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HERTOG 2019 SUMMER COURSES AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT Darren Staloff, professor, City College of New York
In this seminar, we engage the ideas of modern liberal democracy, exploring how the American system has sought to balance the deepest themes of ancient political thought against the imperatives of individual freedom, security, and economic progress that are so central to modern liberal thought. We examine the relation of nature, reason, rights, and citizenship in forming the core of the American political ethos, and we assess the institutional designs of government shaped by the Founders. We inquire into the legacy of the Founding through the slavery crisis and the statecraft of Abraham Lincoln. Finally, we search for the philosophical roots of the differences between conservatism and liberalism in the contemporary world.
Books: • The Federalist Papers, ed. Charles Kesler (Signet Classics, 2003) • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (University of Chicago Press, 2000) • Course Reader
Resources
To learn more about the ideas and figures discussed in this course, we encourage you to explore a project supported by the Hertog Foundation: The Great Thinkers (http://thegreatthinkers.org/) and Contemporary Thinkers (http://contemporarythinkers.org/) websites. These sites are aimed at introducing important thinkers in Western thought, with a particular emphasis on politics and philosophy.
Relevant pages include John Locke, The Federalist, and Tocqueville (on The Great Thinkers), and Walter Berns, Herbert Storing, Martin Diamond, and Harry Jaffa (on Contemporary Thinkers).
Monday, July 8, 2019
9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Non-Liberal Republics
Readings: • Plutarch, “Lycurgus,” excerpts • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Part 1, Ch. 2, pp. 27–44 • Edmund Burke, selections from Reflections on the Revolution in France and Letters on a Regicide Peace • The Federalist, Nos. 1, 14, 38, excerpts
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Questions: 1. Would you like to live in Lycurgus’s Sparta? In the colonial New England Puritan regime described by Tocqueville? 2. How do these systems differ from America’s form of liberal democracy?
10:30 a.m. to Noon Theoretical Underpinnings
Readings: • David Hume, “Of the Original Compact,” excerpts • John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, excerpts • United States Declaration of Independence • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825, excerpt • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824, excerpt • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Roger Weightman, June 24, 1826, excerpt
Questions: 1. What was the basis of the colonists’ objections to the British government and rule prior to the Revolutionary War? 2. What do these authors mean when they refer to a state of nature and natural rights? 3. The ultimate ground or foundation to which the Declaration appeals is stated to be the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God; what were the possible alternative foundations, as mentioned in the letter to John Cartwright? What are the implications of making “nature” the main foundation? 4. What does the Declaration mean by a natural right to liberty? By the truth that “all men are created equal?”
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
9:00 a.m.to Noon The Creation of the Constitution
Readings: • The Federalist, Nos. 10, 51 • Brutus, “Federal v. Consolidated Government,” excerpt • Centinel, “Number 1,” excerpt • The Federalist, No. 15, excerpts
• The Federalist, No. 23 • Herbert Storing, What the Anti-Federalists Were For, Ch. 3 • The Federalist, No. 63
Questions: 1. What type of citizen is necessary in the new republic? In what measure does the citizen need to possess virtue? 2. Why is the “extended republic” of the Constitution an innovation? 3. What were some of the main objections to the Constitution? 4. What were the Federalists’ chief arguments against the Articles of Confederation? 5. Why study the Anti-Federalists? Have the fears of the Anti-Federalists been borne out?
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6. What are the purposes of the separation of powers? What particular qualities were sought from the senate and from the presidency?
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Constitutionalism
Readings: • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789, excerpt • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, excerpt • The Federalist, No. 49 • Constitution of the United States, Article V
Questions: 1. What is a written constitution? How did it revolutionize the relationship between government and the people? For good or for ill? 2. Is it a wise idea to “sunset” the Constitution every generation? What reasons does Jefferson give in favor of re-doing the Constitution every generation, and why does Madison oppose the plan? Whose position do you favor?
10:30 a.m. to Noon The Slavery Crisis of the 1850s; Lincoln’s Statesmanship
Readings: • Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838, excerpts • Stephen Douglas, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, excerpts • Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, excerpts • Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858, excerpt • Alexander Stephens, “Corner Stone” Speech, March 21, 1861, excerpt
Questions: 1. What are the direct and indirect consequences of mob rule, and how are they related to “the perpetuation of our political institutions”? According to Lincoln, who has the harder task in perpetuating the institutions—the revolutionary generation or the current generation? 2. What were the different positions of Lincoln and Douglas on the crisis of the 1850s? Does Lincoln’s claim that the meaning of the Declaration of Independence was at the center of the crisis make sense? 3. What were the different views of Lincoln and Douglas on the Declaration of Independence?
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Thursday, July 11, 2019
9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Lincoln as President
Readings: • Abraham Lincoln • Message to Congress, July 4, 1861, excerpt • Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862 • Final Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863 • Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 • Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 • Letter to Governor Michael Hahn, March 13, 1864
Questions: 1. According to Lincoln, why is secession unconstitutional? Why is the suspension of habeas corpus constitutional? 2. How does Lincoln understand the relation between Union and Emancipation? 3. Before his election, Lincoln often stated that he had no intention, and no constitutional authority, to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. How, then, did he come to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and how did he justify it? 4. How does Lincoln understand equality and freedom, the key terms of the American creed? Is there a difference between holding equality as a “self-evident truth” and regarding it as a “proposition” to which we must be dedicated? What is the “new birth of freedom” and how does it relate to the original birth of the nation “conceived in liberty”? 5. Does the Second Inaugural read as a speech that you would have expected from the Abraham Lincoln of the 1850s? What “new” themes are found? What is Lincoln’s theology? What is the role of charity in political life?
10:30 a.m. to Noon Progressivism-Liberalism
Readings: • Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Commonwealth Club Address, 1932 • Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural, 1933 • John Dewey, “The Future of Liberalism,” Philosophy of Education, 1935
Questions: 1. What is the meaning of the idea that history progresses? Do you accept the proposition that things have gotten better? Does the record of the twentieth century provide evidence in favor of or against the idea? 2. What, in terms of American politics, is progressivism? 3. What is the progressive’s critique of the Founding? In what way was the Founding, especially the Constitution, inadequate? 4. Compare and contrast progressivism with liberalism. How do both inform contemporary partisan debates? 5. How does Dewey understand the meaning of liberalism?
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Friday, July 12, 2019
9:00 a.m. to Noon Progressivism-Liberalism Cont’d / Conservatism
Readings: • F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chapters 3–9, 11
Questions: 1. What does Hayek mean by “planning”? For Hayek, is all planning bad? Why is centralization dangerous even if the motives of the central planners are benign? 2. Why does centralization ultimately lead to loss of freedom and to totalitarianism? 3. How does central planning effect prices in a market economy? What information do prices convey? 4. Is government interference in the economy ever justified, according to Hayek? If so, in what circumstances? 5. What is the relationship of economic freedom to political freedom? To intellectual freedom?
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HERTOG 2019 SUMMER COURSES AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
TOCQUEVILLE’S DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA James Ceaser, professor, University of Virginia
Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, translators of the University of Chicago edition of Democracy in America, claim in their introduction that Democracy in America is “at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America.” The book covers the most important aspects of American life from politics to economics to culture, and poses some of the most penetrating questions about the future of democracy and of civilization. This course will cover selections from this work.
The reading assignments for the first three days are organized by topics and jump (regrettably) between the two volumes. (Democracy in America is really two books, the first published in 1835, the second in 1840.) The readings for the final two sessions for the most part follow volume 2. Page assignments are pegged to the translation by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Books: • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Resources
To learn more about the ideas and figures discussed in this course, we encourage you to explore a project supported by the Hertog Foundation: The Great Thinkers (http://thegreatthinkers.org/) and Contemporary Thinkers (http://contemporarythinkers.org/) websites. These sites are aimed at introducing important thinkers in Western thought, with a particular emphasis on politics and philosophy.
Relevant pages include John Locke, The Federalist, and Tocqueville (on The Great Thinkers), and Walter Berns, Harvey Mansfield, Herbert Storing, Martin Diamond, and Harry Jaffa (on Contemporary Thinkers).
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Monday, July 15, 2019
9:00 a.m. to Noon Democracy in America
Readings: • (Tocqueville’s) Introduction, pp. 3–15 • Varieties of regimes under the modern condition of “democracy” o Mild despotism, pp. 661–65, 671 (begin with “I shall finish”)–676 o Omnipotence (or tyranny) of the majority, pp. 235–50 o Single-person (or party) despotism, pp. 52–53 o Centralized administration, pp. 82–93 o Liberal democracy (no specific reading) • Some differences between aristocracy and democracy, 234–35 (begin near bottom of 234 with “What do you ask of society” and read to the end of the chapter on 235); • A few characteristics of aristocracy, pp. 535–41
Questions: 1. How does Tocqueville use the word “democracy?” Be careful, as democracy has a slightly different meaning than our use today. 2. What are the purposes of political science (p.7)? What “work” is it supposed to do? 3. What drives historical development? Is the path of history inevitable? 4. Characterize some of the elements of “aristocracy,” as Tocqueville uses the term. Who rules, how do aristocrats think and feel, what do they value? 5. Which regime, aristocracy or democracy, is preferable? Why?
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
9:00 a.m. to Noon Democracy in America
Readings: • The maladies (dangerous tendencies) of democracy and their antidotes o Egalitarianism (love of equality), pp. 479–82 o “Individualism” (better defined as “privatism” or apathy), pp. 482–84, 506–08, 489–92, 496–500 o Materialism or consumerism pp. 506–08, 517–24 o Administrative centralization, 640-646 o Fatalism, pp. 469–72, 425–26
Questions: 1. Characterize the maladies of democracy and think about how they threaten liberty and civilization. 2. What antidotes to these maladies does Tocqueville propose (some of which you will not encounter until later in the week)? Are the antidotes in the end capable of counteracting the maladies?
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Wednesday, July 17, 2019
9:00 a.m. to Noon Democracy in America
Readings: • The causes of societal forms o Point of departure (culture or national character), America’s Puritan origins, pp. 27–44 o Physical causes: geography, climate, demography (no specific reading) o Mores, pp. 274–82, 288–98 o “Social state” and importance of the American states, pp. 45–55 o Laws: constitutional law, statutory law, civil law, pp. 154–61
Questions: 1. What are the causes that form particular political societies? Can the identification of these causes aid the legislator in devising strategies to maintain a liberal democracy? Which of the causes can legislators influence? 2. A “hidden” theme in the chapter on the point of departure is that Tocqueville never mentions the Declaration of Independence. Any thoughts on why he omits doing so? 3. Tocqueville thinks the character of America cannot be adequately understood without considering what happened in Puritan New England and in the states. What lessons do we learn from this approach?
Thursday, July 18, 2019
9:00 a.m. to Noon Democracy in America
Readings: • The effects of democracy on thought (“intellectual movement”), pp. 399–400, 403–24, 425–33, 443–52, 433–39
Questions: 1. What is Tocqueville’s plan for Volume 2? How far is it possible to explain thought, sentiments, and manners from the social state of equality? What are the limitations of this approach, sometimes called “the sociology of knowledge”? 2. Pages 403–24 contain some of the most difficult passages in the book, but they are crucial to understanding Tocqueville’s thinking. Struggle with them. 3. How does democracy influence the practice of the arts and sciences? 4. Some of these chapters offer more than their titles suggest. The chapter on monuments (443–44) provides some general descriptions of democracy and aristocracy, and the chapter on the study of Greek and Latin literature (450–52) seems to consider philosophy and the liberal arts. Read carefully.
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Friday, July 19, 2019
9:00 a.m. to Noon Democracy in America
Readings: • The effects of democracy on sentiments and manners, pp. 500–03, 506–08, 510–14, 578–81, 599–604 • A new kind of aristocracy? pp. 530–32 • The effects of democracy on political varieties (again), pp. 639–45 • A few special characteristics of Americans: frontier and mobility, pp. 268–69; practical knowledge of politics, pp. 291–92; entrepreneurialism, pp. 387–89; religiosity, pp. 278– 82 • Family/Gender, pp. 558–67, 573–78
Questions: 1. What is the doctrine of self-interest well (or rightly) understood? What can be said in favor of it? What are its limitations? 2. What does Tocqueville mean by greatness? 3. Democracy in America continually compares democracy and aristocracy. Is there anything we learn from aristocracy that can help guide life in a democratic age? In what ways might elements of aristocracy be fit into democracy? 4. What is the standing today of the special characteristics of Americans that Tocqueville identified? 5. Tocqueville’s chapters on the family and women provoke much controversy. Do you find anything he says on these subjects helpful or relevant today?
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