they basically dodged the issue –
and would continue to do so until it blew up in their faces in the
early 1860s.
2The
Continental Congress which had guided the 13 states during the War of
Independence had given each state simply a single vote, regardless of
the number of individuals – usually two to six or seven – a state had
representing it in Congress.
3It
was at this point that Franklin asked the Convention to bring God into
its deliberations as a means of transcending their deep differences.
4Indians were never part of the count!
A FEDERATION REPLACES THE CONFEDERATION |
Signing the Constitution
of the United States – by Howard Chandler Christy
Architect of the Capitol
The U.S. Constitution
What
the Framers ultimately came up with as they concluded their work in
mid-September was a central or federal political authority with just
enough power to keep the states working together in a sense of American
unity, but with enough limits to its powers to insure that it would not
fall into the human sin of unchecked power hunger that led inevitably
to tyranny.
In a sense what they had finally
agreed on was a new treaty of political alliance among the thirteen
independent states,5 a treaty stronger than the one that had empowered
the Confederation. This new treaty instead provided for a federation,
meaning a political union with strong powers (though only in certain
carefully prescribed areas of governance) assigned to a central
authority by the still quite strong individual state governments that
made up the Union.
5Although
Rhode Island did not send a delegation to participate in the drafting
of the new Constitution, Rhode Island did finally join the Union in
1790.
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Congress or the legislative branch of the federal government
The heart of this federation was to be a newly empowered Congress (one with
wider powers than the older Continental Congress), which would meet
periodically to enact certain categories of legislation for the Union.
This Congress, as per the Connecticut Compromise, was to be made up of
two separate assemblies. The lower house, the House of Representatives,
would represent the American people directly, elected by them and thus
giving the new federal Union something of a democratic quality. But the
upper house, the Senate, would represent instead the states, each of
the participating states being permitted to select and send two of its
most respected statesmen to Congress to give direct voice to the
interests of their respective states. Also, the Senate was supposed to
be something of a more aristocratic assembly, a council of political
dignitaries who were to keep cooler political heads than what might be
expected of the representatives of the people in the House of
Representatives.6 But in any case, Congress would be able to function
only as both the House and the Senate worked together.
6However,
the Senate was "democratized" in 1913 with the passing of the
Seventeenth Amendment, having the voters of each state, rather than the
state assemblies, select their two senators.
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The president or the executive branch
Congress was intended to be the political center of the whole system: a
place where representatives of the states and the American people
themselves might gather to do the business of the Union. But the
Constitution provided also for an executive officer, a president, whose
primary job was to oversee the ongoing unity of these United States. He
was to be no king but only a political supervisor elected for a term of
four years (presumably renewable however), elected not by the people,
but by the states whose union he presided over. Actually it was the
duty of an electoral college to choose the president (called into
existence every four years solely for that single purpose), each state
accorded a number of electors equal to the number of representatives
they were entitled to have in the House of Representatives, plus an
additional two electors (as thus also each state had two senators).
Each state was given the right or responsibility to decide who those
electors were to be, with the important restriction being that they
could not be chosen from among the ranks of a state's congressional
representatives or senators.
The president was given a key leadership duty in
being the one to call Congress into legislative session (even call
special sessions of Congress if need be) and to report to Congress on
his observations as to the "State of the Union." He was also expected
to be the enforcer, that is, the one assigned the task of seeing that
the laws passed by Congress were indeed faithfully executed or followed
throughout the Union. In short, he was seen primarily as an executor of
Congress's legislation, although possessing limited veto or blocking
power if he deemed such legislation inappropriate to the health of the
Union. But even then, if Congress could on a second attempt at passage
gather, instead of just the usual simple majority for passage, a full
two-thirds vote approving the proposed bill (a much more difficult
political feat to carry off), Congress could override the president's
veto, and the bill would become in fact actual law.
The president did have additional functions that
fell to him alone, such as sending and receiving diplomats, symbolizing
the majesty of the United States, and along those same lines was given
the responsibility of overseeing the country's relations with other
countries. He also was given the responsibility of serving as the
commander in chief of the U.S. military, a vital role in the follow-up
to his foreign policy responsibilities (however he could not actually
employ this military except when specifically authorized to do so by
the Congress). And also, as Congress met only periodically, he (and his
cabinet staff) was given the task of the ongoing or day-to-day
administration of the federal system at the all-union or national7
level.
7Actually,
it would be wrong to characterize the United States as a nation at this
point. Certainly citizens had some kind of collective or national
identity as Americans. But that sentiment would develop in depth only
later. At the moment they still saw themselves primarily as New
Yorkers, Virginians, Georgians, etc.
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The Supreme Court or the judicial branch
The Constitution also described a Supreme Court of federal judges or
justices, largely expected to act in accordance with British legal
tradition in seeing to the fair application of the laws of the
legislature (Congress) in disputes that might arise with the actual
application of the law to particular circumstances. The judges were to
see that such disputes were indeed settled in accordance with their
well-informed understanding of the meaning of the law (they were
themselves lawyers of course).
The judges would be appointed by the president,
but be able to take office only after a confirming vote by the
Senate. At the time it was anticipated that the federal judges
would be
involved mostly in issues arising largely around this tricky matter of
the relationship among the different states of the Union.
The Framers obviously did not foresee that the
judges or justices serving on the Supreme Court (but also the district
courts as well) would step by step go well beyond the scope of the
originally designed Constitution to begin to reshape the law according
to the judges' own "more enlightened" personal interpretations as to
how the law ought actually to read in its application to national life.
By this is meant the justices' ability to shape, revise, or even set
aside the law of the land in accordance with merely the personal
ideological, moral or "rational" inclinations of the nine supreme court
justices themselves – or often only upon the decision of a simple
majority five of the nine justices, against the objections of the other
four. In short, over time, step by step, these individuals, possessing
unchecked and thus unlimited legal powers, would succeed in making the
Supreme Court – not Congress – the supreme legislative or law-making
body found within the American federal system. But we will have more
(much more) to say about this matter in later chapters.
The limited powers of the central government
Indeed, there was only a very limited internal or domestic governmental
role anticipated for the newly created Congress and President (and
Supreme Court) by the Framers of the new Constitution. It was
understood that the principal concern of Congress, the unifying voice
of the different states and the American people, would be limited to
those matters primarily concerning the new Union's foreign civil and
military relations with the outside world.
There were some domestic responsibilities assigned
to Congress. It had a number of financial powers, such as creating its
own tax sources; establishing, regulating and protecting a national
coinage or currency; borrowing on credit; standardizing the rules of
bankruptcy throughout the United States. Congress could establish a
Union-wide postal service and post roads. It was to encourage the
development of science and the arts through standardizing weights and
measures, creating uniform copyright or trademark protections. It was
to create uniform rules by which people could attain citizenship
("naturalization").
The most interventionist of
the clauses of the
Constitution in the domestic affairs of the Union was the power
assigned to Congress to regulate commerce among the states (the
interstate commerce clause). But interstate commerce was seen simply
as the issue of the states raising trade protections against each other
– a practice the Constitution was designed to bring to an end. It was
not intended as an open door for Congress (or the president or the
Supreme Court) to become involved in the internal affairs of America
(as would in time indeed become the case).
The residual powers of the states in the federal system
So, with the exception of the specifically named powers of Congress to
act on domestic issues, the states – and the states alone – were the
only part of the federal system authorized to provide the people
domestic government, that is, government inside the Union itself, as
the American people themselves chose to do so through their
representatives elected and commissioned to serve on their state
assemblies and governing councils.
A republic rather than a democracy
It is
important to note that the word "democracy" never appeared in the
Constitution. The Constitution did define the political nature of this
new political order as being republican – very specifically stating
that any new states eventually joining the Union (Kentucky stood at the
door expecting to become part of the Union very soon at that point)
must be republican in character. The republican character of the Union
was a matter that Congress itself was importantly to look after.
The rule of law rather than personal or even popular will
To the Framers, democracy, as much as monarchy or aristocracy, implied
the rule of the human will, whether the will of the many, of only one
or of a special few. The framers understood that any form of government
directed by the will of human agents, however many or however few, was
easily susceptible to tyranny.
Rome's Twelve Bronze Tablets
Rather, the Framers were looking to establish the
rule of law – concrete principles that could be etched into stone or
inscribed in bronze (as they anciently had been in the Roman Forum),
principles that would stand for all times for the community. Humans and
their personal desires would come and go. But laws carefully enacted
through the constitutional directives they were putting into effect
would not be easily swayed by changing human desires and fancies. No,
the new government would be a government not of men but of laws.
The Romans had constructed such a political
system. They too had believed (in accordance with the ancient Romans'
typical love of order over impulse) that a government should be a
system of laws, not personal wills. The Framers agreed strongly with
this same principle. Their hope was that, unlike the Romans who failed
to hold to this fundamental principle, Americans would remain vigilant
in maintaining the idea of government as a regime of laws rather than
human wills.
This was the central idea directing the
deliberations of the Framers of the Constitution that summer of 1787.
They would create a Republic built solidly on constitutional law. But
the question still remained: would the American people be able to
maintain this Republic any better than had the Romans?
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A GOVERNMENT THAT DRAWS ITS POWERS FROM THE PEOPLE – NOT VICE VERSA |
| Further
securing the rights of the people against governmental tyranny –
through the addition of 10 Amendments. Not surprisingly, the final
draft of the Constitution the Framers put together still left
unresolved considerable concern among some Americans about the dangers
of potential tyranny in this new system. Consequently, in order to win
over the reluctance of such Anti-Federalist or states'-rights people as
Jefferson and other prominent Virginians, a promise was made by the
Framers that the Constitution would be immediately amended upon taking
effect to include a number of additional constitutional Articles
further guaranteeing American freedoms against this new government,
something Americans know today as their Bill of Rights.
Prominent among these guarantees is the very First of these Amendments:
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
This Amendment concerning the people's right to
worship, speak, read, gather peacefully and petition their government
was placed in the prominent position as the First Amendment to the
Constitution, emphasizing the guarantee that the new federal authority
would not infringe on the personal rights of Americans, rights that
Americans had built their lives on and therefore rights that they
demanded full respect for by any governing body taking social authority
in their world.8
The Second and Third Amendments concerned
respectively the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the
forbidding of the stationing of troops in people's homes without their
consent.
The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth
Amendments concerned the rights of the people in the official process
of an arrest, trial and sentencing.
And the Ninth and Tenth Amendments made it clear
that the states and the people retained full rights on all matters not
specifically assigned by the Constitution to the central authorities
within the federal system:
9. The enumeration in the Constitution, of
certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people.
10. The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
These last two Amendments were extremely critical – in promising that other than the powers specifically described in the
constitutional document as accorded to the central or national branches
of the federation, all other powers of government would remain reserved
entirely as the privilege and responsibility of the states, or the
people of those states.
The question nonetheless remained: would such
constitutional guarantees be sufficient to hold back the tendency of
social authorities, especially those who see themselves as
exceptionally enlightened, to want to expand their powers of control
over the people? This was very much part of the great political
question that had bothered philosophers since ancient times: quis
custodiet ipsos custodes / who (or what) will govern those who govern?
Will the people control their government – or will their government
control them? Who will be sovereign: the people themselves, or some
special government authority towering over them?
This matter of sovereignty
 The issue of sovereignty, whether the states' or the people's, had
weighed heavily over the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention.
The word sovereignty means rule over. According to long established
European political custom, the sovereign was the king. The king ruled
over his subjects. The people literally lived and functioned at his
tolerance and under his direction. French King Louis XIV (1643-1715)
had perfected this idea in France: the king rightly should enjoy total
or despotic powers over the people because he would be expected to be
the most enlightened member of the community and therefore in the best
position to know what was right for the community he ruled over. This
idea was then quickly picked up by other European kings, including, a
century later, the English king George III.
This piece of royalist logic did not sit well with
the American subjects of the English king. For a century and a half,
since they had left England and crossed a great ocean to start life
anew in America, they had needed no king to do their thinking for them.
For that century and a half they had been left alone to rule
themselves. Families and local communities managed their own affairs on
a daily basis, and on special occasions when there was a need to do
some colony-wide business, they would elect representatives to be their
voice in the management of the larger affairs of the colony. They had
done just fine as self-sovereigns and resented it immensely, finally to
the point of rebellion, when George III and his Tory supporters in
Parliament attempted to bring these free peoples under tight royal
control.
The people's divine rights
Lingering
behind this debate was the question of political legitimacy. European
kings founded or justified their despotic powers not just on the basis
of enlightenment (for even commoners could bring themselves to
enlightenment) but also on the basis of Divine will. For centuries
European kings had been claiming that they enjoyed their sovereign
position because of the desire of God himself that they should so rule.
God caused them to be born to this position. So how could anyone
question what God had decreed. After all, Deus vult, "God wills it."9 European kings (as they saw things) thus ruled by divine right.
 But
Americans not only had learned the art of self-rule through a century
and a half of effective self-government, they too felt that they had
done so as a legitimate matter – also of divine rights. They were
Protestants, heavily shaped in their thinking by the Protestant
Reformer Calvin,10 who had raised the idea that all people, kings and
commoners, enjoyed equally important responsibilities before God even
though the roles they played in society were different. As the Apostle
Paul pointed out in his letter to the Corinthians, although people are
gifted in their service to the community differently, they are all
equally important in the eyes of God and in the functioning of the
community. Each person has a distinct calling (vocation) from God to
play a key role in the life of the community. Each receives empowerment
from God in the performance of his or her vocation; each is equally
responsible before God for the proper carrying out of that vocation.
There is no room for laziness, no room for cheating, and no room for
lording it over others, for God's justice is not to be mocked. Their
ultimate accountability therefore is not to some human authority, but
to God himself.
Thus when English King George III invoked divine
rights in his attempt to bring the American colonies under his complete
control they answered with their own Divine Rights Theory.
Again, this is well stated in the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to
be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these
rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
Powers from the consent of the governed ...
 Thomas Jefferson elaborated on this a few years later in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1781), although note that he was talking about slavery in the harshest of terms (odd, he himself being a slaveowner):
God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can
the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their
only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these
liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but
with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Regardless of the source of the problem (King
George's tyranny or the evil of slavery), it was quite obvious that
there was a strong understanding in America at the time that the rights
of the people did not come from some human authority, nor from some
human institution. Those rights (and accompanying responsibilities)
came from God, and God alone.
So for those who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787
to work out the Constitution of a new American government the question
of political sovereignty was clear: it belonged (by the will of God) to
the people – or to them through the states, which, through their
elected representatives, the sovereign people controlled with their
right to vote. The rights of the American people did not, and would
never, derive from the institution of some governing state, whether
kingly, or aristocratic or even bureaucratic (professionals working
full-time for the state). It belonged naturally, by the will of their
Creator, with the people themselves. The new federal government with
its carefully defined and limited authority would function only as the
sovereign American people should empower it, either directly through
the House of Representatives or indirectly through the Senate
(representing the states, whose own political officials were generally
elected in whole or in part by the people).
Protecting and preserving the sovereignty of the people
The people's rights, of course, are hard to hang on to, as the Framers
of the Constitution were well aware, having just fought a bitter battle
against the English king and his armies to preserve their rights as
Americans. What could possibly serve as some kind of guarantee that
these rights would not be lost again, that some kind of tyranny of
those who lust after political power (and find ingenious ways of
justifying this lust morally) would not eventually arise in America?
They were quite familiar with the failures of Athens, Rome and Israel
in this regard. What could guarantee that this would not also happen to
them? This is why Franklin answered the query as to what the
Constitution architects had created: "A Republic ... if you can keep
it."
8Note
that the First Amendment makes no mention of the "separation of church
and state" which has come (via Thomas Jefferson) to be understood today
as meaning that traditional religion (Christianity, for the most part)
may not be practiced or involved in the ever-widening realm of the
nation's public domain (most notably, public schools and public grounds
of any kind). Actually, the Amendment clearly meant that the state had
no business whatsoever regulating the practice of religion – which it
does extensively today via the federal courts – in establishing
Secularism (Humanism) as the only religion allowed to be practiced in
the public domain. Precisely, the Supreme Court has taken the authority
to describe in detail exactly when and where religion could be
practiced legally, and where it is to be prohibited from being freely exercised – in clear and total violation of the First Amendment.
9An
expression that went all the way back to 1096 when Christian Crusaders
headed off to the Middle East to liberate the Holy Lands. But
eventually it became the proclamation of English kings as they
authorized new royal rules.
10Especially
the Puritans or Congregationalists, the Scottish Presbyterians, the
Dutch Reformed, the German Reformed and French Huguenot communities in
America. The Baptists (offshoots of Calvinism) and Quakers also had
this same understanding of society and its politics.
WHAT WERE THE GUARANTEES THAT HIS WOULD WORK? |
But
all of them knew the answer to that question: their sovereign rights,
their personal freedoms, could be guaranteed by no living being, no
matter how kindly disposed he might originally be. According to their
Puritan understanding, man was by nature invariably a sinner. Given
enough opportunity, power would corrupt any human heart.
A mechanical system of checks and balances
Certainly they had been careful to build into the government a system
of checks and balances which would actually use human selfishness or
political greed to good effect. The system was set up so that
cooperation among a number of various branches of government would be
required to make the system work. And cooperation meant compromise, the
necessity of having to give up the desire for total power, in order to
employ any power at all. If one of the branches of government would
start to assume more power for itself (a rather certain possibility)
this would stir the indignation of the other branches, which out of a
self-serving sense of the relative loss of their own power, would gang
up on the usurper of their joint power! A very ingenious system!
In God We Trust
But by no means did they
rely entirely – or even mostly – on this ingenious mechanical system.
They were well aware, just as Franklin had stated, that this whole
enterprise would ultimately succeed or fail on one issue, and that
alone: the will of God. They needed to stay closely in line with the
will of God, who after all had given them the victory against royal
tyranny in the first place. They needed to look to God in full trust
for such protection, look to God as "In God We Trust." Otherwise
nothing, not even clever mechanics, would protect them from human evil.
George Washington stated the case very clearly
in the speech he addressed to the nation as he took office in 1789 as
America's first president:
It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in
this first official act, my fervent supplication to that Almighty
Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of
nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect,
that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of
the people of the United States, No people can be bound to acknowledge
and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more
than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have
advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been
distinguished by some token of providential agency, We ought to be no
less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be
expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and
right, which Heaven itself has ordained.
This was not mere political posturing, this
reference to the all-important role that God had played in winning for
America its national independence, Washington's appeal to Americans to
continue to look to that same God for divine support as the nation now
moved forward. his appeal to God's favor was very serious business for
it rested on a Truth that recent experience had made very, very clear.
This was not just religious platitude, designed by Washington to
comfort the people with an assurance that he was a proper church-going
Christian (which he frequently was not). This was testimony to the
reality of politics that all of these quite astute practitioners of
politics had come to understand – at a very deep level. The American
venture would not fail, as had Athens' and Rome's and Israel's attempts
at self-government, as long as it retained a very deep sense of
connectedness to God and his hand in the affairs of man.
Christian Realism – and the Christian Covenant
In the end what we will term as the philosophy which guided these
framers of the American Constitution is "Christian Realism." This
philosophy was founded on the understanding that man can be both an
angel and a devil, prone to do good and prone to do evil. Man must be
allowed enough opportunity to put into effect his ability to do the
good, while at the same time be put under enough legal restraint to
check him against his equal ability to do evil. Ultimately only God
could be counted on to do the truly good. But man and God could work
together, with man operating under God's judgments, inspired by an awe
of God and desire to please God – yet at the same time fearful of what
might happen if he did not remember to obey God. Thus this Constitution
would work for American society, as long as Americans understood the
rules and as long as Americans freely chose to keep this Constitution
as a Covenant with God. Anything else would fail.
As Christians, the Framers of the Constitution
were well aware of the words of advice – and warning – that Moses gave
Israel as it entered the Promised Land (the very same verses that
Founding Father John Winthrop referenced in his 1630 sermon, just as
the Puritans were about to embark to begin their great Puritan
experiment):
 Observe
the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and revering
him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land – a land
with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys
and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees,
pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be
scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and
you can dig copper out of the hills.
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise
the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that
you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands,
his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when
you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,
and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold
increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become
proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of
Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ...
You may say to yourself, My power and the
strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the
LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce
wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your
forefathers, as it is today.
If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship
and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely
be destroyed. Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you
will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 8:6-20 NIV)
|
THE FEDERALIST PAPERS AND THE PROCESS OF RATIFICATION |
|
The process of ratification
Whereas some of the states were
quick to approve (ratify) the new Constitution, not everyone was
completely sold on the new Constitution. As a result, it was not until
June of the following year (1788) when New Hampshire, the ninth of the
thirteen states voting to ratify, finally put the Constitution into
full effect.11
During the debate over ratification,
Anti-Federalists, such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, had voiced
their fears through various newspaper articles that the individual
states were simply surrendering too much of the people's sovereign
rights to this new central authority. What were the guarantees that
this new government would not come to assume the powers of the royal
government they had so recently fought to free themselves from?
Federalists were quick to take up the challenge,
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay writing replies to these
questions under the pen name Publius. Some eighty-five articles were
published by these three men, each article carefully explaining the
workings and benefits of this new Constitution, a collection of
articles which have come down to us today as the famous Federalist Papers.
Madison turned some of the criticism of the Anti-Federalists on their
head, pointing out that factions would form within the government,
simply because of the size of the new country, but these factions would
serve the useful purpose of checking each other's ambitions for power,
forcing debate and clarity of thought in government, and encouraging
the people to follow political developments closely rather than just
letting government officials go about their business quietly out of the
public sight, where tyranny might then truly develop. Hamilton, for his
part, stressed how a stronger central authority would more likely
attract society's natural leaders, involving them more closely in the
building of a financially sound economic system, the best guarantee of
a society's stability (and consequently its ability to protect personal
freedom and prosperity).
And thus it was that the Federalists were able to bring the country to approving this new experiment in republican government.
The last days of the Confederation
The new
federal Constitution was not submitted to the Congress of the old
Confederation, where it probably would have faced such resistance that
it would not have passed, but was sent directly to the states for their
approval. Each state was invited to set up its own process of
ratification, usually through a special session gathered for
specifically that purpose: to approve (or reject) the new Constitution.
Thus the Congress of the Confederation was left entirely out of the
process that would bring its own existence to an end.
However, the Confederation did perform for the new
nation one final and very important service when in 1787 it set out
clearly with the passing of the Northwest Ordinance the basis for
designing and admitting new states into the Union. Having been accorded
the right by the Treaty of Paris to develop the land west to the
Mississippi as American land, the Congress had a two-fold job: 1) get
the states to stop arguing over the ownership of that land and 2)
instead set up in this territory, at least in the Northwest, a number
of candidate-states, open to settlement and to eventual admission to
the Union as full members states – as they gained a certain size of
population and established their own state Constitutions.
Thus it was that the Northwest Territory (today's
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and what would become the
eastern portion of Minnesota) was divided originally into a number of
territories or future states (ten originally, but ultimately the
five-plus described above). Also plans were drawn up for the creation
within these territories of towns and townships – according to a
precise grid pattern where each township was defined as a square of six
miles on each side, further divided into thirty-six sections of 640
acres each (one square mile). Also a section within each township was
ordered by the Northwest Ordinance to be set aside for sale for the
support of public education; and a public university was also to be
established within each of these major states.
11Delaware,
Pennsylvania and New Jersey had quickly ratified in December of 1787
and Georgia and Connecticut followed soon after in early January of
1788. Massachusetts (narrowly) ratified in February, Maryland in April,
and South Carolina in May, before New Hampshire signed on in June.
However, Virginia followed later in that same month, and New York in
July, thus assuring the Constitution that it would have the full
support of the heavyweight states. North Carolina did not ratify until
December of that year. Rhode Island, after first voting against
ratification, finally in May of 1790 approved the Constitution.
|
The three authors of the Federalist Papers: Hamilton, Madison, and Jay
|
These 84 newspaper articles were written to explain the workings of the new Constitution and its political benefits ... in the effort to get the new document officially ratified by the states.
Alexander Hamilton – by John
Trumbull (1806)
National Portrait Gallery – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
James Madison
White House
Chief Justice John Jay – by Gilbert Stuart
National
Archives
THE GEOGRAPHIC REDESIGN OF THE UNION |
|
 Miles H. Hodges
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