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Would the founders think the cause of liberty has been served?

By Christopher Curran
Posted 7/7/16

Some 240 years ago, our nation was formed on the basis of a few hopeful presumptions.

After centuries of the world enduring absolute monarchs, constitutional monarchies, aristocracies, and …

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Would the founders think the cause of liberty has been served?

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Some 240 years ago, our nation was formed on the basis of a few hopeful presumptions.

After centuries of the world enduring absolute monarchs, constitutional monarchies, aristocracies, and militaristic rulers, our founding fathers believed that a people could govern themselves. They professed that individual liberty was an inalienable right, not a privilege. Indeed, they asserted that a democracy in which votes were cast to elect representatives of the people’s interest was the cornerstone of an egalitarian society. Considering the state of our country today, have the pillars of their philosophies come to fruition?

Perceptions of democracy and liberty differ dependent upon the perceiver. The creators of our country certainly held different interpretations of what those two ideals meant. In rebellion, the founders curried favor with the public by rallying revolutionaries with heralds and promises of new freedoms and liberties. However, after the blood was spilled and the war was won, the United States Constitution was struck with limitations on that self-determination for people of color, the female gender, and the un-propertied.

Political theorists and politicians here and abroad viewed the American experiment with apprehension and hope simultaneously. Yet, almost two and a half centuries later, America is still striving for that elusive perfection of a political system that affords everyone with equivalent rights and the promise of true freedom.

Superlatives aside, let us examine the words of warning and the promises of potential and resolve whether or not the intentions of those who designed our nation have realized their dreams.

Despite all the assertions to the populous of the new liberties to be gained by the American Revolution, the founders had great trepidation as to who should have the right to vote. As the Constitution was written, debated and eventually implemented in 1789, five years after the official cessation of hostilities in the Revolutionary War, the continental soldier and the new American citizen did not fully understand what liberties they would enjoy once the new nation was forged. After the Treaty of Paris validated the recognition of the United States by Britain and the world, the authors and molders of the Constitution had to formulate a document that would be ratified by the individual states. So the purity of true liberty was given up in favor of political compromise.

Thus, liberty and democracy would not be granted to African Americans, who were assigned a 3/5 value of a human being. This unfairness would not be corrected until the passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865 and the 15th Amendment in 1870. Nor was liberty and democracy available to women, who were not granted the right to vote. Women would not be so empowered with this righteousness until the 19th Amendment became the law of the land in 1920.

Also, a minimum of property assets was originally required in order to vote, which a majority of the population of America in 1789 did not possess. These property requirements did not dissolve on a state-by-state basis fully for a century. Also, those who could cast votes were restricted from directly voting for U.S. senators. They were elected by representatives in state houses until a direct vote was established by the 17th Amendment in 1913.

Most antithetical to liberty, was the notion that because we were mostly an illiterate, agrarian nation in 1789, the founders feared the ill informed would cast votes for the chief executive, so the Electoral College was created. This rendered the United States truly a republic and not a real democracy. The founding fathers did not trust the general population that they served and fair access to the ballot box was not afforded them.

Strangely, with all our advancements as a society educationally, the Electoral College still remains today.

Similarly, notables of the Revolutionary Era were also opinionated in what qualifies a citizen to benefit from full liberties. Irish/British statesman Edmund Burke believed those deserving of liberty had to live up to a standard: “But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” One can deduce that political theorist Burke thought that those involved in moral turpitude should not have the same protections as the rest of us. The question then arises of course, how does one judge another’s moral pureness?

Certainly, as the nation has matured, what used to be deemed immoral like homosexuality (now gay marriage is legal) or gambling (which is state sponsored through lotteries) has now been legitimized in current society. Indeed, societal mores have changed and have driven the availability of more liberty for more classes of people.

Also judgmental, our second president, John Adams, said: “Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.” This famous comment is somewhat strange for a chief executive who signed the “Alien and Sedition Acts” which quieted free speech of any converse nature to the actions of the administration.

One would presume that Adams would believe the cause of liberty would be well served by the extensive media availability of vast news sources in the modern electronic world. Contrarily, the idea of a Facebook or a Twitter might have given Adams pause that the unsubstantiated would be believed by the gullible and undereducated.

Similarly, founder Benjamin Franklin would have been consternated by the Patriot Act, which in the wake of the 9/11 attacks allowed government intrusion at the cost of individual liberty. He also would have been repelled by the “enhanced interrogation techniques” employed against perceived terrorists under the George W. Bush presidency. Franklin asserted: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Like Franklin, revolutionary era French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, who gave license to the infant United States through his world-renowned books of adulation and explanation, would have objected to the ideas of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump who has made caustic comments about restricting migrants and visitors to our country based upon their religion. He said: “The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.” de Tocqueville knew that the young country’s bedrock liberty of religious pluralism was the foundation of strength for a then burgeoning nation. He would have rightly thought that Trump’s ideas are corrosive to the ideals of the country.

Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, might well have been pleased with the fact that the rights of the accused that he and his counterparts designed have stood the test of time. With newer protections like the Miranda Warning adding to the old and durable standard set in the Bill of Rights with the fair practice protections provided by the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments, Jefferson would have been proud. He had stated the eternal adage, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

In regard to the legislative branch of government over the last seven years, the stagnant intractability of the factions within the Congress may be explained away by the words of our fourth president, James Madison: “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

However, in order for government to work for its people, compromise must be possible. Our first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton stated most succinctly the mentality needed for the people’s business to move forward: “Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” Hamilton would not be pleased with the consistent failure of the Congress these past years.

In celebration of our country’s birthday, we should reflect upon whether the dreams of our forefathers have been realized. Although the original Constitution fell short of the guarantees needed for the U.S. to be a true equivalent society, it still stands as the most hopeful document in the history of man.

Our nation is imperfect, yet still evolutionary in its quest for an egalitarian society. The cause that binds us as Americans is our striving for individual freedoms. And the vehicle for our journey is the United States Constitution, which still reflects the brilliance of our founders. It is our foundation and from time to time it must be shored up by learned discourse, solid interpretation, and enhancing amendments. If our founding fathers were able to currently judge this American Experiment that they started 240 years ago, I believe they would find solace that we retain the same stellar hope of liberty and democracy that drove them toward revolution those many years ago!

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