Discriminating observers recognize that political practice
in the United
States today bears only a faint resemblance to the Constitution written
at Philadelphia. The old Constitution enjoys a formal, ceremonial
existence
still and possesses a limited practical efficacy, but American
government
and politics have been transformed in the direction of a centralized
mass
democracy greatly at odds with what the Framers envisioned.
To understand the distance between the intent of the Framers
and current
practice it is insufficient to compare the present state of affairs to
the words of documents like the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
Their real meaning emerges only when the texts are put in their
religious,
moral, cultural, social, and political context. The Constitution and
related
documents all imply an entire view of human nature and society. The
particular
text assumes and forms an inextricable part of a more comprehensive and
unwritten constitution, which includes the moral ethos of the Framers.
The institutions and procedures prescribed by the written document
imply
a particular kind of civilization and a particular kind of human being.
Without a certain personality type setting the tone in society, the
government
could not function as intended. The Constitution presupposes character
traits in tune with its prescriptions, and those prescriptions are
expected
to foster that personality.
A consideration of what the Framers assumed and implied will
demonstrate
the inadequacy of interpretations that look for the meaning of "the
Founding"
in texts abstracted from historical settings and concrete substance.
Neglect
of the unwritten constitution may serve as an example of the
debilitating
effects of abstractionist, ahistorical modes of thought in contemporary
political philosophy.
Of special importance in ascertaining the intent of the
Framers is the
moral ethos that permeates the unwritten constitution and informs their
written work. Attending to this dimension of the Constitution helps
reveal
the extent of the decline of American constitutionalism. Studying the
work
of the Framers in this manner shows the futility of trying to restore
crumbling
constitutional structures by invoking the "principles" of the
Constitution
in the abstract. Returning to the intent of the Framers, if it were
possible
or even desirable today, would require nothing less than a revival of
the
constitutional personality and of the civilization from which it is
indistinguishable.
The disintegration of constitutionalism in America manifests the
emergence
of a different type of civilization and human being. To stress the
need,
in the face of that development, to recover the "principles" of the
Framers
neglects the presuppositions and concrete entailments of their ideas.
Most
of the assumptions behind their constitutional preferences are left
unstated,
because they are taken for granted. Abstractionist interpretations
misunderstand
both the intent of the Framers and the prospects for constitutionalism
today.
Grasping the moral ethos of the Framers goes a long way
toward explaining
their preference for a decentralized, regionally differentiated, and
group-oriented
society. The Framers assume the preponderance of a particular type of
moral
responsibility with deep roots in classical and Christian civilization.
The virtue they admire and hope will assist the realization of their
plans
is not some abstract precept or ethereal sentiment. It is a virtue of
character
and concrete obligations that generates social relationships and
institutions
of a certain type and quality. This moral ethos can be contrasted with
a very different notion of virtue, one that has become increasingly
influential
in the Western world. While the older kind of virtue manifests itself
in
individual, personal responsibility and tends to foster private and
local
community and a decentralized society, the more recent kind of virtue
manifests
itself in abstract ideas and sentiments and tends to foster a
collectivistic
and centralized society. The two types of morality may resemble each
other
in terminology, but they represent incompatible views of human nature
and society and have radically different social and political
ramifications.
To bring out a crucially important aspect of the Framers'
outlook it
may be useful to present first a view that is very different from
theirs.
A distinctive feature of the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
is the rejection of social subdivisions in the state. According to
Rousseau,
the citizens most not be distracted from the good of the whole by group
loyalties and interests. The proper dedication to the common good
requires
that the people be dissolved into an undifferentiated mass of
individuals.
Traditional Western civilization is incompatible with Rousseau's vision
and must be overturned. To accomplish that goal it is necessary to
destroy
the elaborate groupings and social patterns through which that
civilization
manifests itself. The Greeks argued that man is a social being who can
realize his true humanity only through associations, starting with the
household. Christianity continued that tradition, making its own
additions
and revisions. But Rousseau wants society swept clean of decentralized,
group-oriented structures. He wants the state to have no "sectional
associations"
(société partielle). 1
Rousseau's philosophy is thus in the sharpest possible
conflict with
American tradition. In America, groups and subdivisions have not only
proliferated,
but they have been encouraged and protected. Alexis de Tocqueville was
struck by the habit of Americans to join together, privately and
locally,
to conduct their own affairs. He took special note of the influential
role
of the Churches.
It is important to note that under the old Constitution the
American
people are recognized only as members of sub-divisions, of States and
electoral
districts. The Framers set up not a single institution through which
the
American people as an undifferentiated mass of individuals could
express
their will. The will of the people is plainly viewed as some-thing very
different from a numerical majority. The people, the Framers say or
imply,
are members of groups or subdivisions. The interests of persons are
seen
as more or less bound up with the interests of their most cherished
associations.
Beyond the Constitution itself, American tradition in general gives
power,
protection, and independence to countless social and political
subdivisions.
Without always making it explicit, the Framers view life in autonomous
groups as fulfilling a basic human need.2
Federalism is just one of the more striking examples of the
old American
preference for local and regional autonomy and decentralization. The
way
in which the United States Senate is constituted illustrates the
Framers'
respect for sectional interests. According to the democratist standard
of one-man-one-vote, all persons should carry the same political weight
at the polls. The Constitution embodies a much different conception of
popular rule. It gives all States, regardless of size and population,
the
same representation in the Senate. New York has the same number of
Senators
as Delaware, California as Wyoming. The votes cast by citizens of
Delaware
and Wyoming are, as it were, counted many times. This is done in
deference
to the States as semi-autonomous entities worthy of support and
protection.
The enormous expansion of American central government in the last
century
makes it difficult to remember that the Framers actually expected the
States
and the people to retain all powers not specifically delegated to the
central
government.
Even in the case of the allegedly most popular, or
"democratic," institution
of the United States Government, the House of Representatives, the
Framers
balanced regional against numerical considerations. A tiny State that
purely
quantitative standards would leave without representation in the House
is guaranteed at least one representative. The Framers also assigned
the
task of selecting Presidents not to the mass of the people, but to the
Electoral College, containing as many members from each State as that
State
had representation in the House and Senate. Again small States were
deliberately
given vast overrepresentation.
Traditional American society as a whole nurtured
decentralized social
and political structures and a multiplicity of subdivisions and
associations.
In asserting the one-man-one-vote formula as integral to the
Constitution,
the Warren Court introduced an atomistic and democratist notion alien
to
the Framers. The pervasiveness and proliferation of communal ties in
the
older American society are among the reasons why it is misguided to
treat
the political philosophy of John Locke as paradigmatic for the United
States.
Locke's social and political atomism, focused on the rights of discrete
individuals, does not account for an American historical reality that
is
in some respects surprisingly reminiscent of medieval Western society.
It is crucial to understanding the written and unwritten
constitutions
to recognize the ethical import of the old American affinity for groups
and associations. The Framers, their class, and the American people in
general were steeped in a Western tradition whose conception of virtue
gave precedence to the responsibility of the individual in personal
relationships
and associations. Aristotle had explained the centrality of the
household
in fostering sound habits. The Romans had also viewed family as
preparing
the individual for wider duties. Christianity gave succinct expression
to what would become the heart of the moral ethos of the Western world
when it stressed "love of neighbor." It is primarily in one's daily
contacts
with people that one should show goodness and charity. The person's
chief
obligation is to limit his own selfishness and generally to improve
character
so that he can do right by others.
By "neighbor" is meant not people in the abstract and in the
distance,
but people of flesh and blood with names and faces. In his more
intimate
associations the individual gets practice in "loving neighbors." There
virtue is concrete and personal. The individual is continually
encouraged
to consider the needs and wishes of others. In the family especially,
the
person learns both what it means to be loved and cared for and what it
means to hove and care for others. Taking others into account becomes a
habit. It is not possible to get away with mere moral posturing. People
who present themselves as better than they are are mercilessly exposed
when their actions fall short of their words. Over time, life in groups
and associations tempers the selfish ego. It fosters character traits
conducive
to a larger good. Having gotten its start in the family and other
relationships
at fairly chose range, moral responsibility can be applied to wider
social
and political concerns.
Note carefully that traditional Western moral virtue is not
a sweet
sentiment or a generalized concern for mankind in the abstract. Virtue
is a matter of character. It means making the best of self and acting
responsibly
toward real people, which means that morality is hard. To make love of
neighbor particularly difficult, real people are frequently less than
pleasant,
and they may be our competitors. Behaving charitably may require
strength
of will. Virtue shows itself, thus, not in high-sounding phrases or
teary-eyed
"compassion" but in responsible conduct.
Compare this older Western and American ethos to the common
modern notion
of virtue. The latter can be described as morality in the abstract.
Unlike
the older virtue, it does not presuppose improvement of self. It can be
espoused by the worst of human beings, by people who are very difficult
to live and work with. These same individuals can ooze benevolence for
people in the abstract and talk incessantly about "justice," "human
rights,"
and "the common good." They can advocate schemes for sweeping social
and
political change. In fact, the wider the scope of their virtuous
project,
the more compelling is supposed to be the evidence of a superior
morality.
But this abstract and self-congratulatory virtue cares about
nobody
in particular. It is morality made easy. Anybody can do it. You can
remain
the same odious person as before while professing noble principles and
feelings. From the point of view of the older Western ethic, the new
virtue
actually looks like a moral hoax. It is a more or less subtle escape
from
man's primary moral responsibility: to make the best of self and do
right
by neighbors. Abstract moralism is less interested in improving self
than
in improving others. And the need to take concrete action is somehow
always
transferred elsewhere, typically to government, which acquires ever new
responsibilities and becomes ever more centralized.
The importance of this contrast between different notions of
virtue
cannot be exaggerated. The two kinds of virtue foster different human
beings
and build entirely different societies. From the old virtue of
character
springs a decentralized, group-oriented society. Those have the chief
responsibility
for acting on problems and opportunities who are most directly affected
by them. Help is sought beyond the people most involved only to the
extent
that they cannot satisfactorily manage their own affairs. De
Tocqueville
found among Americans in the early decades of the 1800's a pronounced
disinclination
to hand over responsibilities to authorities further away.3
The traditional moral ethos of the West shows its own
substantive meaning
only in the kind of concrete social and political patterns that have
been
described. Man is thought to express his essential nature and find his
greatest satisfaction in associations, starting with the family.
Rousseau
knew what he was doing when he turned against "sectional associations."
Only by destroying the soclo-political structures in which the older
ethos
manifested itself could you effectively destroy it.
Federalism and decentralization in the American tradlition
can be adequately
understood only in the context of the old Western moral heritage. If
regional,
local, and private initiative and independence are eroding today, it is
because a new ethos is replacing the older one. The new moralism is
undermining
the virtue of character and undermining the corresponding exercise of
up-close
responsibility. The new virtue generates a centralized and expansionist
government which ceaselessly meddles in the life of the citizens.
No amount of abstract principle can restore decentralized
constitutional
government and a vital federalism. The political system envisioned by
the
Framers assumed the preponderance of a particular type of human being,
what has here been called the constitutional personality. Without that
personality of character a decentralized society is not possible. To
revive
American constitutionalism, if it can still be done, would require, not
more people who talk all the time about "justice," "the common good,"
and
"the best regime," but people who are able to shoulder concrete
responsibilities,
so that the reconstruction of society could begin where it matters
most,
in the personal lives of the citizens.
Trying to restore the intent and the work of the Framers by
advocating
abstract principle avoids the heart of the matter. It bypasses the
central
need of all civilized life. the shaping of moral char-acter. Character,
let it be underlined, is not the same as keeping nice-sounding
"principles"
in your head. In fact, talking about virtue in the abstract easily
becomes
an escape from what is much more dlifficult and needed, the actual
improvement
of self and the actual exercise of responsibility. To that extent,
endless
theorizing about "the good" aggravates the erosion of a free and
decentralized
society. One of the dangers of philosophical abstractionism is that it
discourages attention to the concrete texture of responsibility and
distracts
the individual from obligations that are near and personal. It turns
virtue
into a matter of correct thinking.
Rather than attuning the individual to the actual moral
opportunities
of historical existence, abstractionism invites him to contemplate
"ideal"
propositions. "The good" of abstract theorizing does not belong to the
world of particulars in which the person has to act and hence is not
dlirectly
relevant to the needs of specific situations. Even if abstractionism
encourages
the individual to keep the idea of "the good" in his head, he becomes
used
to more or less ignoring it in practical conduct. The effect of
centering
morality in ahistorical contemplation is to under-mine the virtue of
character,
including the self-restraint that can hold the individual's lower self
in check.
This criticism of abstractionism is not directed against
philosophy
in general. There can be no question of rejecting or discounting
reasoning
that is truly philosophical. It should be said also that there is a
special
sense in which genuine philosophy can be said to be "abstract": it is
contemplative
and conceptual, not a form of practical action. The object of criticism
here is poor philosophy, the kind that attempts to separate itself from
the world of particulars in which human beings actually dwell. Good
humanistic
philosophy embraces historical particularity and articulates
it: universality and particularity are at the same time inseparable
and in tension. 4
A most unfortunate weakness of postwar American intellectual
conservatism
has been its limited interest in philosophy beyond loosely held
generalities
and formulas. A lack of philosophical breadth, depth, and discipline
made
possible the paradoxical spread of ahistorical or anti-historical
habits
of mind. It is now widely believed that sound theorizing assesses ideas
apart from considerations of historical substance and circumstance. The
meaning of ideas and principles are looked for within textual
formulations
themselves, as if the concrete referents and larger experiential
context
of words and terms were not part of their meaning. According to this
view,
the principles of the good society can be discerned and pronounced by
enlightened
individuals who reflect in isolation from historical experience and
circumstance.
It is believed that doctrinal formulations can carry precise and
definitive
meaning. This philosophical and interpretive stance is the
epistemological
counterpart of religious fundamentalism.5
That anti-historical sentiment should be common among
academics labeled
"conservative" could not be more paradoxical, for if intellectually
serious
modern conservatism has any distinctive feature, it is surely the
historical
consciousness and the sense of the intimate connection between
universality
and historical particularity. Most persons of traditional views have a
conviction, based in religion, ethical intuition, or philosophy, or all
three, that there is a universal moral order and that right and wrong
are
not questions of subjective preference. But the term "conservatism"
indicates
that the position to which it refers is conservative of something,
specifically,
of the ethical awareness that emerges from the great classical and
Judaeo-Christian
heritage. As in the case of Edmund Burke, the sense of universality is
indistinguishable from the historical sense. What is ethically
universal
transcends history and particular civilizations, but it becomes known
to
man only in concrete historical manifestations. Moral good cannot
simply
be a creature of convention, for history produces evil as well as good.
But only a deep and wide-ranging historical sense can distinguish true
universality from momentary and idiosyncratic preferences.
There has been much loose talk over the last few decades
about the dangers
of "historicism." A belief in moral universality and lasting truth is
said
to be incompatible with stressing the historical nature of human
existence.
That moral and epistemological relativism, as ordinarily understood,
poses
a danger to civilization hardly needs repeating, but it betrays
ignorance
to assert that the only real alternative to relativism is ahistorical
ratiocination.
Although espoused by some individuals reputed to be
"conservative,"
moral and epistemological abstractionism is profoundly
anti-conservative.
The notion that real universality must be sharply distinguished from
historical
particularity clashes, for example, with the belief that man is
dependent
for moral, intellectual, and cultural guidance on the human heritage of
life and letters. Among those who have uncritically accepted a doctrine
of abstract "principles" are many philosophically innocent Christians,
perhaps especially Roman Catholics, who vaguely assume a connection
between
those "principles" and natural law. The latter is interpreted in a
rationalistic
and legalistic manner. Properly concerned to affirm universal morality,
many Christians have, for lack of real exposure to philosophical
alternatives,
attached themselves to ahistorical assumptions that are not easily
reconciled
with what they presumably also believe: that the transcendent Word
became
flesh, that the Logos was incarnated in history. Drawing no
philosophical
lesson from this religious belief, they blithely accept the notion that
universality could have no integral association with historical
particularity.
Many others with conservative instincts follow a similar suicidal
course.
The belief in "universal values" is transformed into an assertion of
abstract
principles that is sometimes hard to distinguish from the Jacobin
advocacy
of "rights" inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.6
Abstractionism affords a limited and limiting perspective on
the Framers
and the state of the Constitution today. It lacks a sense of the
concrete
substance and implications of ideas. Abstractionism misses the central
importance of the unwritten constitution. lt diverts attention from the
world of historical particularity. Appealing as ahistorical theorizing
is to some academics today, such thinking was not the manner of the
Framers.
The Constitution is the result of deep and plentiful reflection, but it
is not a blueprint based on ahistorical ratiocination.
Federalist No. 37 is here both explicit and emphatic: it is
a strength
of the Constitution, Madison writes, that it does not have "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. 7 The work
of
the Framers was creative and distinctive, to be sure, but it was
historically
rooted and informed, and adjusted to concrete circumstances. If we are
to understand their Constitution with all of its unstated assumptions,
preconditions, and entailments, and if we are to understand the forces
that are now destroying it, a philosophical outlook is needed that is
attuned
to historical realities, both past and present.
Many would like us to believe that the great intellectual
struggle of
today is between "historicists" of various kinds and defenders of
universal
truths and values. But this formulation of alternatives leaves out the
one truly fruitful course of philosophical renewal. The intellectually
significant choice is not between historical and anti-historical
positions,
but between historicism that does and historicism that does not
acknowledge
the universal. Abstractionism manages to misconstrue both universality
and particularity. Rejecting the historical consciousness, it engenders
rigidities and reifications that can only give universality a bad name.
In its fondness for disembodied ideas and texts rather than historical
realities abstractionism becomes an escape from the concrete and acute
problems of our time.
Notes1. Jean-.Jacques Rousseau, The
Social
Contract (Harmondsworth, 1970), Bk. II, Ch. 3, 73. Rousseau s
political
philosophy is analyzed in dlepth with special attention to its ethical
import and contrasted with American constitutionalisun in Claes G. Ryn.
Democracy
and the Ethical Life, 2nd expanded ed. (Washington, D.C., 1990). [Back]
2. The term "autonomous group" is used hy
Robert Nisbet.
See, in particular, The Quest for Community (San Francisco,
1990),
which explains the humane significance of life in small and independent
associations. [Back]
3. See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy
in America (New Rochelle, N.Y., undated), Vol. 1, 177. [Back]
4. The historical nature of philosophy is
perhaps nowhere
better demonstrated than in the work of the Italian philosopher
Benedetto
Croce (1866-1952). His most famous and central books, Aesthetic
(1902), Logic (1908), and The Philosophy of the Practical
(1908), present a mature and lucid, though not flawless, version of
German
idealism. Crocean ideas are revised and developed and incorporated into
a reconstituted epistemology of the humanities and social sciences in
Claes
G. Ryn, Will, Imagination and Reason (Chicago and Washington,
D.C.,
1986). [Back]
5. For an extensive discussion of the
relationship
of universality and particularity, see Ryn, Will. The sense in
which
philosophical abstractionism is "fundamentalistic" is explained in Ch.
7. [Back]
6. The relationship between moral
abstractionism, as
found, for example, among dlisciples of the late Leo Strauss, and
currents
of moralistic utopian ideology is explained in Claes G. Ryn, The
New
Jacobinism: Can Democracy Survive? (Washington, D.C., 1991).
Abstract
universalism of the "Straussian" kind is no less questionable when its
advocates think they are presenting it for "popular" consumption but
hiding
their real, putatively Nietzschean beliefs. Suggestions of "secret
writing"
simply claim credit for philosophical ambivalence and incoherence. [Back]
7. Hamilton, Madison, Jay, The
Federalist Papers,
ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York, 1961), No. 37 (Madison), 230. [Back]
*Claes G. Ryn is Chairman of the National
Humanities
Institute and Professor of Politics at The Catholic University of
America.
[Back]
†This article first appeared in Modern
Age,
Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer 1992). [Back]