To Rule Oneself in Antebellum America the Concept of Self-Government From

TO RULE ONESELF IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA THE CONCEPT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT FROM REVOLUTION TO SECESSION IN THREE VOLUMES 1: WHO SHALL RULE GROWTH AND GOVERNANCE GOVERNING IMPASSE RICHARD L GARNER Download from www.toruleoneself.com (without charge) Printed copy, email richlygarner.gmail.com All Rights Reserved, 2010 WHO SHALL RULE MAKING A DECLARATION Within months after the Washington Administration was launched the Cabinet was caught up in a battle over fiscal policy that came to highlight the fractious rather than harmonious nature of the new government. Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, announced an ambitious plan for establishing the authority of the new government in managing the nation’s finances that he said would stabilize the currency and restore the credit of the nation after more than a decade of deterioration. To achieve this Hamilton had offered a reading of the Constitution that stressed “implied powers” over “delegated powers”. The idea of a charter to specify relations between those who ruled and those who were ruled had been elevated to a new status under the empirical political theories of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Endorsing a modern constitutional form was easier than writing the document. The idea of “implied powers” versus “delegated powers” had concerned the Philadelphia Convention because the previous Articles of Confederation, which stressed delegated authority, had proven to be unworkable. The language of the new document alternated between broad and specific, and it was unlikely that this was simply an accident on the part of the framers. Loose language was as frightening as strict language. With the former the limits were hard to discern and with the latter they were hard to avoid. The natural fear was that language that was too loose could ultimately strip the individual of all his rights and make him once again dependent on those two ruled. Hamilton’s fiscal reforms launched just such a debate (perhaps intentionally so to establish if possible the boundaries under which the New Administration could operate. When Hamilton’s Plan on Public Credit (to be discussed later) was put before the Congress, Hamilton found himself pitted against James Madison, his old ally during the ratification proceedings (Hamilton seldom attended the Philadelphia Convention) who was by his stature among the most powerful voices in the House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, brokered a deal between Hamilton and Madison, an odd deal by any measure. In exchange for southern support of the public credit plan, the Administration would agree to build the Capitol on land along the Potomac between Maryland and Virginia. Washington, who had demonstrated his skills to lead rather than to analyze and sought to avoid further disharmony, asked Jefferson, often Hamilton’s adversary in the Cabinet, to write an opinion addressing any constitutional issues raised by the deal. It is the reasoning behind Jefferson’s opinion WHO SHALL RULE? that interests me at this point because it will serve as well as any other statement I’ve read as the theme for this study. It must be understood that Assumption, as the public credit plan was known, was highly unpopular in certain quarters, and the relocation of the Capital was unpopular in certain quarters, although different. Strict constructionists, as those favoring a near-literal reading of the Constitution were called, opposed assumption; New Yorkers, where Capital was then, plus Philadelphians, who were more or less, promised the Capital after 1793, opposed its relocation to the Potomac and next door to Virginia. Let me note to insure clarity that when Jefferson wrote his opinion, the Congress (specifically the House) had not passed assumption but it had passed the relocation bill (although the deal, as such was still not public). The Washington Administration was not being treated kindly on either score and would be further skewered once assumption was passed (which occurred two weeks after Jefferson’s opinion), and therefore the President wanted assurances that reasonable constitutional defense could be mounted. Two points that will come to trouble America deeply for the next 70 years will occupy Jefferson’s thinking during these off-record negotiations and Cabinet discussions. At first he tried to remain aloof but also worried that because these issues struck at the core of the dilemma for the new government – what did the Constitution say and how could the agitation be contained to prevent disunion – required engagement. Only two years into the new government Jefferson among others saw the saw to essentially “save the Union”.1 It is the opening paragraph that I wish to underscore. In writing to the President, Jefferson distinguished between types of governing: “Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the righ[t] of self-government: they receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men, by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.”2 I have long been fascinated by the dual distinction between ruling oneself and being ruled as a part of a collectivity but without losing one’s power for self-rule. When men transacted business, they made those transactions “a part of the natural right of self-government”. It was a statement that most Americans would understand and applaud. There was no doubt where authority originated and how it was to be shared. It did not say in so many words the individual was supreme, always standing over and 1See Julian Boyd’s discussion based upon exchange of correspondence and newspaper reporting in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 17 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), 163-170. 2“Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Residence Bill” enclosed in letter “Jefferson to Washington, July 15, 1790” in Julian P. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 17:195. Italicized majority in reprint of document. Madison wrote a concurring opinion with the date, 14 July 1790, (pp.199-201), one day before Jefferson’s opinion reached the President.. 3 WHO SHALL RULE? above any instituted or formalized government. Either singly or collectivity individuals were acting. Governance arose out of those actions. Government as such acquired no independent existence beyond what individuals collectivity sought to accomplish. It would be absurd to assume that duly constituted structures called governments did not come into existence because of collective actions taken by individuals acting in their own self-interests. Even when government came into existence, it did so because individuals presumed that collective action was preferable to individual action. And conversely, if they chose not to take collective action, then the matter remained with individuals for their own actions. The specific issue was whether the majority vote in Congress to relocate the Capital was sufficient. The bulk of Jefferson’s opinion dealt with the various clauses and provisions concerning the authority of Congress to set the time and place to convene or to adjourn. It was highly technical and legalistic and also involved separation of powers among the three branches.3 Without trying to judge the merits of Jefferson’s opinion or his ability as a constitutional authority (Madison’s opinion was somewhat more direct and comprehensible), the Constitution, which was designed to stipulate the permissible collective actions to be taken by individuals incorporated as governments, was flawed. Although Jefferson was not in the country when the Constitution was written and ratified, he was well aware of the arguments that had been used against it. “Flawed” barely described the animosity and fear that certain ratifiers felt toward a document that was a threat to their liberties, not a protector of them. Within the ratifying conventions disagreements over language and intent were not resolved because the document as presented could not be amended. Hence, even though the Constitution was approved, the voices of opposition were not quieted, and assumption combined with relocation allowed the Constitution’s opponents to occupy the stage once more. At this juncture I introduce the passage from Thomas Jefferson’s opinion to establish a baseline for what will become a continuing and animated debate over being governed and by whom. All might agree that the right to govern originated with the individual. That affirmation does not avoid debate but provokes it. Even though the location of the capital was a minor “constitutional” crisis (compared to what was ahead), the rhetoric 3In the notes Boyd pointed out that Jefferson initially wrote every collection of men and then substituted society for collection. But collection, it seems to me, is what works in the world that Jefferson and his contemporaries were trying to shape and influence. In thinking about a collection of men versus a society of men, I find collection is less rigid, formal or permanent. In surrendering self rule for collective rule, individuals who cherished the idea of self rule could never know how much their retained powers might be threatened by formally instituted governments or their delegated powers might be abused. It was a gamble, and to think of a collection of men rather than a society of men might have inspired slightly less fear. One attribute of the Jeffersonian world to come to terms with was how plastic and malleable the Jeffersonian world could be. Fixity was suspect, especially in collective political action. 4 WHO SHALL RULE? that the crisis generated will become part and parcel of a contested political landscape down to the present day. How much latitude should a self-governing individual be allowed or how much latitude should the collectivity be allowed? In the household in which I grew up, I heard on side of the debate in the form of “Pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps”.

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