Well, it was a busy Fourth of July weekend, so the Thomas Jefferson post has taken me longer than I’d hoped. Actually, as it turned out, the articles were much better than expected (actually Christopher Hitchens wrote one of the articles for it, so you know it couldn’t be all bad!), so I wasn’t compelled by outrage to rip through the reading and the subsequent writing as quickly as possible. But I do think there’s substantial value to evaluating the question from time to time, “What would the Founders think?” so I will proceed with my post as planned even though I don’t feel the need to rip into
Time as much as I thought I might.
As I
noted previously, the cover boasts the subheading, “He gave us ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ but is America living up to those ideals?” To be honest, the articles really don’t spend that much time answering that question – they’re mostly a historical review of Jefferson the man and of various contemporary issues. And it was a pretty faithful review, in my opinion. In fact, it might be precisely because they didn’t attempt to hypothesize too much that I didn’t take too much issue with what they said. Insofar as they did hypothesize, here were some of their conclusions:
I completely agree with their assessment here: Jefferson, and indeed, all the Founders, would be appalled by modern political campaigns. In the early days of our democracy, candidates didn’t openly campaign – to do so would have been distasteful. Jefferson in particular would have been horrible in modern politics, since he hated speaking and would have abhorred being so constantly in the public eye. The woman the article quotes actually says it all quite perfectly:
"In [the Founding Fathers’] minds, the person who was ambitious and wanted high office was the one person you should never trust with it,” says Yale historian Joanne Freeman, author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic. “They would have been horrified to see candidates begging for votes.” (p. 51)
I agree, and I think the Founders’ concerns would be somewhat justified (from more than just an aesthetic standpoint), though I don’t see how this has much practical value for us today, as it’s not feasible at this point to devolve our political system, desirable though it might be.
Predictably, they touch on the Patriot Act and conclude, partially through analogy with the Alien and Sedition Acts, that Jefferson would have opposed the Patriot Act. I concur, as Jefferson was a proponent of individual liberties to the point of head-in-the-clouds idealism and would oppose anything that served to limit individual liberties (and expand the size and power of the federal government – actually Jefferson viewed these as intimately related and inextricably tied concepts, but somehow
Time neglects to mention that).
However. Entitling the article on the Alien and Sedition Acts, “The Patriot Act of the 18th Century” is highly disingenuous. I don’t object to drawing an analogy between the two sets of litigation – both were acts which infringed upon civil liberties and empowered the federal government in order to increase our security in uncertain times. An analogy is therefore fair. But to say that the Alien and Sedition Acts
were the Patriot Act of the 18th century is to go beyond drawing an analogy and to suggest that the violations of the two were of equal magnitude, which is unfair to the Patriot Act. Consider Time’s own description of the Alien and Sedition Acts:
The reaction to the threat from France came in the form of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were championed by the Federalists, passed by Congress and signed by Adams in 1798. The Alien Act required immigrants to reside in the U.S. for 14 years instead of 5 to qualify for citizenship. The act also gave the President the legal right to expel those the government considered "dangerous." The Sedition Act punished ‘false, scandalous, and malicious’ writings against the government with fines and imprisonment. Most of those arrested under the Sedition Act were Republican editors.... (p. 76)
Come on now. Is the Patriot Act really that bad? How many Democratic pundits have written “false, scandalous, and malicious writings” against the Bush administration since 9/11? And remind me again, how many have been arrested? Oh, that’s right, none. As long as Michael Moore, Ted Rall, Al Franken, George Soros, and oh, how the list goes on, are still walking around free I really don’t think we have that dire a problem.
Moving along, they actually do dive right in and address the issue of what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of the Iraq war. (I imagine they just couldn’t resist.) They don’t however seem to reach a conclusion on the matter, they just bring up a few talking points. The first point they bring up is that Jefferson would have balked at the cost of the war. That I readily concede. Jefferson was very much a believer in small government, particularly small federal government, and opposed nearly everything that augmented its power. However, even this statement is somewhat disingenuous, as there are many federal programs (to which I’m sure the editors of
Time are much more friendly) the cost of which Jefferson would have balked at, and they don’t seem to warrant a mention here. But I’ll come back to that later. We’ll deal with Iraq for the moment.
Next they point out that Jefferson (and most, if not all, of the Founders) were isolationists, and did not want to see the U.S. involved in foreign wars. Now this I take some issue with. It’s true that they were isolationists, but at that time in our nation’s history, isolationism was the most practical course for us, and the one most conducive to our security. Now I’m certainly engaging in some speculation here, but I suspect that they didn’t necessarily oppose our involvement in the world on principle, but rather on pragmatism. We were at that time a fledgling nation and the world was a much bigger place. The ocean was a much bigger barrier separating us from the rest of the world. Europe at the time was months away by boat. It is now hours away by plane. Our economy, while dependent on trade at the time, was not nearly so interconnected with all the far-flung corners of the world. The average person in the Middle East was probably scarcely aware of the existence of America, and as such certainly did not think to blame us (fairly or unfairly) for his problems.
In short, in these and a myriad of other ways, the world and our place in it are radically different today than they were two hundred years ago. Only very out-of-touch people continue to maintain today that the United States’ interests are best served by isolationism. The world is interconnected today in ways that it was not and could not be then (indeed, that could not even have been imagined then). It is difficult to say how the Founders would have evaluated the interests of the United States in light of this much-changed world.
But it is worth noting that, while isolationists, they were not pacifists. This should seem obvious, as they had just waged a war for their own freedom, but it seems to me that pacifist liberals seem to forget that America’s own freedom was won, not by the force of diplomacy, but by the force of arms. In any case, Jefferson himself waged our first war after the Revolution – the war against the Barbary Pirates (this was Hitch’s section of the feature). For those not familiar with the Barbary Pirate war (it’s not one of our better-known wars):
The Barbary States of North Africa – Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and Tripoli (today’s Libya) – had for centuries sustained themselves by preying on the maritime commerce of others. Income was raised by indirect theft, the extortion of bribes or "protection" and the capture of crews and passengers to be used as slaves.... As many as 1.25 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved.
....
Jefferson became President in early 1801, shortly after Yusuf Karamanli, the ruler of Tripoli, unwisely issued an ultimatum to the U.S.: If it did not pay him a fresh tribute, he threatened, he would declare war on America. The new Commander in Chief coolly decided to let the ultimatum expire and take the declaration of war at face value. He summoned his new cabinet, which approved the dispatch of a naval squadron and decided not to bother Congress – which was then in recess – with the information. He did not, in fact, tell the elected representatives of his plans until the fleet was on the high seas and too far away to be recalled. (p. 56 & 58)
Over the next four years, the fleet attacked and threatened to attack Algiers, Morocco, and Tunis, eventually captured Tripoli’s second city (Derna), and forced all four Barbary States to sign treaties with America renouncing piracy, kidnapping, and blackmail.
I review all of this to make a couple of points. The first is to further emphasize the fact that Jefferson certainly was not a pacifist. If you need further proof for this, Jefferson was a huge supporter of the French Revolution, holding out hope that it would be a fitting sequel to the American version until long after it became clear that the French version was just a bloodbath, and Napoleon was just a dictator like any other. He is also famously quoted as saying, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Not the words of a pacifist.
The second is to point out that the Barbary Wars were in a lot of ways similar to our current plight, and Jefferson chose to deal with them in a very similar way: aggressively. Hitchens’ article further elaborates on Jefferson’s long-standing horror at the Barbary States’ methods and his (often unilateral) means of dealing with them, even when only serving in such capacities as the U.S. ambassador to France. His stance on paying bribes to the pirates was identical to our present stance of not negotiating with terrorists. But not only did he not negotiate or pay the bribes, but once president, he chose to go on the offense and wage war on the states that sponsored piracy.... Wait, that didn’t sound familiar, did it? Indeed, he even waged war on the Barbary States unilaterally. As Hitch points out:
Those who like to look for lessons for today might care to note that Jefferson did not act unilaterally until he was satisfied that European powers would not join his coalition and that he did not seek to impose a regime change or an occupation on the Barbary States. (p. 61)
Well, as to the latter points, I’m sure it was well out of the American means to seek a regime change or manage an occupation at that time, and I think Hitchens was being a bit fascetious there. But as to the former point, I would say Bush was pretty damn sure by the time he went to war in Iraq that the European powers (read: France) would not be joining our coalition. So it seems rather similar to me. The point is that Jefferson felt justified in acting unilaterally to deal with the Barbary pirates when he was sure that no one would help him, and judging nonetheless that waging war on the pirates was in America’s best interest.
Now one might argue that, per my earlier point that the world is a different place today, it is also a different place with regard to international law. The U.S. was not at the time bound by the UN, the Geneva accords, etc., to behave in any certain way. How Jefferson would have felt about such organizations and international laws is another matter (though I must point out that I think Jefferson would be appalled, possibly even at the existence of such arrangements, but certainly at the notion that such arrangements might be expected to supercede our national interest) but I will nonetheless concede that the body of international law is much more developed today than it was in Jefferson’s time, and it is therefore somewhat difficult to judge today’s foreign policy by the foreign policy of Jefferson.
So let’s look at domestic affairs. Time actually hands me, gift-wrapped, my final argument here:
Following the Louisiana Purchase – whose constitutionality he questioned but whose practical benefits he found irresistible – he boldly claimed the nation’s far-reaching wilderness by sending Lewis and Clark on their unprecedented expedition, the purpose of which was not only to seek knowledge but to assert political dominion. To Jefferson, the advance of freedom wasn’t something that happened on its own. It had to be pushed, and push it he did. (p. 51)
That about sums it up. Jefferson believed that freedom didn’t happen on its own. He also envisioned the American Revolution as the spark that would beget a democratic revolution across the world (hints of this belief can be found in my
quote of the week) – which was why he was so excited by the French Revolution. Incidentally, I think he was right about this in a way, but I think he envisioned it happening a little bit faster and unfolding more naturally; but then, as I’ve previously noted, he was an idealist. So, seeing that the democratic fire didn’t turn into a worldwide blaze, would he have supported our pushing the issue, as we are in Iraq? I tend to think he would, but then that is one that is open to speculation. I think he would support our acting to protect the United States, first and foremost, and would take pleasure in the happy byproduct that a once oppressed people were now liberated. I don’t think he would have put a great deal of stock in the UN in the first place, so while he probably would have sought allies, the fact that the UN didn’t approve would be highly irrelevant to him. But that’s just my read.
And that was about the extent to which the
Time article addressed what Jefferson would have thought about our world today. But now that I’m on a roll, I have a few other points I’d like to address. First of all, I think that Jefferson (and all the Founders) would be generally pleased by the extent to which human liberty has spread since his time. Especially in the last century, many new democracies were born, and new ones are continuing to be born all the time. Our reverence as a world for human rights has certainly increased, although just as certainly do we still have a long way to go in that regard.
I think also he would be pleased that “we the people” has now expanded to include more than just white males. Now surely, one can point to his own (often racist) views on slavery and suggest that I might be mistaken here. Indeed, the seeming incompatibility of his bold declarations of human rights in the Declaration of Independence and his views on slavery has been a matter that has befuddled historians for many years, so I don’t pretend to have any greater insight or expertise than they do. But to me, this has always seemed reflective not of hypocrisy (though perhaps I’m too charitable), but of the fact that Jefferson, and the other Founders, were human and bound to a certain extent by the conventions and prejudices of their time. By all accounts, slavery was an issue that Jefferson struggled greatly with and he seemed to recognize its incompatibility with his views on human rights. He actually supported abolition as a young man, until he realized that the freed slaves would have to be either moved back to Africa or whites and blacks would have to share the United States; the former was completely impractical, and his racism would not allow him to see the latter as a plausible solution. I think that he would be pleased to see that future generations have managed to evolve beyond the conventions and prejudices of his time and resolve the issue of slavery, however imperfect race relations have been and continue to be. He and his contemporaries set in motion ideas that they, as imperfect human beings, could not see through to their logical conclusions at the time; but Americans to this day have deeply internalized those ideas, and we continue to seek the next logical conclusion of the bold ideas the Founders set forth. And that strikes me as the primary thing that would please Jefferson and the other Founders about America today.
But there are two things that I think would certainly have displeased Jefferson that the
Time article deftly avoided. The first, as I’ve
already noted, is the bloated federal government. Jefferson, probably the most of all the Founders, was mistrustful of the power of government. It was he who famously said, “That government is best which governs least.” He preferred that, insofar as government was necessary, it should reside primarily in the states. He saw that a federal government was necessary for the fledgling United States to survive, but he wanted it to be kept as minimal as possible. The size to which it has since grown would horrify him, as would the fact that the notion of states' rights seems to be a dying one.
(As a related side note, I just can’t neglect to mention this. Time parenthetically makes this statement – and in all the articles this pissed me off the most – “a ‘Republican’ then was like a modern-day Democrat, though not identical to one” (p.50) Beg pardon? They don’t even attempt to justify the statement, just slide it in there so that less informed readers will think, oh, okay, Jefferson was a Democrat. Now, the world is so changed today that it’s difficult to compare the issues of the parties then and now, but as the single biggest issue at the time was how much power should reside in the federal government – with the Republicans supporting limited federal government and the Federalists, so named for a reason, you see, supporting a stronger one – I have to say that the modern Republican party is much closer to its 18th century counterpart than the modern Democratic party is. Now I concede that it is probably just as possible to justify the opposite – but I don’t think one can make a statement either way without some justification, which Time did not even offer. Grrr....)
Moving along, the second thing that I think Jefferson and the Founders would be skeptical of at best is the UN, NATO, and other such “entangling alliances,” to use Jefferson’s own phrase. George Washington said (and I think all the Founders probably agreed):
“It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.”
And better yet:
“The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it away from its duty and interest.”
They probably would not object to such organizations as forums for international cooperation, but insofar as those organizations bind us to the will of other nations, I think all the Founders would strongly object to our participation in them.
Well that’s about all I have to say. (That’s all? You’d think I’d been brief or something....) In closing, I’d just like to respond to the closing comment in the
Time piece:
“...we ought always to remember that his statements, along with the Constitution and the other institutions the founders created, have been expanded and developed by more than two centuries of historical experience, an experience that is the real wellspring of our democracy. It’s time we realize that our founding is not the source of our political and constitutional achievement. We owe our success to the common sense of the American people throughout our entire history, and our continued success will depend on that virtue and not simply upon the creative moment of the founding.” (p. 82)
Now to a certain extent, no one can argue that the founding itself is not the only source of our democracy. But I think this statement greatly underestimates the achievement of the Founders. History doesn’t evolve in the same steady rhythm of time; on the contrary, history is marked by long periods of stagnation and rapid periods of change. Those periods of change may driven by an accumulation of events, or, more often, I would say, the presence of a few extraordinary men or women at a propitious moment. The genius of our Founders cannot possibly be overstated. The American Revolution could easily have decayed into anarchy or the subsequent republic destroyed by infighting (indeed, it almost was). Its endurance certainly is to the credit of us all – every American who has ever lived – but we have only been given the opportunity to carry the torch because the Founders set up a system – of government and of ideals – capable of enduring. Our Founding is “the source of our political and constitutional achievement” – not the only one, to be sure, but it is the roots without which the tree could not have flourished. So, I think that on days such as the Fourth of July, we should all thank Jefferson, as well as Madison, Washington, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, and many others whose names are not quite so familiar to us, for all that they've given us. For giving us the opportunity to say, more than two centuries later, that we live in the United States of America.
