AS WE APPROACH THE CONSTITUTION’S 250th ANNIVERSARY, THE CHALLENGES WE FACE
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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Only
Americans in 2025 live under the same form of government their
ancestors did 250 years ago. This means that our ancestors must have
understood something very important about the nature of both men and
government. At the present time, it seems that many Americans have
forgotten much of what they understood.
Americans
now seem in danger of losing an appreciation of the tradition out of
which our society was created and which for 250 years it has
perpetuated.
In 1974,
just prior to the celebration of the bicentennial of the Declaration of
Independence, Russelll Kirk, one of our leading men of letters and the
author of 30 books, among them the classic The Conservative Mind, wrote
The Roots of American Order.
It
was Dr. Kirk’s view that our nation, if it is to remain great, must
remember and understand the historical roots from which it grew. In a
forward he wrote for a new edition of the book, he states that, “Lacking
a knowledge of how we arrived where we stand today, lacking the deeper
love of country which is nurtured by a knowledge of the past, lacking
the apprehension that we all take part in a great historic
continuity—-why, a people so deprived will not dare much, sacrifice
much, or take long views. With them, creature comforts will be
everything; yet, historical consciousness wanting, in the long run they
must have their creature comforts too.”
What
man has learned from history, Hegel declared, is that we learn nothing
from history. “Perhaps,” Kirk argues, “that hard truth may revive our
historic consciousness, after experience of adversity…T.S. Eliot
remarked once that we have been condemning the rising generation to a
new form of provincialism: to the provinciality of time, which
imprisons men and women in their own little present moment”
Kirk
asks: “Will the moral and social order that Americans have known for
two centuries and more endure through the 21st century? That may depend
upon whether enough men and women…informed by study of the institutions
and convictions that have been developed over 3,000 years, make up
their minds to stand by the permanent things.”
The
roots of the American order, Kirk shows, go back to the ancient world
—-to the Jews and their understanding of a purposeful universe under
God’s dominion, to the Greeks, with their high regard for the uses of
reason, to the stern virtues of Romans such as Cicero , to Christianity,
which taught the duties and limitations of man, and the importance of
the transcendent in our lives.
The
beliefs which motivated the Founding Fathers were ancient in origin.
Dr. Kirk points out that, “From Israel…America inherited an
understanding of the sanctity of law. Certain root principles of
Justice exist, arising from the nature which God has conferred upon man;
law is a means for realizing those principles, so far as we can. That
assumption was in the minds of the men who wrote the Declaration…and
the Constitution…Thomas Jefferson, rationalist though he was, declared
that in matters of political power, one must not trust in the alleged
goodness of man, but ‘bind him down with the chains of the
Constitution.’”
Contrasting
the philosophy which motivated the American Revolution with that of the
French Revolution , Kirk writes that, “The French revolutionaries in
general attempted to substitute for the biblical understanding an
optimistic doctrine of human goodness advanced by the philosophies of
the rationalistic Enlightenment. The American view led to the
Constitution of 1787; the French view to the Terror and a new
autocracy.”
From the
ancient Greeks, as well,came the idea,affirmed by Socrates and
Plato,,that “God is the measure of all things. Here was the supreme
Greek ‘leap in being,’ comparable to that of thevHebrew prophets. Man
must order his soul in conformity with divine laws, Plato said; only
thus can order in society be obtained…”
“with
burning conviction,” Plato teaches that there exist divine moral laws,
not easy to apprehend, but operating upon all mankind. He refutes the
statement of some sophists that there is no distinction between virtue
and vice, and he affirms that God, not man, is the measure of all
things.”
The Platonic
understanding of justice, Kirk points out, “was deeply implanted in the
minds of the early American leaders—-through its incorporation into
Christian thoughts, through its embodiment in Roman jurisprudence and
through its _expression_ in English law.”
Among
the works carefully studied by America’s founders was Polybius’
historical analysis of Roman character and the Roman Constitution ,
about the middle of the 2nd Century B.C. That system, Kirk writes,
“incorporated both checks and balances upon political power, and
provided for separation of political functions.”
Rome
finally declined and fell. What had happened? Kirk writes: “So
Cicero inquired near the end of the old Constitution. Was it that men
were worse than formerly, or that bad laws had corrupted the
commonwealth? Both baneful causes of decay could be traced, he argued:
there cannot be a good commonwealth unless most citizens are virtuous,
and the citizens find it difficult to hold by the old morality in a time
of political disorder and corruption.”
In
Kirk’s view, “There existed material reasons for the decline of the
high old Roman virtue, but also that fall from virtue accelerated the
political disintegration of the commonwealth …Directly or indirectly ,
the mind and life of Cicero are bound up. With the American
understanding of order more than are the thought and action of any other
man of classical times.”
A
more direct influence upon the founders was the history of England and,
in turn, their own history of self-government in the colonies.
The
English Common Law , which evolved over centuries was, Kirk declares,
“the foundation of order…also it was the foundation of freedom. The
high claim of the old commentators on the common law was this: no man,
not even the king, was above or beyond the law…More than any juridical
system on the continent, it protected the subject from oppression by
powerful individuals, through its writs, its court procedures, and its
national enforcement …In America, common-law principles would work upon
public affairs more powerfully than any other influence except
Protestant Christianity and the colonial social experience itself.”
While
the founders sought to achieve American independence from England,
unlike the French revolutionaries they did not seek to overthrow the
social and religious order: “The Declaration spoke of instituting ‘new
government,’ not overthrowing the state itself, or the social,order:
“The Declaration spoke of instituting ‘new government,’ not of
overthrowing the state itself, or the social,order. That is another
aspect of of the moderation of the American ‘revolutionaries.’ “
Russell
Kirk concludes: “One of the more pressing perils of our time is that
people may be cut off from their roots in culture and community…Moral
and social order, or a vast part of it, may be destroyed by a few years
of violence or a few decades of contemptuous neglect. Then hope is
lost, for many generations ; for order is a kind of organic growth,
developing slowly over many centuries.”
Fifty
years ago, as we approached the 200th anniversary of the
U.S.constitution, I was working in the U.S. Congress. I developed a
lecture for high school students which I delivered frequently at
Freedoms Foundation in Vallet Forge, Pennsylvania. It asked the
question of whether our free society would survive into the future or
follow in the footsteps of Greece or Rome. Now, as we approach our
250th anniversary, that question seems even more compelling.
Many
in contemporary Washington, even many who call themselves
“conservative,” seem not to understand that the American political
philosophy begins with fear of government power. The Founders divided
government into , legislative, executive and judicial branches. The
legislative branch passed the laws. The executive carried them out and
the judiciary determined whether or not they were within the limits of
the Constitution. Those who rejected the arbitrary rule of King George
III, particularly feared executive power.
Sadly,
our fear of executive power has eroded. The Constitution gives
Congress the power to declare war. The last time it did so was after
Pearl Harbor. We have gone to war in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and
elsewhere without a congressional declaration. In today’s Washington,
the Congress has appropriated funds for particular programs which the
executive has decided arbitrarily to abandon. The division of power
between the executive, legislative and judicial branches is eroding.
Surprisingly, many who call themselves “conservative” hail this
development. What it is they mean to “conserve” is increasingly
unclear.
As we approach
our 250th anniversary we should not forget the fragility of free
societies. We can follow in the path of Greece and Rome, or we can
resist following in the footsteps of those who gave up their freedom.
That is the choice before us.
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