In Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss writes
that "Prescription
cannot be the sole authority for a constitution, and, therefore,
recourse
to rights anterior to the constitution, i.e., to natural rights, cannot
be superfluous unless prescription itself is a sufficient guarantee of
goodness."1 Such a
characterization results in the accusation that those who hold to
prescription
as a guide to present conduct are guilty of historical relativism. By
contrast,
the Straussian hero appears to be the "wise 'legislator' or founder"
whose
essentially private reason discerns the universal, absolute truth
without
any regard to public opinion and who imposes the product of his
reasoned
understanding on an ignorant, and perhaps even recalcitrant, nation.2
This argument is taken up by Harry V. Jaffa and his
followers including
Charles Kesler. Traditional conservatism's respect for the past, writes
Kesler, is an "extreme of conservatism" which is "unreasonable and
unprincipled."
Such conservatism, he says, "does not acknowledge any objective
standards
by 'which we may distinguish just from unjust, good from bad, true from
false, and so provides us no guidance in choosing what elements of the
past should be conserved as a matter of expedience, and what elements
must
be conserved as a matter of justice. Nor can it provide us with what
the
past does not furnish—living statesmanship and virtue."3
The remedy for such "unreasonable and unprincipled" conservatism, Jaffa
and his disciples argue, is adherence to what they claim is the central
idea of the American political tradition—equality of natural rights.
This "central idea" shapes and determines Jaffa's
interpretation of
the American Constitution as a document that was designed to secure the
rights of man. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that, "in the
decisive
respect, the division in the American understanding of sovereignty was
not between the state governments and the Union, but between the
people's
liberty and the law that entitled them to that liberty."4
Thus, Kesler, citing Thomas Paine, argues that the people can be
sovereign
only in a subordinate and conditional way and that the extent of the
people's
sovereignty is determined by the essentially private reason of the wise
legislator or statesman.
There are a number of problems with this view. First, it
seems to result
from a misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of the Western
natural-law tradition.5
Second, it implies that statesmanship and virtue cannot be attained
without
reference to abstract rights as an ultimate standard. Third, it so
redefines
the nature of sovereignty that the federal character of the United
States
is reduced to insignificance, and the sovereignty of the people is left
very precarious indeed. Finally, and perhaps decisively, this
characterization
of the Founding simply is not supported by a close reading of the
Constitution
or The
Federalist Papers.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there to be found a reference
to the
natural rights of man; nor do The Federalist Papers, which
explain
that document, base their argument on any such concept. While the
authors
of The Federalist (James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John
Jay,
who write under the pseudonym "Publius") are concerned with protecting
"the diverse faculties of men" as "the first object" of government
(FederalistNo. 10), the manifest tenor of the work and the
explicit
statements
of Publius indicate that this object is to be attained through the
structure
of the federal system itself, through the republican system of
government,
and by a reliance on the deliberate sense of the community (and its
representatives
as reflective of that sense). Moreover, Publius clearly does not
envision
the federal government's becoming concerned with the regulation of the
individual rights of the citizens. These are to be left to the care of
the state governments, which are to retain all powers not expressly
delegated
to the federal government (Federalist No. 84).
The legitimate object of federal legislation, Publius
argues, is first
and foremost the preservation of peace and tranquillity both against
foreign
arms and domestic insurrection. Publius, thus, bases his appeal for
ratification
of the Constitution on the very practical observation that a united
America
will be embroiled in fewer wars, since a country united under a single
government (where foreign affairs and defense are concerned) will
provide
fewer provocations to other nations and will, by its strength, invite
fewer
acts of aggression against it (FederalistNo. 3). Publius,
therefore,
advocates a federal government as one that can "harmonize, assimilate,
and protect the several parts and members [of the Union]" and will be
able
to protect the interests of the parts as well as those of the whole
(FederalistNo. 4).
In FederalistNo. 9, Publius quotes extensively from
Montesquieu's
passage in The Spirit of the Laws in which he speaks of the
advantages
of confederate republics. Montesquieu characterizes such republics as
"a
kind of assemblage of societies" which, by means of association,
increase
their power in order to "provide for the security of the united body."
Such a republic, Montesquieu argues, being itself composed of small
societies,
enjoys the internal happiness of small republics, while possessing with
regard to external security, all the advantages of large monarchies.
Publius
quotes this passage at length, he explains, because it contains "a
luminous
abridgement of the principal arguments in favor of the Union." Publius
even goes beyond Montesquieu in protecting the authority of the small
republics
who are to compose the new Union, saying that "the proposed
Constitution,
so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them
constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a
direct
representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain
exclusive
and very important portions of sovereign power" (FederalistNo. 9).
Even while urging ratification of a Constitution which
grants new powers
to the national government, Publius repeatedly emphasizes that the
authority
of that government is to be limited to certain enumerated objects; and
he argues that the Constitution seeks to refer "the great and aggregate
interests" of the nation as a whole to the national legislature while
leaving
the "local and particular" interests in the hands of the states. In so
doing, Publius argues, both local circumstances and lesser interests
are
protected as well as "great and national objects" (FederalistNo.
10). Thus, the principal purposes of the Union Publius summarizes as
"the
common defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace, as
well against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation
of
commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence
of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries"
(FederalistNo. 23).6
Under
the Constitution, writes Publius, the jurisdiction of the federal
government
is to be limited to those objects "which concern all the members of the
republic [i.e., all the states], but which are not to be attained by
the
separate provisions of any." The state governments, Publius argues, are
to retain their authority over all the purposes of government for which
they can separately provide. Indeed, Publius continues, so important is
the role of the states "that if they were abolished the general
governinent
would be compelled, by the principle of self- preservation, to
reinstate
them in their proper jurisdiction." (Federalist No. 14).
Again and again Publius emphasizes that the Constitution
allows the
states to retain their authority independently of the federal
government.
"An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national
sovereignty,"
he writes in Federalist No. 32, "would imply an entire subordination of
the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them, would be
altogether
dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims
only
at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would
clearly
retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which
were
not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States."
(Emphasis
in the original.) Indeed, Publius says, "the rule that all authorities,
of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union,
remain with them in full vigor" is obvious from the proposed
Constitution
as a whole.
Far from abolishing or diminishing the legitimate role of
the states,
Publius notes in Federalist No. 21 and elsewhere, a major purpose of
the
proposed Union is to provide additional protection to the state
governments.
Publius's concern with protecting local authority against
the encroachments
of federal power echoes the medieval principle of subsidiarity—a
principle
that remained very much alive in eighteenth-century England and its
colonies
and was eloquently defended by Edmund Burke in his attack on the French
Revolution.
According to this principle, the state is perceived as an
organic unit
composed of a great variety of institutions—the family, the guild, the
town, the university, the Church—each with its own intrinsic value. And
it is primarily through these societal structures that men are
habituated
to virtue and attain practical wisdom. Public power, or government,
stands
above these organizations as the organic syntliesis of their mutually
complementary
functions, and its responsibility is to avoid interference in these
societal
institutions and to assist each to function properly within its sphere
through the maintenance of peace and order. The state, as an organic
whole,
does not make the societal institutions superfluous. It must never
abolish
them or seek to usurp their purposes or functions; any attempt to do so
is seen as a threat to the people's liberty.
The principle of subsidiarity was, then, the moderating
factor between
the omnipotence of the state and the absolute, undirected freedom of
the
individual.7 As
Frederick
Wilhelmsen writes:
The legitimate power of the king was the fruit of a hundred pacts
solemnly
entered upon by princes and subjects, themselves represented by a
thicket
of institutions which were the work of generations and even centuries
of
common experience.8
In his attack on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke defends this
principle
as a necessary function in the formation and development of a culture.
As Peter Stanlis summarizes Burke's argument: "The basic institutions
of
society, the family, church, and state, and even all lesser
institutions,
were the necessary means [for Burke] by which the 'natural man'
overcame
his innate deficiencies in the intellectual, social, aesthetic, and
moral
virtues, and fulfilled his highest potential as individual and in
society."9
These institutions, says Burke, are the seedplot of the social virtues:
"To be attached to the subdivision, to the little platoon we belong to
in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public
affections.
It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love
of
our country, and of mankind."10
If man is torn away from the natural objects of his affections, if the
normal order of progression for public affections (from the concrete
local
to the abstract remote relationships between people) is inverted, then
these affections will be deprived of the soil necessary for their
growth,
and they will die, to be replaced by self-love and narrow self-interest.11
Moreover, since these institutions embody the customs, traditions, and
wise prejudices of a people, their destruction in the name of
uniformity
would disconnect man from the source of wisdom and all that makes life
rich and full. Men would be ground into "the dust and powder of
individuality"12
and become shallow, selfish, and vain, and care neither for their
fellow
men nor for those who came after them. The possibility of community,
ordered
liberty, and civilization itself would disintegrate, and man would be
led
into Hobbes's war of all against all. "Nothing can be more absurd and
dangerous,"
Burke writes in his Tract on the Popery Laws, "than to tamper
with
the natural foundations of society in hopes of keeping it up by certain
contrivances."13
Moreover, when the people arc habituated to virtue through
these natural
relationships and affections, they will confer power "on those only, in
whom they may discern that predominant proportion of active virtue and
wisdom," thus ensuring that the people's liberty is secured and justice
and the common good are pursued by those entrusted with the powers of
government.14
Though Burke wrote these works after the ratification of the U.S.
Constitution,
the ideas from which they were derived were a part of the intellectual
currency of English and American society and of the Whig political
tradition
from whence the American founders largely took their ideas.15
Just as in medieval thought interference by the sovereign in
the institutions
of society was seen as a threat to liberty and a violation of the
legitimate
powers of the king, Publius believes that, if the federal government
should
ever usurp the residual authority of the states over local matters,
such
an action would imperil the people's liberty. Publius notes that the
ordinary
administration of criminal and civil justice—which he refers to as "the
great cement of society" and "the most powerful, most universal, and
most
attractive source of popular obedience and attachment"—was left in the
hands of the state governments, thus ensuring that the primary
affections
of the people would be towards the states.
Jaffa suggests that the Framers preferred a much stronger
central government
vis-à-vis the states than the one established by the
Constitution
and that they made concessions to state power merely out of expediency:
that, only by such compromises, could they induce the states to accept
as much centralization of power as they did at that time.16
Yet Publius emphasizes repeatedly that the division of power between
the
federal and state governments is a positive good and that the states
should
jealously guard against encroachments from an overreaching federal
authority.
Thus, in Federalist No. 51, Publius relies explicitly on the
federal
character of the Constitution to preserve the people's liberty. "In the
compound republic of America," he writes, "the power surrendered by the
people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the
portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate
departments.
Hence, a double security arises to the rights of the people. The
different
governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be
controlled by itself." Thus, should the authority of the states be
eroded
or destroyed, one of the major barriers against tyranny would be
eliminated.
On numerous occasions Publius describes how the state
governments will
control an unjust or tyrannical use of power by the federal government.
The argument is most strongly stated in Federalist No. 26, where he
says
that the state legislatures "will always be not only vigilant but
suspicious
guardians of the rights of the citizens against encroachments from the
federal government . . . and will be ready enough, if anything improper
appears, to sound the alarm to the people, and not only to be the
VOICE,
but, if necessary, the ARM of their discontent."17
With this in mind, Publius argues that the appointment of militia
officers
by the states "will always secure to them a preponderating influence
over
the militia" (Federalist No. 29)—thereby ensuring that the states have
the ability "to take measures for their own defense [against a despotic
federal government], with all the celerity, regularity, and system of
independent
nations" (Federalist No. 28).
Yet, clearly, this is an extreme case. Publius envisions a
sufficiently
moderating and salutary influence of the states on the federal
government
through the regular processes of the federal system to ensure that such
extreme measures do not become necessary. Election of the Senate by the
state legislatures would give the states a direct voice in the national
councils (Federalist No. 62). Moreover, the election of senators in
this
manner, along with the use of the Electoral College to choose
Presidents,
would encourage the selection of men of talent and integrity who would
be "the most able and most willing to promote the interests of their
constituents"
(Federalist No. 64). Publius explains how this is to occur:
As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well as the
State legislatures who appoint the Senators, will in general be
composed
of the most enlightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to
presume
that their attentions and their votes will be directed to those men
only
who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue,
and
in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence (Federalist No.
64).
Publius assumes that even the House of Representatives, though elected
directly by the people, will be chosen "very much under the influence
of
that class of men, whose influence over the people obtains for
themselves
an election into the State legislatures" (Federalist No. 45).
Thus, not only do the state governments act as a check on
the threat
of tyranny but they also help to promote by a filtering process in
which
the best of the best are chosen for national office a national
government
that is characterized by wisdom, virtue, and ability. Contrary to the
assertions
of many Straussians, Publius recognizes that wisdom and virtue do not
arise
by reference to abstract natural rights that are somehow assumed by the
Constitution. Rather, these qualities arise from the customs,
traditions,
wise
prejudices, and religious beliefs that make up a community; and they
are
embodied in the state and national governments in the person of the
community's
"most enlightened and respectable citizens." Republican government is
founded
not on abstract principles, according to Publius, but on the better
qualities
of man's divided nature, which must be encouraged and promoted for
self-government
to work:
As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain
degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in
human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.
Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a
higher degree than any other form . . . [otherwise] the inference would
be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government .
. . (Federalist No. 55).
The nation's moral strength, then, is derived not from constant
reference
to the rights of man as an ultimate standard, on the one hand, nor from
mere reliance on the ability of ambition to counteract ambition, on the
other. Rather, Publius relies on the wisdom and good judgment of the
people
and their representatives to secure justice and the common good; and,
in
seeking these ends, he calls on them to be guided by what Patrick Henry
called "the lamp of experience."
One significant lesson of experience is that men are
"ambitious, vindictive,
and rapacious" and that they are frequently guided by momentary
passions
and immediate interests (Federalist No. 6). But experience also reveals
that there is much virtue and wisdom to be found in men as well. In
constructing
the national government, therefore, Publius tries to minimize the
effects
of evil tendencies in man anid increase the likelihood that the nobler
side of human nature will determine the policies and laws of the
government.
He urges ratification of the Constitution as providing for a system in
which the best men in the country will be appointed to office
(Federalist
No. 3) and in which the chances of oppression will be minimized.
To achieve these ends, Publius advocates in Federalist No.
10 the creation
of a large, extended republic, which increases the possibility that its
representatives will be men of "enlightened views and sentiments." But,
recognizing the darker side of human nature, he also takes the morally
responsible course of trying to minimize its effects without destroying
the liberty which can be used for either good or evil. He sees as an
additional
advantage of an extended republic that it will encompass a greater
number
of classes and interests, which will serve to prevent any one group
from
oppressing the rest and place greater obstacles in the way of "an
unjust
and interested majority." Such diversity of interests will render a
common
motive for arbitrary action less likely and decrease the probability
that
a majority bent on mischief will know its own strength. Because those
groups
in society whose interests are contrary to the common good will tend to
counterbalance each other, representatives having "enlightened views
and
virtuous sentiments" will find themselves able to rule without being
subjected
to undue influence.
Yet it should not be assumed that for Publius the various
classes and
interests in society are simply a necessary evil which cannot be
eliminated
without simultaneously destroying liberty. He argues, on the contrary,
that "a landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile
interest,
with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized
nations."
(Emphasis added.) In other words, these various interests comprise the
very fabric of civilization, which is necessary for wisdom and virtue
to
be attained.
Though he is aware that such varied interests frequently
lead to conflicts
and oppression by one group over another and that they must therefore
be
held in check, Publius also recognizes that there are legitimate
variations
in society and that these differences must be accepted as an element of
the common good. While Publius urges ratification of the Constitution
as
a means of promoting the commercial interests of the nation, for
example,
he also acknowledges that those interests ought to be regulated so that
they serve the larger interests of society as a whole. In short, the
selfish
and destructive aspects of society's diverse interests must be
controlled
in order to serve the ends of justice and the common good.
What kind of men does Publius envision governing such a
society? While
he recognizes that men are not angels and that those elected must be
controlled
by the checks and balances of a republican form of government
(Federalist
No. 51), his primary emphasis is on the wisdom, patriotism, virtue,
ability,
and experience of those who are to be elected. Such men, he says, will
be able to "refine and enlarge the public views" (Federalist No. 10)
and
to deliberate concerning the best means to promote the public good.
"The
aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be," Publius says
in
Federalist No. 57, "first to obtain for rulers men who possess most
wisdom
to discern and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society;
and
in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping
them
virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." In
republican
governments, he says, the mode of obtaining rulers is election; and,
while
the methods of preventing degeneracy are numerous and varied, the most
effectual way is "such a limitation of the term of appointments as will
maintain a proper responsibility to the people."
A republican government, therefore, requires the existence
of sufficient
wisdom, goodness, and public-spiritedness in the people that they are
capable
of recognizing and electing to office those who possess such virtuous
qualities
in the highest degree. It also requires that the people remain
sufficiently
vigilant so that a betrayal of their trust will not go unnoticed.
Yet, just as Publius sees the wisdom and virtue of those
entrusted with
the government as essential but insufficient means to ensure just
policy,
he sees the same attributes as essential but insufficient qualities in
the people. It may at times become necessary, he says, for an
institution
which is ultimately answerable to the people but which also maintains a
degree of stability and independence—i.e., the indirectly elected
Senate
[before ratification of the seventeenth amendment]—to interpose itself
"until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the
public
mind" (Federalist No. 63). Yet in no sense does Publius see this as a
compromise
of the ultimate sovereignty of the people. "The ultimate authority,
wherever
the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone," he writes in
Federalist No. 46. Instead, the limitations on the immediate enactment
of the majority will into policy are a means of ensuring that the
people's
sovereignty is exercised according to the principles of wisdom and
prudence
rather than on the basis of passion and narrow self-interest
(Federalist
No. 49).
By what principles, then, is America to be governed? Is it
necessary
to look to principles anterior to the Constitution in order to
determine
government policy? In one sense, Publius would say that it is. "Justice
is the end of government. It is the end of civil society," he writes in
Federalist No. 51. Yet, this end is not to be achieved by an appeal to
absolute standards existing a priori. It is an end which must
be
achieved by good men, acting within an established political order,
according
to the collective experience of the nation (and of the lesser societies
of which it is composed), and with due regard to the experience of
mankind
through the ages. And it must be pursued in a spirit of humility,
moderation,
and compromise—lest the established political order be destroyed in a
vain
attempt to achieve what cannot be.
In marked contrast to Publius's view, Jaffa asserts that the
meaning
of the Constitution is to be found in the "principles of the
Declaration
of Independence" and that contemporary constitutional interpreters,
including
judges, may simply ignore compromises reached by the Framers which, in
their opinion, do not seem wholly consistent with the Declaration's
abstract
principles.18
Publius begs to differ. It is a major strength, he writes,
that the
Constitution is the result of compromise and that it does not display
"that
artificial structure and regular symmetry which an abstract view of the
subject might lead an ingenious theorist to bestow on a Constitution
planned
in his closet or in his imagination" (Federalist No. 37). Publius
denigrates
those who act on the basis of "utopian speculations" and cites "the
accumulated
experience of ages" as the best guide to judge of the proper form of
government
(Federalist No. 6). Dismissing "idle theories" of a "golden age,"19
he recognizes that "imperfections, weaknesses, and evils [are] incident
to society in every shape." He, therefore, appeals to experience as
"the
least fallible guide of human opinions" and constantly refers to "that
best oracle of wisdom, experience" (Federalist No. 15).20
While he recognizes that the American people should not be guided by "a
blind veneration for antiquity" or custom (Federalist No. 14), he also
believes that "Nothing can be more fallacious than to found our
political
calculations on arithmetical principles" (Federalist No. 55).
In advocating ratification of the Constitution, Publius
appeals time
and again to the lessons of history, including the experience of other
nations and of the state governments. He emphasizes that many
provisions
of the federal Constitution were taken from like provisions in the
state
constitutions. He further emphasizes that the Constitutional Convention
was composed of men "who have grown old in acquiring political
information"
and who carried into that convention "their accumulated knowledge and
experience"
(Federalist No. 2).
Still, Publius says, the most the convention could do was to
avoid the
past errors of other countries and those of the United States under the
Articles of Confederation and to "provide a convenient mode of
rectifying
their own errors, as future experience may unfold them" (Federalist No.
37). Yet, no individual or group is authorized to abolish or alter the
system on speculation of an improvement or a correction in the
perceived
errors of the founders. "Until the people have, by some solemn and
authoritative
act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon
themselves
collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even
knowledge,
of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure
from
it, prior to such an act" (Federalist No. 78). The reason for strict
adherence
to the formal amendment process as the only method of changing the
Constitution,
Publius explains, is that both the institutions of man and political
principles
are obscure. Hence men must moderate their "expectations and hopes from
the effects of human sagacity" (Federalist No. 37). "The purest of
human
blessings must have a portion of alloy in them," he writes in
Federalist
No. 41; "the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at
least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT good." Thus, the greatest care
and
circumspection must be exercised before tampering with the fabric of
the
nation, and such change should be undertaken only after experience has
revealed its necessity to the great body of the country.
The political system created by the Constitution both
presumes and fosters
a spirit of moderation and compromise, exercised by men of virtue,
wisdom,
patriotism, experience, and ability. In such a system, the sovereignty
of the states is not of secondary importance but is one of the pillars
of the constitutional edifice. The states, through their various
subordinate
communities, provide the source of the virtue and wisdom that are to
guide
the nation, and they act as a check on the potential abuse of power by
those entrusted with it at the national level. In this system, appeals
to "arithmetical principles" and a priori rights are rejected
in
favor of the lamp of experience and the good sense of the people and
their
representatives. In Federalist No. 37, Publius praises the process of
compromise
that led to the Constitution, saying: "It is impossible for the man of
pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of [the] Almighty hand
. . . ." The incarnation of good in this world, if it is to be attained
at all, is achieved through the give and take of consensus and
compromise.
It is in this way that justice is made possible.
Those who would seek to impose their own private vision of
the good—built
not on the lessons of experience and the common customs, traditions,
and
religious beliefs which constitute a people21
but on those "contrivances" or abstractions which Burke so roundly
condemned—threaten
to bring about the destruction of society rather than its perfection.
Publius
makes this quite clear in cautioning against a rejection of the
Constitution
in the hope of achieving a more perfect document. Quoting Hume, he
writes:
"To balance a large state or society (says he), whether monarchical
or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great difficulty, that
no human genius, however comprehensive, is able, by the mere dint of
reason
and reflection, to effect it. The judgments of many must unite in the
work;
experience must guide their labor; time must bring it to perfection,
and
the feeling of inconveniences must correct the mistakes which they
inevitably
fall into in their first trials and experiments." These judicious
reflections
contain a lesson of moderation to all sincere lovers of the Union, and
ought to put them upon their guard against hazarding anarchy, civil
war,
a perpetual alienation of the States from each other, and perhaps the
military
despotism of a victorious demagogue, in the pursuit of what they are
not
likely to obtain, but from time and experience (Federalist No. 85).
Only time and experience, and the prudent application to particular
circumstances
of the lessons which they have to offer, can achieve a true and lasting
good. And any such applications must be undertaken in the humble
recognition
of the fallibility of human reason. Such a recognition will lead to a
spirit
of compromise and an understanding that perfect good is only to be
found
in the next world. To attempt to achieve perfection in this
world—through
an uncompromising intellectual arrogance—will lead not to perfection
but
to anarchy or tyranny: in short, to hell on earth.
Notes
‡ This article is from Humanitas,
Vol.
V, No. 1
1991. [Back]
*Gregory S. Ahern is a Fellow in
Constitutional
Theory with the Center for Constitutional Studies. [Back]
1. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and
History
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 319. [Back]
3. Charles Kesler, "A Special Meaning of
the Declaration
of Independence: A Tribute to Harry V. Jaffa," National Review
(July
6, 1979). [Back]
4. Kesler, "The Higher Law and 'Original
Intent':
The Challenge for Conservatism," The Intercollegiate Review
(Vol.
220, No. 2, Spring 1987), 12. [Back]
5. See, for example, Kesler's
characterization of
the "genuine" standards of English common law as "right reason or as a
determination of the natural law"—not, however, as determined by
precedent
and customary law but as the product of a judge's essentially private
reason.
"The Higher Law and 'Original Intent,'" 12. [Back]
6. See FederalistNos. 41-44 for
a complete
discussion of these enumerated objects. See also FederalistNo.
45. [Back]
7. Heinrich A. Rommen, The State in
Catholic
Thought (St. Louis: Herder Book Co., 1945), 299-302; see also
Frederick
D. Wilhelmsen, Christianity and Political Philosophy (Athens:
University
of Georgia Press, 1978), 151. [Back]
9. Peter Stanlis, "Burke, Babbitt, And
Rousseau:
The Moral Nature of Man," in Irving Babbitt in Our Time
(Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 129; see also
Edmund
Burke, Reflections on
the Revolution in France (New York: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1982),
189. [Back]
10. Reflections, 135; see also Reflections,
315. [Back]
11. Stanlis, Edmund Burke: Selected
Writings
and Speeches (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1968), 506-517. [Back]
15. See H. Trevor Colbourn, The
Lamp of Experience:
Whig History the Intellectutal Origins of the American Revolution
(Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965). [Back]
16. Harry V. Jaffa, "What Were the
'Original Intentions'
of the Framers of the Constitution of the United States?" University
of Puget Sound Law Review (Spring 1987), 371 and 377. [Back]
17. See also FederalistNos.
28, 46, 52,
60, and 84. [Back]
18. Jaffa, op. cit., 385; see
also Jaffa,
"The Closing of the Conservative Mind," National Review (July
9,
1990), 41. [Back]
19. See also FederalistNo. 28,
where he
condemns "the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity
disdains
the admonitions of experimental instruction." [Back]