American Political Science Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Dec., 1961) THE FOUNDING FATHERS: A REFORM CAUCUS IN ACTION JOHN P. ROCHE Brandeis University Over the last century and a half, the work of disembodied conservatives or Agents of His- the Constitutional Convention and the motives tory-and as recent research into the nature of of the Founding Fathers have been analyzed American politics in the 1780s confirms,1 they under a number of different ideological aus- were committed (perhaps willy-nilly) to work- pices. To one generation of historians, the hand ing within the democratic framework, within a of God was moving in the assembly; under a universe of public approval. Charles Beard and later dispensation, the dialectic (at various the filiopietists to the contrary notwithstand- levels of philosophical sophistication) replaced ing, the Philadelphia Convention was not a the Deity: "relationships of production" moved College of Cardinals or a council of Platonic into the niche previously reserved for Love of guardians working within a manipulative, pre- Country. Thus in counterpoint to the Zeit- democratic framework; it was a nationalist geist, the Framers have undergone miraculous reform caucus which had to operate with great metamorphoses: at one time acclaimed as delicacy and skill in a political cosmos full of liberals and bold social engineers, today they enemies to achieve the one definitive goal- appear in the guise of sound Burkean con- popular approbation. servatives, men who in our time would sub- Perhaps the time has come, to borrow scribe to Fortune, look to Walter Lippmann for Walton Hamilton's fine phrase, to raise the political theory, and chuckle patronizingly at Framers from immortality to mortality, to give the antics of Barry Goldwater. The implicit them credit for their magnificent demonstra- assumption is that if James Madison were tion of the art of democratic politics. The point among us, he would be President of the Ford must be reemphasized; they made history and Foundation, while Alexander Hamilton would did it within the limits of consensus. There was chair the Committee for Economic Develop- nothing inevitable about the future in 1787; ment. the Zeitgeist, that fine Hegelian technique of The "Fathers" have thus been admitted to begging causal questions, could only be dis- our best circles; the revolutionary ferocity cerned in retrospect. What they did was to which confiscated all Tory property in reach hammer out a pragmatic compromise which and populated New Brunswick with outlaws would both bolster the "National interest" has been converted by the "Miltown School" and be acceptable to the people. What inspira- of American historians into a benign dedication tion they got came from their collective experi- to "consensus" and "prescriptive rights." The ence as professional politicians in a democratic Daughters of the American Revolution have, society. As John Dickinson put it to his fellow through the ministrations of Professors Boor- delegates on August 13, "Experience must be stin, Hartz, and Rossiter, at last found ances- our guide. Reason may mislead us." tors worthy of their descendants. It is not my In this context, let us examine the problems purpose here to argue that the "Fathers" were, they confronted and the solutions they evolved. in fact, radical revolutionaries; that proposition The Convention has been described pictur- has been brilliantly demonstrated by Robert R. esquely as a counter-revolutionary junta and Palmer in his Age of the Democratic Revolution. My concern is with the further position that I The view that the right to vote in the states not only were they revolutionaries, but also was severely circumscribed by property qualifica- they were democrats. Indeed, in my view, there tions has been thoroughly discredited in recent is one fundamental truth about the Founding years. See Chilton Williamson, American Suffrage Fathers that every generation of Zeitgeisters from Property to Democracy, 1760-1860 (Prince- has done its best to obscure: they were first and ton, 1960). The contemporary position is that foremost superb democratic politicians. I sus- John Dickinson actually knew what he was talk- pect that in a contemporary setting, James ing about when he argued that there would be Madison would be Speaker of the House of little opposition to vesting the right of suffrage in Representatives and Hamilton would be the freeholders since "The great mass of our Citizens eminence rise dominating (pace Theodore is composed at this time of freeholders, and will Sorenson or Sherman Adams) the Executive be pleased with it." Max Farrand, Records of the Office of the President. They were, with their Federal Convention, Vol. 2, p. 202 (New Haven, colleagues, political men--not metaphysicians, 1911). (Henceforth cited as Farrand.) 799 800 THE AMERICAN POLITICALT SCIENCE REVIEW the Constitution as a coup d'etat,2 but this has take the following steps: (1) agree to send been accomplished by withdrawing the whole delegates to the Philadelphia Convention; (2) history of the movement for constitutional provide maintenance for these delegates (these reform from its true context. No doubt the were distinct stages: New Hampshire was early goals of the constitutional elite were "subver- in naming delegates, but did not provide for sive" to the existing political order, but it is their maintenance until July); (3) set up the overlooked that their subversion could only special ad hoc convention to decide on ratifica- have succeeded if the people of the United tion; and (4) conce(le to the decision of the ad States endorsed it by regularized procedures. hoc convention that New York should par- Indubitably they were "plotting" to establish a ticipate. New York admittedly was a tricky much stronger central government than existed state, with a strong interest in a status quo under the Articles, but only in the sense in which permitted her to exploit New Jersey and which one could argue equally well that John F. Connecticut, but the same legal hurdles existed Kennedy was, from 1956 to 1960, "plotting" to in every state. And at the risk of becoming become President. In short, on the fundamental boring, it must be reiterated that the only procedural level, the Constitutionalists had to weapon in the Constitutionalist arsenal was an work according to the prevailing rules of the effective mobilization of public opinion. game. Whether they liked it or not is a topic The group which undertook this struggle was for spiritualists-and is irrelevant: one may be an interesting amalgam of a few dedicated quite certain that had Washington agreed to nationalists with the self-interested spokesmen play the De Gaulle (as the Cincinnati once of various parochial bailiwicks. The Georgians, urged), Hamilton would willingly have held his for example, wanted a strong central authority horse, but such fertile speculation in no way to provide military protection for their huge, alters the actual context in which events took underpopulated state against the Creek Con- place. federacy; Jerseymen and Connecticuters wanted to escape from economic bondage to I New York; the Virginians hoped to establish a When the Constitutionalists went forth to system which would give that great state its subvert the Confederation, they utilized the rightful place in the councils of the republic. mechanisms of political legitimacy. And the The dominant figures in the politics of these roadblocks which confronted them were for- states therefore cooperated in the call for the midable. At the same time, they were endowed Convention.' In other states, the thrust to- with certain potent political assets. The history wards national reform was taken up by opposi- of the United States from 1786 to 1790 was tion groups who added the "national interest" largely one of a masterful employment of politi- to their weapons system; in Pennsylvania, for cal expertise by the Constitutionalists as instance, the group fighting to revise the Con- against bumbling, erratic behavior by the stitution of 1776 came out four-square behind opponents of reform. Effectively, the Constitu- the Constitutionalists, and in New York, Ham- tionalists had to induce the states, by demo- ilton and the Schuyler ambiance took the same cratic techniques of coercion, to emasculate tack against George Clinton.4 There was, of themselves. To be specific, if New York had course, a large element of personality in the refused to join the new Union, the project was affair: there is reason to suspect that Patrick doomed; yet before New York was safely in, Henry's opposition to the Convention and the the reluctant state legislature had sua sponte to 3 A basic volume, which, like other works by 2 The classic statement of the coup d'etat theory Warren, provides evidence with which one can Charles is, of course, Charles A. Beard, An Economic evaluate the author's own opinions, is Interpretation of the Constitution of the United Warren, The Making of the Constitution (Boston, forces States (New York, 1913), and this theme was 1928). The best brief summary of the Chap- echoed by Vernon L. Parrington, Merrill Jensen behind the movement for centralization is and others in "populist" historiographical tradi- ter 1 of Warren (as it will be cited hereafter). Brunhouse, tion. For a sharp critique of this thesis see 4On Pennsylvania see Robert L. Robert E. Brown, Charles Beard and the Constitu- Counter-Revolution in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Wilson tion (Princeton, 1956). See also Forrest Mc- 1942) and Charles P. Smith, James which Donald, We the People (Chicago, 1958); the (Chapel Hill, 1956), cel. 15; for New York, Pennsylvania trailblazing work in this genre was Douglas needs the same sort of microanalysis Spauld- Adair, "The Tenth Federalist Revisited," William has received, the best study is E. Wilder 1783-1789 and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. VIII ing, New York in the Critical Period, (1951), pp.