Imperialism Destroys the Constitutional Republic Michael P. Federici Mercyhurst College

Because of its sober and realistic as- al government, ceases to concentrate sumptions about human nature and its attention on what is primary to a the human condition, the American modest republic: the soul, the fam- republic of the Constitution of 1789 ily, the neighborhood, the school, is not designed to do the big things the church, the community. It directs typical of empires. It is especially the imagination to a distant abstract not designed to do that which has world in which virtue becomes syn- most characterized empire: conquer. onymous with global humanitarian When America does pursue empire, crusading. It makes a spectacle of it undermines the very fabric of its politics. The place of modest republi- constitutional government. Impe- canism, by contrast, is local; its scale rial expansion pulls at the threads is proportionate to its modest objec- of constitutionalism, ripping away tives; it is threatened by the vulgar- the supports of limited government: ity of empire, which poisons the separated powers, federalism, and sensibilities of those who struggle to checks and balances. More impor- possess republican virtue. tantly, the quest for empire, even To follow the path of empire is in the modern ideological form of to transform American identity and spreading democracy, liberty, and self-understanding; it is to transform equality around the globe, diverts the constitutional regime itself. To the American imagination from the borrow the language of Walter Mc- center of constitutional politics and Dougall, in doing so, America ceases life. The unwritten constitution, the to be a promised land and becomes a cultural foundation for constitution- crusader state.1

Mi c h a e l P. Fe d e r i c i is Professor of Political 1 Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Science at Mercyhurst College and Director of Crusader State: The American Encounter with the the National Humanities Institute’s Center for World since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Constitutional Studies. Co., 1997).

Imperialism Destroys the Constitutional Republic Hu m a n i t a s • 5 American crusaders like Wood- common human ground.2 row Wilson and Herbert Croly recog- From the early days of America’s nized the inadequacy of the Framers’ formation, a contrary tendency has constitutional system for the work been present in the American imagi- of political religion. They insisted nation, one that looks disparagingly that the cumbersome American con- upon decentralized power and a stitutional system be reformed to multiplicity of communities. This empower government for the chal- view pushes toward uniformity as lenge of social and global transfor- represented in Rousseau’s notion of mation. Ironically, the more success- the general will. It insists on a mo- ful the Progressives have been in nistic, allegedly virtuous uniformity centralizing power, the less great by that divides society and world into traditional standards America has stark categories of good and evil. become. The Framers did not design According to this view, the American republic for imperial is the best possible way of life for all greatness, but when it functions as people.3 A recent form of this creed is intended, it produces something reflected in the idea of Francis Fuku- even greater than empire: a free so- yama that history has “ended” in the ciety with limited government and sense that it is inconceivable that any the rule of law. society could surpass the American/ But there is more to the special Western achievement.4 This ideology kind of American greatness be- asks: Who wouldn’t welcome Ameri- queathed by the Framers. Due in can democracy, liberty, and equality? large part to their variegated cir- Isn’t it obvious that so many people cumstances, Americans have been in the world live lives that are infe- sensitive to the value of human rior to those of Americans? Why not diversity, appreciating that it may spread the virtues of America? Why play a part in pursuing universal- not globalize America? If we were ity. The American motto, e pluribus not tone-deaf to the vulgarity of em- unum, and the federal and decen- pire, we should hear the hubris that tralized character of American po- litical institutions testify to this 2 See Claes G. Ryn, A Common Human aspect of the American genealogy Ground: Universality and Particularity in a and character. In America, local Multicultural World (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2003). communities and groups have been 3 For an early example of the tendency, free, within limits, to find their which exists in tension with the spirit of con- own way to the good life. The kind stitutionalism, to view America as the “favor- of uniformity that stifles diversity, ite land of heaven,” see Richard M. Gamble, more common to unitary systems of “‘The Last and Brightest Empire of Time’: government, is incompatible with Timothy Dwight and America as Voegelin’s ‘Authoritative Present,’ 1771–1787,” Humani- America’s historical past. Unity is tas 20:1&2 (2007), 13-35. found through diversity, because 4 See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History there is more than one road to the and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

6 • Volume XX, Nos. 1 & 2, 2007 Michael P. Federici animates questions like these. We son might have done, that reflection should hear it as well in statements and choice always lead to the same by David Frum and Richard Perle in form of government. The Framers their book An End to Evil: “A world understood, as Orestes Brownson at peace; a world governed by law; a would put it much later, that “Forms world in which all peoples are free to of government are like the forms of find their own destinies: That dream shoes─those are best which best fit has not yet come true, it will not the feet that are to wear them.”6 come true soon, but if ever it does The proponents of ideological Em- come true, it will be brought into be- pire measure the success or greatness ing by American armed might and of their own regime by the extent to defended by American might too.”5 which the universal values of the Alexander knew that the state ideology are spread. The mis- Philadelphia Convention of 1787 had sionary zeal of this endeavor is pres- done something rare in the annals of ent, for example, in David Gelern- history; it had produced, as he noted ter’s argument for Americanism as in Federalist 1, “good government the fourth great Western religion.7 from reflection and choice.” Such Gelernter argues that World War I governments have been rare because illustrates America’s “democratic they require the presence of mod- chivalry” and “the worldwide re- est men and women who can keep alization of the ”— their desires within constitutional liberty, equality, and democracy for limits. Hamilton and other Framers all mankind. This globalization of noted the historical and international the American Way required a “global significance of their work. Did this statement of faith and hope.” And boast imply an American mission to what is this statement? “I believe in govern the world, an empire of some America.” This notion of the savior sort? No, Hamilton made it clear nation emerged in earnest with the that it would be American “conduct Civil War and Lincoln’s reshaping and example,” not force, that con- of the American identity. Gelernter vinced the world that governments adds, “America’s participation in could be established from reflection World War I was her attempt to act and choice. It would undermine that like the new chosen people, to set very point to suggest that America, forth on a chivalrous quest to perfect once she had established her own the world; to spread liberty, equal- government by reflection and choice, ity, and democracy to all mankind.” should then impose by force simi- lar governments on others. Nor did 6 Orestes Brownson, “Constitutional Quar- Hamilton and the Framers suggest, antees,” in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jeffer- ed. Henry F. Brownson (Detroit: H. F. Brown- son, Publisher, 1905), vol. XVIII, 260. 5 David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to 7 David Gelernter, Americanism: The Fourth Evil: How to Win the War on Terror (New York: Great Western Religion (New York: Doubleday, Random House, 2003), 239. 2007).

Imperialism Destroys the Constitutional Republic Hu m a n i t a s • 7 America is a global humanitarian pire results from an obsession with cause. According to Gelernter, Amer- politics, an attempt to subordinate all ica is a world religion “for the op- things to the political. There is more pressed, the persecuted, and the sim- than a hint of imperial obsession in ply idealistic all over the globe.”8 Walter Berns’s book Making Patri- It is difficult to imagine a more ots. Berns argues that the American romantic, utopian, and ideologically Founders, following Locke, created imperial conception of America than a regime in which “we are first of all this one. The objective of American- citizens, and only secondarily Chris- izing the world is closely connected tians, Jews, Muslims, or any other re- with modern war, and its mass de- ligious persuasion.”10 If this be true, struction of human life, property, then in America the ethical ground and humanity is telling. Gelernter for civil disobedience or moral op- states that the U.S. “must use the evil position to the state has been lost. of war to spread the good of liberty, That Berns is intent on placing the equality, democracy.”9 His ideologi- things of Caesar above the things of cal passion “to perfect the world” God is odd given the enormous suf- blinds him to the reality of war and fering produced by similar efforts in its failure to perfect so much as one the twentieth century. But this is a human being, never mind the world. project typical of the Enlightenment America, in this conception of its mind: Devotion to God runs the risk role, is the new messiah with the of creating irrational spiritedness ability to do what the Christian sav- that engenders social and political ior did not attempt, transform the conflict. Defuse religion, remove it order of being in history. This vision, from political life, and toleration permeated by nationalistic vanity, and peace will follow. The work of is repugnant to moral realists who Eric Voegelin suggests, however, that understand the limits of politics and despiritualizing political and social human nature. life does not lead to toleration and Frum, Perle, and Gelernter repre- peace but to the totalitarian regimes sent a way of thinking that clashes of the twentieth century. Berns and with the American Framers’ clas- Gelernter are confident that ideologi- sical and Christian realism. Unlike cal devotion to abstract principles the Framers, they believe that evil like democracy, equality, and liberty can be eradicated. can only have a civilizing effect on reminds us in Federalist 10 that some America and the world. Yet in this evils are “sown into the nature of effort to eliminate political violence man.” Rather than eliminating them, they inspire just what they claim the best we can hope to do is control to be combating by suggesting that their effects. world peace is gained by the forc- An ideological aspiration to Em- ible spread of American ideology.

8 Ibid., 147 (emphasis added), 156. 10 Walter Berns, Making Patriots (Chicago: 9 Ibid., 156. University of Chicago Press, 2001), 31. 8 • Volume XX, Nos. 1 & 2, 2007 Michael P. Federici Moreover, the transformed world sake is not the proper measure of that they envision does not require greatness. Plato’s Republic makes this spiritual work; it requires the cre- clear: Thrasymachus is not a phi- ation of the right political institu- losopher; he is a philodoxer. Using tions animated by the right political power to promote the common good ideology. This notion brings to mind and lead men to virtue makes it con- T. S. Eliot’s refrain in Choruses from sistent with true greatness. George the Rock: is a great man because They constantly try to escape he, unlike most rulers, did not lust From the darkness outside and within for power as an end in itself and was By dreaming of systems so perfect that willing to share it and use it for the no one will need to be good. common good. George III is said to Eliot’s insight is followed by the ad- have called Washington “the greatest monishing line: man in the world” because he put down the Newburgh Conspiracy; But the man that is shall shadow The man that pretends to be. he refused great power because he knew it would be destructive to re- There are many reasons for part- publicanism in America.11 He chose ing company with the pretentious the modest path, a different kind of advocates of American empire, but, greatness, the greatness of Cicero first and foremost, one must object to and Cato and other men who risked their romantic dreaming of a world their lives in efforts to save the re- in which Jacobin or quasi-Jefferso- public from empire. nian notions of equality, liberty, and Greatness in this sense does not democracy are realized. In short, require that one live in a powerful they are not moral realists. They en- regime that occupies center stage in vision a world in which individuals world politics. In fact, such greatness and governments will do all that is is not the monopoly of any one na- necessary to uphold natural rights tion, race, or epoch. Greatness is the without persons’ needing to pay product of conquering the self rather much attention to their own ethical than nations, their armies, or nature. life. They fail to take account of the Subduing totalitarian regimes does depravity that is never absent from not in itself constitute greatness. the human condition. They assume Stalin not only helped to subdue the possibility of a world without Hitler, but, if John Lukacs is correct, evil. Nazi Germany would not have been What is at issue is the meaning of defeated without the contribution greatness. According to one view, of of the Soviet Union. If Hitler had which the Framers were representa- won the war, that would not have tive, personal moral character is an made Nazi Germany a great nation. essential attribute of a certain kind Neither Nazi Germany nor the So- of greatness. Dictators may be great in the sense that they have attained 11 See Joseph Ellis, His Excellency: George great power. But power for its own Washington (New York: Kopf, 2004), 139.

Imperialism Destroys the Constitutional Republic Hu m a n i t a s • 9 viet Union were great nations in any changing the world. Most generally, meaningful sense of greatness. They this intellectual opposition is expos- may have been colossal, but they ing the romantic understanding of were not great. Thrasymachus and democracy and human nature and Protagoras would have us believe the nationalistic hubris that animate that human success and power in the desire to have America dominate themselves are the measure of great- the world. ness, but Plato and Aristotle knew Whatever may be new in what has better. Greatness is measured by been argued here, its moral and phil- conquering and knowing oneself. osophical substance is old. The mod- Buddha’s Dhammapada captures the est republic is inspired by thinkers essence of greatness in the succinct as diverse in time and place as Ar- statement that, “If one man conquer istotle, who defined and counseled in battle a thousand times a thou- moderation in his conception of both sand men, and if another conquers politics and personal life, and C. S. himself, he is the greatest of con- Lewis, who understood that pride is querors.” the undoing of individuals as well America’s primary challenge of as nations. greatness in the twentieth century The American Constitution, to re- was not that of winning the world iterate, was not made for empire but wars or the Cold War but of main- for modest republicanism. In fact, taining fidelity to the spirit of mod- the were born in op- est republicanism out of which she position to empire. As Robert Nisbet was born, this at a time when she has noted, “the American Constitu- was tempted by her economic and tion was designed for a people more military strength to reach for empire interested in governing itself than and dominate the world. America’s in helping to govern the rest of the challenge in the post-Cold War era is world.”12 To argue for American em- not to subdue the world and spread pire is to argue against the American her values. The challenge is rather constitutional heritage; it is to import to subdue the will to empire, a de- a pedigree of thinking, politics, and sire that, if gratified, will mean the government that is alien to and de- end of American republican govern- structive of America’s constitutional ment. order. Fortunately, there is growing Empire is also contrary to Ameri- intellectual opposition, much of can interests. Empire means con- it philosophically and historically quest, and conquest means tensions, grounded, to the imperial trend in violence, and war. International con- American politics and culture. It is flict becomes more likely with each reinforcing doubts in the American step toward empire. It is not surpris- public regarding the tendency to 12 Robert Nisbet, The Present Age: Progress see the world as America’s busi- and Anarchy in Modern America (Harper & ness and America as the model for Row, 1988), 1.

10 • Volume XX, Nos. 1 & 2, 2007 Michael P. Federici ing that in the wake of late nine- constitutional order cannot be un- teenth and early twentieth century derstood apart from its growing calls for global crusades for democ- out of opposition to empire. The racy the U.S. was engaged in war for American republic brought to life a nearly seventy-five continuous years. system of government with modest Empire breeds the war state, and the ends. A central part and purpose of war state is ultimately incompatible the constitutional structure was de- with constitutional government. centralized power, something that is Empire is destructive to the very anathema to empire and its vortex of self-restraint that makes republican centralizing power. government possible. It is inspired Empire undermines the autonomy by the pride that animates C. S. of sectional interests and local com- Lewis’s “man-moulders” in their munities, putting it at loggerheads efforts to remake human nature and with the very core of the American the world. But it might be asked: Is it political and social order. Those who not the work of great men and wom- argue for American empire push en to mold the citizenry—and of centralized power far beyond the great nations to mold the world? Are scale of what was intended by the they not, like Plato’s philosopher- Framers and of what is prudent giv- kings, aware of universal forms of en American interests in the twenty- good and beauty that should shape first century. the souls of malleable masses at What, then, drives the quest for home and abroad? These are not the American empire? On the surface aspirations of the advocates of re- it is first and foremost the belief publican virtue. Even the more sub- that American values are universal tle sound of imperialism grates on and appropriate to all historical and republican sensibilities. The world is cultural circumstances. Given the not the plaything of Americans. outcome of the Cold War, the United In view of the constant talk today States has it within its power to re- of the virtue of greatness, who can shape the world in accordance with possibly be against it? But greatness its values of democracy, equality, can mean radically different things. and freedom. But are these Jacobin- The greatness that sends Ameri- sounding principles universal, or cans across the globe crusading for even American? And do they not in democracy is the Trojan horse of their desire to remake human nature America’s constitutional regime. The and the world merely mask a will to allure of a powerful state seduces power? many into believing that it has only The American Framers intended altruistic motives. The sweet sound a modest republic that would allow of spreading liberty, democracy, and individuals and communities to en- equality is in reality the mask for the joy the fruits of liberty. For liberty to will to power. flourish it was necessary that power The emergence of the American remain limited and decentralized.

Imperialism Destroys the Constitutional Republic Hu m a n i t a s • 11 By contrast, the consolidation and republican government and the local centralization of power that comes communities that are its foundation. with the movement toward Ameri- Those who favor the promised land can empire means the demise of must oppose the crusader state.

12 • Volume XX, Nos. 1 & 2, 2007 Michael P. Federici