PS 201 Joseph Boland

Introduction to US Politics Fall, 1998

The Constitution, Lecture 1: Ideological Influences on the Formation of the Early American Republic

• Protestantism (Puritans (Presbyterians, Congregationalists), Quakers, Anglicans (Methodists), Baptists, Deists)
• Protestantism shifted authority away from the centralized hierarchy of the Catholic church and vested it in religious communities, congregations, and individuals. It was far more democratic in spirit and practice than the feudalism it rejected.
• More generally, it accustomed people to challenging the authority of traditional religious and governmental institutions, which in the American context meant the British government and the state-supported Anglican church.
• In America, the anti-feudal ethos of Protestantism helped prevent the development of aristocracy.
• The primacy of personal faith and individual conscience in Protestantism was the precursor of the secular ideal of personal liberty.
• The Protestant ethic, according to which hard work, frugality, and the accumulation of wealth were the surest signs of one's salvation, provided a moral framework conducive to the development of capitalism and to the creation of a state based on equality of opportunity rather than equality of condition.
• Protestantism unintentionally fomented so many conflicting interpretations of the Bible and Christian doctrine as to prepare the ground for:
• religious toleration and freedom;
• philosophical inquiry concerning possibilities of knowledge;
• scientific inquiry into the existing world (empiricism, representationalism).
• To the early Puritans the New World was a promised land given to them by God in order that they might create there a "purified church-state" that would be a model for all Christendom.
• This notion of a sacred mission became, in more secular form, the belief that America was the fount and guardian of human freedom and enterprise, a beacon to the poor and oppressed, and a model for others to follow.
• The Puritan vision "of elect nationhood" (Bercovitch) helped define America in terms that were neither narrowly religious nor ethnic. Given the religious and ethnic diversity of the country by the time of the early republic, this quasi-religious form of national identity a vital ideological glue binding it together.
• It undoubtedly cultivated a sense that, with God's help, human beings could rationally design their own government, a confidence essential to the drafting of the Constitution.
• Protestantism provided views of human nature compatible both with elite and popular democracy. The Puritan view of fallen man saved only by God's mercy, and of an elect of living saints whose status was confirmed by their moral probity, frugality, industriousness, and wealth, was compatible with elite democratic theory. The Quakers, who believed that all could be saved, who rejected traditional social distinctions in their religious practice (women were accorded the same right to speak at meetings, for example), and who contributed much to the anti-slavery movement, viewed human nature in a more optimistic and egalitarian light, much as popular democratic theory does.
• Republicanism (See "Notes on Republicanism")
• popular sovereignty and the shift from theories of "balance" to that of rule by the people.
• civic virtue
• liberty versus power
• legislative government
• the small republic
• the written constitution
• model of citizenship
• organic community:
• Enlightenment Liberalism
• the social contract among individuals -- security and peace in exchange for limits on personal liberty
• The Constitution as binding individuals: "We, the people" not "We, the states".
• government:
• limited government charged with protecting property, adjudicating disputes, and defending the nation against external foes.
• representative government
• the right of rebellion against tyranny
• economic individualism: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
• faith in the benign harmony of the free market.