Sober Expectations

Martin Diamond, quite curiously to the amateur historian or fist-pounding patriot, calls the American Revolution a "revolution of sober expectations." Through his description of the Founding Father's sober (that is to say pragmatic or conservative) approach to independence and liberty, Diamond argues that this sobriety made America and her government lasting and durable.

First, Diamond points out that the Declaration of Independence brought forth only half a revolution - it did not, in one breath, wipe out one government and install another. The Founding Fathers, with this document, proclaimed that they had found "self-evident" truths - that men were created equal and laid claim on the government for their protection. They did, however, leave the question of government open-ended. They did not claim to be able to form a government perfectly capable of defending this liberty over night, but rather, quite prudently, aimed to create that government over an extended period time, through what Dr. Hozapfel loves to call "protracted debate." The approach to time is the first evidence of the sobriety Martin talks about.

Second, Diamond says that the Found Fathers didn't ascribe to fanatical devotion to the abstract principle of liberty, but rather took a more conservative view. He compares the American Revolution to the French and Russian Revolutions, both disastrously bloody. The Founding Fathers, as mentioned above, expected change to come gradually and weren't out to radically restructure society based on ideological principles. In contrast, the French and Russian Revolutions opted for extreme, over-night social leveling. Diamond claims, further, "Moderate civil liberty is a possible dream, utopian equality and fraternity are impossible dreams."

Okay, tangent: this idea, that "utopian equality and fraternity are impossible dreams," is a commonly held belief. We, however, as Latter-day Saints, don't see this as an impossibility, at least in the eternities. Instead, we believe that one day, in the eternities, we will live in a Zion society of perfect liberty and perfect fraternity. The difference from classless Marxism is primarily the method of getting there. For Marx, you have to tear the societal system down to build it back up. We believe, on the other hand, that Zion is a process - similarly to the Founding Fathers. Our Zion or Utopia will come over time through individual agency. We're building Zion now. Tangent finished.

Basically, Diamond's second argument is that the American Revolution soberly maintained order, whereas, for example, the French Revolution lost control in the pursuit of idealistic extremes.

Further, although the American Revolution was restrained in its scope of civil liberties, I believe the Founding Fathers did anticipate a broadening of civil liberties over time. For example, although women and blacks couldn't vote at the outset of the American Democracy, the Constitution put the mechanisms into place that would bring forth such change.

Third, Diamond says that the Founding Fathers, in drafting the Constitution, took a "cautious and restrained" view of democracy. They added checks to the popular will to prevent extremism. They must have believed that although a democracy gave way to greater liberty, it was an imperfect system and needed to be bridled, channeled. Our representative system of a democratic republic creates a sort of stratification of popular will that can "mitigate" the defects of democracy.

Sober. Prudent. Farsighted. I think this is what Diamond is getting at.

The Declaration of Independence

Disclaimer: I am no bleeding-heart patriot. The words of the Declaration of Independence do not bring tears to my eyes nor make my heart flutter with pride of country. I'm not going to spend the next 368 words praising the document as a paragon of liberty. Neither, however, am I going to make this into a hyper-critical diatribe. My object in this post is more to figure out what I think of this historical document.

The first thing that strikes me is the great irony of the Declaration of Independence's existence. The document begins with an appeal to Rousseau's philosophy that government is a SOCIAL CONTRACT to justify their move to "dissolve the political bands" that tied them to their mother country. The drafters declared the right to abolish government, but that kind of thought no longer exists as part of the American political identity. In fact, it no longer existed by the time of the Civil War.

Further, the address of grievances to the King, rather than to Parliament (from whence stemmed the listed grievances). This seems to me to be primarily because a cry for greater liberty is more poignant when it's against a King - a figurehead - than against a group. The colonial system of government, as well as the system the Founding Fathers were looking to set up, were by similar groups. By trying to mark the British as monarchial, rather than moving-towards-republican, they could add more clout to their argument as the more just and liberal cause.

It is worth noting, on this same note, that the signers of the Declaration of Independence did not explicitly suggest what kind of government would replace the one they threw off. It is evident, however, that the government would be less centralized. The name they gave their new nation was the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA which were "FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." This title itself recognizes the decentralization the signers wanted. Each state would be semi-autonomous. As "free" and "independent," the signers acknowledge this political principle espoused by Locke and Rousseau - consent of the governed. The states would consent to be governed by a central authority. Although none of this is explicit in the document itself, knowing the history of the Constitution makes it easy to see evidences for the type of government the Founding Fathers sought to build in their newborn nation.