Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Liberal Conservatism, being the fifth part of American Conservatism
Part one. Two. Three. Four.
Before getting sidetracked a bit by an exploration of the conservative nature of the American Constitution, I alluded to the Jonah Goldberg column which discusses the classically liberal nature of American conservatism. While I do think that Locke’s influence on American political development is vastly overrated, that does not mean that his thinking is of no import, or that many similar-minded philosophers did not have a vital impact on the formation of the American republic.
The essential elements of classical liberalism that informed the Founders’ thought were liberty and limited government. Whereas Hobbes has a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature, Locke’s is ultimately much more favorable to the human condition. Since man’s condition in the state of nature is generally favorable, governments were instituted with minimal ends. The principal end of government, according to the classical view, is the maintenance of security and the preservation of life, liberty, and property (changed to pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence).
Our Constitution, then, reflected this liberal philosophy. In other words, the Framers utilized liberal means to achieve conservative ends. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Framers feared both the masses and the government, and sought to create a Constitution that balanced the two extremes.
Oddly enough, the men who met in Philadelphia were motivated by a crisis of government – a crisis of ineffective government. The Constitution they designed strengthened the federal government, but also placed strict limits on said government’s powers. In fact the reason that the original Constitution contained no Bill of Rights was due to the Framers’ insistence that the Constitution itself was a Bill of Rights. Since the powers of the federal government did not reach very far, it was unnecessary to fix rights onto parchment.
And so it was for most of the early republic’s history. The America that De Tocqueville observed in the early 19th century was one in which the federal government’s reach was indeed very limited. And then the war happened.
But which war am I talking about? Certain conservatives of the paleo sect point to the Civil War as the point in American history when the powers of the federal government expanded beyond the wildest dreams of the Framers. To a degree this is true. The Civil War established the truly national nature of our country. It proved we were no mere confederation of easily dissoluble states. And the 13th,14th, and 15th Amendments addressed, for the first time in the country’s histories, the states and the rights they could not impinge.
But the states retained much of their authority, as the failure of Reconstruction demonstrated. And the federal government’s reach remained fairly limited. In fact, the state governments themselves were effectively neutered by the 14th Amendment thanks to an activist Court that curtailed governmental involvement in economic and social affairs. The post Civil War environment was one that was still basically hostile to governmental intrusion.
It was not until the New Deal and the World War II era that the national government took on the powers that we are accustomed to today. Through the commerce clause the government reached into practically every aspect of daily life. And it did so based on a radically different philosophy. Whereas before liberals hoped to protect property, the new liberals believed that government must actively work to, in a sense, provide property. Liberalism transformed itself from advocacy of a negative state that left the citizenry to its own devices to a celebration of positive government and active involvement in the interests of social justice.
This new liberalism was ascendant and powerful, so much so that the conservative movement was left on the fringes. And then William Buckley started up a little magazine called National Review, and the modern American conservative movement in America was truly born.
Standing athwart history yelling stop, the conservatives were basically the old liberals. They rejected this new leviathan state. But these were no mere reactionaries. They honored the Founders but recognized that America had changed. But they also recognized that the new liberals had taken the country in a radical new direction that was thoroughly at odds with the American political culture and its traditions. But the conservatives would remain a minority – albeit a vocal and intellectually powerful one – until a former New Deal Democrat and actor vaulted onto the scene.
Before getting sidetracked a bit by an exploration of the conservative nature of the American Constitution, I alluded to the Jonah Goldberg column which discusses the classically liberal nature of American conservatism. While I do think that Locke’s influence on American political development is vastly overrated, that does not mean that his thinking is of no import, or that many similar-minded philosophers did not have a vital impact on the formation of the American republic.
The essential elements of classical liberalism that informed the Founders’ thought were liberty and limited government. Whereas Hobbes has a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature, Locke’s is ultimately much more favorable to the human condition. Since man’s condition in the state of nature is generally favorable, governments were instituted with minimal ends. The principal end of government, according to the classical view, is the maintenance of security and the preservation of life, liberty, and property (changed to pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence).
Our Constitution, then, reflected this liberal philosophy. In other words, the Framers utilized liberal means to achieve conservative ends. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Framers feared both the masses and the government, and sought to create a Constitution that balanced the two extremes.
Oddly enough, the men who met in Philadelphia were motivated by a crisis of government – a crisis of ineffective government. The Constitution they designed strengthened the federal government, but also placed strict limits on said government’s powers. In fact the reason that the original Constitution contained no Bill of Rights was due to the Framers’ insistence that the Constitution itself was a Bill of Rights. Since the powers of the federal government did not reach very far, it was unnecessary to fix rights onto parchment.
And so it was for most of the early republic’s history. The America that De Tocqueville observed in the early 19th century was one in which the federal government’s reach was indeed very limited. And then the war happened.
But which war am I talking about? Certain conservatives of the paleo sect point to the Civil War as the point in American history when the powers of the federal government expanded beyond the wildest dreams of the Framers. To a degree this is true. The Civil War established the truly national nature of our country. It proved we were no mere confederation of easily dissoluble states. And the 13th,14th, and 15th Amendments addressed, for the first time in the country’s histories, the states and the rights they could not impinge.
But the states retained much of their authority, as the failure of Reconstruction demonstrated. And the federal government’s reach remained fairly limited. In fact, the state governments themselves were effectively neutered by the 14th Amendment thanks to an activist Court that curtailed governmental involvement in economic and social affairs. The post Civil War environment was one that was still basically hostile to governmental intrusion.
It was not until the New Deal and the World War II era that the national government took on the powers that we are accustomed to today. Through the commerce clause the government reached into practically every aspect of daily life. And it did so based on a radically different philosophy. Whereas before liberals hoped to protect property, the new liberals believed that government must actively work to, in a sense, provide property. Liberalism transformed itself from advocacy of a negative state that left the citizenry to its own devices to a celebration of positive government and active involvement in the interests of social justice.
This new liberalism was ascendant and powerful, so much so that the conservative movement was left on the fringes. And then William Buckley started up a little magazine called National Review, and the modern American conservative movement in America was truly born.
Standing athwart history yelling stop, the conservatives were basically the old liberals. They rejected this new leviathan state. But these were no mere reactionaries. They honored the Founders but recognized that America had changed. But they also recognized that the new liberals had taken the country in a radical new direction that was thoroughly at odds with the American political culture and its traditions. But the conservatives would remain a minority – albeit a vocal and intellectually powerful one – until a former New Deal Democrat and actor vaulted onto the scene.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 11:10 PM
