Gratitude Monday: The enlightened Founding Fathers

Re-reading the Declaration of Independence last week got me thinking about the principles on which the Founding Fathers established this nation, and how they went about charting and navigating new political waters. Their courage, their reason, their farsightedness and their dedication to learning from the past to shape the future are (to my way of thinking) a considerable part of why we’ve survived with a consistent government for more than 200 years.

So this Gratitude Monday I say we give it up for the Founding Fathers. Damn, but these guys had style.

For one thing, we celebrate our independence on the anniversary of the signing (more or less; I’m not going to quibble about a day or two) of the Declaration of Independence. I’ve already written about what a stunningly beautiful document that is. But here’s the thing: we celebrate making the statement as our moment of independence and not, say, the surrender at Yorktown, when it could have been said that we actually won it.

The Enlightenment was all about the ideas, of course; but, still.

First of all—they weren’t perfect. No one’s saying they were. But, in very trying times they put their not inconsiderable minds to solving highly complex and high-risk issues that had serious consequences whichever way things fell out. When 56 representatives signed the Declaration of Independence, they absolutely knew they were pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the cause of dissolving the ties with Mother England.

And they did have fortunes to lose—they were for the most part successful men with comfortable lives, which they put on the line by taking this radical step. Never before had ordinary men put their money where their mouths were in saying “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” and “that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

(Yes, Jefferson borrowed that last list from John Locke; it was the Enlightenment, after all. But Locke had spoken of life, liberty and property; this whole “pursuit” and “happiness” idea? Radical, dude. Totally rad.)

And yes—by “all men” Jefferson actually meant only men, and really only white men; women and men of color weren’t considered part of that equation. But he did mean “all white men”, meaning “[white] men of all social and economic classes”, which was also rad. The last document spelling out the rights of the governed was Magna Carta, and the only people who counted in that one were barons and better in the social strata.

But I’m going to leave the Declaration aside and move on to another extraordinary document, the one that defines us literally and metaphorically as no other document does for any other people. Yes, my children, I’m talking the Constitution.

You may think I lead a sad life (okay, I do), but every once in a while I pull that sucker out and read it because it is just beautiful. A carefully-reasoned charter for how the FF thought a government should work. Compared with similar documents, it is amazingly short—just a few pages. (You drop the California state constitution on your foot, you’re going to need a cast.) And, considering that they had no precedent to guide them, they laid out a form of government that is as beautiful and reasonable and flexible and—yes—balanced as any ever devised by men.

I suppose it’s that Enlightenment thing, balance; but seriously—no one had ever thought, “Hey, this whole gov’mint thang might work pretty well if we divvy up the powers three ways. And—how ‘bout we make sure that no one of them ever gets top hand? Yeah, that could work, huh?”

Of course, they said it more elegantly than that. But in just seven articles they mapped out what powers went to which branch, how each would provide a check on the others and what redress We the People would have against them all.

Plus—they learned from the past. Imagine that.

Following the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the new United States weren’t really what you’d call united—they were sort of loosely confederated. Which worked about as well as a chocolate teapot. No one would play nice with anyone else and they were all pretty much in it for themselves. (Interesting to me that the FF figured out the flaws in this system, but the leaders of the 15, uh, Confederate states didn’t in 1861. Um.)

So they put their bewigged heads together and thought and thought, and agreed that everyone would have to give up some autonomy in exchange for economic and political stability. Or, as the preamble says, “ to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. That pretty well covers all the major food groups.

Yes—their plan was still for white males. Black men were counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of electing Representatives (women and Indians weren’t counted at all), and of course no one except the white adult males had voting rights.

But here’s the deal—and another reason why we should give the FF their props: because there was concern that the Constitution wasn’t locked down enough for the states to ratify it (remember—even though the loosy-goosy management of the Articles of Confederation hadn’t been successful, people were still leery of a, you know, central government), Mr. Madison of Virginia got together with his posse and proposed ten amendments, which spelled out very clear limitations on what the government could and couldn’t do.

This Bill of Rights, as it came to be known, beautifully limits the reach of official Federal mitts. (A friend of mine believes the amendments should have stopped after five words: “Congress shall make no laws”, but I think he may be joking about that.) And many of those limits were in direct response to English abuses:

No established religion, also known as separation of church and state. That Church of England thing really ate people’s lunches.

Freedom of speech, of the press, of peaceful assembly, of right to petition. All of these had been curtailed by the English at one time or another.

Right to bear arms—because we didn’t believe in a standing army, we relied upon militia to come to our defense. Look it up—the amendment says, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep & bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” You never know when you're going to need to lurk behind hedges and shoot at English troops marching down the road.

No quartering of troops; no unreasonable search and seizure; due process of law, to include no double jeopardy and no self-incrimination; speedy trial by jury…and on and on, until you get to the tenth, which (and damn, these guys were good) limits the powers of the Federal government to those specifically stated in the Constitution. No slipping any surprises in, guys, ‘cause this is a written Constitution.

And the amendments constitute another beauty of FF capacity to plan ahead—they’ve allowed it to grow with the country and the times. So that counting the Bill of Rights, it’s been amended 27 times. The 13^th abolished slavery; the 14^th established the Equal Protection Clause; the 15^th prohibited denial of suffrage based on race, color or previous condition of servitude; the 19^th finally opened up the vote to women.

And yes--there have been crack-pot amendments: the 18^th banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. And it had to be repealed by the 21^st a few years later. We make mistakes and we recover from them. It's the recovery and learning that really matter.

I could show how the judicial-legislative balance has evolved by talking about how Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) established the "separate-but-equal" interpretation of the Equal Protection clause; and then Brown v. Board of Education scuppered that 58 years later by deciding that separate is inherently unequal, opening pretty much everything to, well, everyone. But we have a more recent example.

The DOMA ruling last month encapsulates two of the ways the FF really understood how this would work: it was the judiciary branch slapping down the legislative, based on the Equal Protection clause of the 14^th Amendment. That old Constitution, she just keeps rolling along, despite the massive wrenching of the War Between the States, industrialization, entry into the world stage as a great power—all things that could have broken a system less carefully planned.

So—Founding Fathers, many thanks for a job well done. I’d buy you a drink if you were around today. And if you let me into the bar. With my lady-money.