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Europe's Flickering Philadelphia Moment

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Europe's Flickering Philadelphia Moment Europe's Flickering Philadelphia Moment RUSSELL L. RILEY Associate Professor and Research Fellow University of Virginia If the present moment be lost it is hard to say what may be our fate. James Madison, in Philadelphia, to Thomas Jefferson, in Paris 6 September 1787 OVER A YEAR AND A half after French and Dutch voters stunned Europe's political elites by saying no to a proposed continental constitution, European leaders remain unable to agree on a path out of the wreckage. Some have called for scrapping entirely the constitutional experiment as a failed and costly diversion. Better, they say, to redirect the continent s political energies into more fruitful areas of cooperation, such as internal market cohesion. But others very much disagree and continue to seek ways around the formidable obstacles created by two negative votes in a process requiring unanimous consent. In September 2006, Germany's foreign minister declared that one of his country's highest priorities during its term as European Union president in 2007 will be to breathe new life into the rejected charter.' The to-and-fro among the contenders for the constitution's fate has—^with the help of an occasionally hyperbolic European press—evoked images of Monty Python, featuring running arguments about whether the constitution is dead or alive ... or not dead yet.^ Although these developments have been little followed in the United States, they are, in fact, the stuff of James Madison's nightmares. It was precisely the specter of constitutional rejection, and the disorientation that would follow, that moved Madison in 1787 to join with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in the frenetic composition of The Federalist Papers. An exhaustive set of newspaper essays defending every aspect of that new constitution sprang from their profound anxiety about whether they could in fact get their handiwork ratified. It is worth recalling that the primary target of Publius's efforts was New York, RUSSELL L. RILEY is an associate professor and research fellow ofthe Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, where he co-chairs the Presidential Oral History Program. Copyright © 2007 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs SPRING/SUMMER 2007 • VOLUME XIII, ISSUE 2 RUSSELL L. RILEY the France oftheir union—a large, proud, and politically indispensable member with an independent streak and a demonstrated genius for being difficult. New York's vast size, and vaster ego, made it deeply reluctant to join the common effort to siphon power to a stronger central government. Ultimately, of course, the state did vote to ratify the constitution, convinced that New Yorkers would benefit from trading more oftheir autonomy for membership in a broader and deeper union. Unlike the current situation in Europe, a sufficient number of states accepted the same bargain to bring to life their constitution. Perhaps these different outcomes can be attributed to the power of Publius's pen. (A European Federalist, though contemplated, was never compiled by the Euro-consti- tution's framers.^) But this reasoning is flawed on two counts. First, most scholars agree that The Federalist zctually had little real impact on the U.S. ratification debates.^ Second, close observers of European politics have concluded that France and the Netherlands were motivated by a kind of visceral discontent with the broad direction of European affairs that is not very susceptible to rational refutation. Severe economic anxiety (as- sociated with the unimpeded invasion from the east of low-wage laborers, symbolized by the oft-observed "Polish plumber"); xenophobia (especially in relation to a large and growing Muslim population); and discomfort with power being drained away from proud national capitals all played a part in the decision to halt the movement toward a stronger but more remote central government. Some disappointed advocates of the European constitution have indeed bemoaned a weak effort to promote its virtues to European publics—to take seriously, as the authors of The Federalist had, the need to win over popular opinion. But it is not at all certain that the emotional disaffection of Europe's naysayers would have yielded to even the best-constructed arguments for the merits of the new constitution's approval. The absence ofa European Federalist is, however, notable for another reason. So much of the European constitution making experiment was deliberately modeled on the United States' experience that the failure to follow the U.S. example in this regard is a remarkable exception. The Europeans decided to convene a U.S.-style constitu- tional convention in 2002 and they were acutely conscious throughout of both the text of the U.S. Constitution and—marketing aside—the procedures that created it.' The convention's head, former French president Valery Ciscard d'Estaing, called their work Europe's "Philadelphia moment."'^ Yet the European homage to U.S. constitutionalism went much further. Gis- card fended off criticism of his assuming this crucial job at the advanced age of 76 by noting that Benjamin Franklin was five years older when the U.S. founders worked their magic in 1787.^ At various other times, Giscard's role was compared to that of Hamilton, Madison, Washington, and—oddly, by Giscard himself—to Jefferson, who THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS Europe's Flickering Philadelphia Moment was diplomatizing in Paris while the Philadelphia convention met.* In addition, com- monplace in contemporaneous press accounts in Europe was a comparison of how the transatlantic founders dealt with a common core problem—rhe need to find a delicate balance between the union's large and small states.' And throughout the process, ob- servers questioned how far the project ought to move toward the creation of a "United States of Europe."'" Admittedly, the product of the European convention's labors was underwhelm- ing—the Euro-constitution is a poor likeness of its U.S. cousin. Alrhough the Euro- pean delegates held the model of the U.S. Constitution as their ideal, they ended up with something more closely approximating Alabama's rambling state charter—over 400 pages oftext. (Europe's constitution- ^^^ ,3 COnStJtUtiOri-WriterS tflUS writers thus bring to mind the old saw about the child who knew how to spell bring to mind the old saw about the banana but just didn't know when to Qhj|(| yy^g l^pgW hOW tO Spell stop.) The thickness of the document has ....,.,,., , subsequently become an easily exploited ^^^ i^^t didn t knOW When tO metaphor for the bloat that many already associate with a distant, extravaganr central government in Brussels.'' This marathon of legalistic prose has provided ample fodder for opponents to pluck out passages for ridicule. Among U.S. critics, the Euro-constitution's preamble has been an easy target. Where rhe United States Constitution begins with the music of democracy—"We the people .. ."—the European version opens in opera bouffe: "His majesty the King of the Belgians . ." The U.S. criticism, however, has not been primarily about details, but about the very attempt at unity. Comfortably perched on the shoulders of political giants who made a constitution for the ages in 1787, Americans have smugly looked down on the European struggle for deeper union as a fool's errand, a doomed exercise in aggrandize- ment among peoples far too diverse and conflicted ever to succeed as one. The United States, as historian Michael Kammen has reminded us, is a nation of constitution- worshippers, prideful in a compact so perfect as to resist comparison.'^ The confusions in Europe of the past year have merely confirmed, then, the unique character of the United States' blessed national charter. Yet an honest look at how the U.S. Constitution came to life, and how its reach expanded, actually encourages humility. It is an abiding irony that by emphasizing rhe difficult and sometimes unhappy course of their own union building experiment, Americans might actually move their European rivals to adopt a more modest approach to one of the most ambitious political projects ever attempted in the free world. A re- alistic understanding of the complexities of the U.S. union building experiment may actually provide clues to Europe's consritution makers about how they might escape a SPRING/SUMMER 2007 • VOLUME XIII, ISSUE 2 RUSSELL L. RILEY political trap of their own devising. A MIRACLE IN PHILADELPHIA? The notion of a "miracle in Philadelphia" is an attractive bit of mythology, not just to Americans who like to celebrate their past, but also to Europe's constitution makers. It suggests that under the proper set of circumstances, with the right group of people convened in a spirit of rational cooperation, it is possible to craft a document capable of forging unity out of untold diversity. There is, however, much more to the U.S. story than this secular version of an immaculate conception. The constitution-making process in the United States began well before the Phila- delphia convention, even before the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence. The dispersed colonials of that day first began to join hands across colony lines to develop a common response to what they perceived as increasingly heavy-handed rule by the British Parliament. Shortly after independence, the Continental Congress adopted "The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union," which went into effect in 1781. Under the Articles, the central government was at the mercy ofthe states, which retained the vast majority of the governing power. The subsequent movement toward a stronger central government was motivated largely because ofthe inability of Congress under the Articles to regulate commerce or to speak with a unified voice in foreign affairs. After an unsuccessful attempt to reform the Articles in Annapolis in 1786, the Philadelphia framers met and decided to scrap the old system of government and to begin anew.
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