Week Three: The Shaping of the American Republic

• The United States was founded as a Christian nation and moved toward democracy
• We can take for granted our rights as Americans, but democracy is the exception, not the rule, in human history
• Most nations were ruled by elites that suppressed their own people
• This democratic tradition has deep roots in various sources:
• Greek/Roman thought
• Anglo-Saxon/English law
• Moasic law/Christianity
• Roman And Mosaic law were filtered through English tradition and also appeal to direct sources by folks like Jefferson and Madison

MOSAIC LAW/CHRISTIANITY

Mosaic Law:

• Law given to Moses on Sinai (Ex. 20)
• Even before Law was given, Moses is stressed out by trying to manage the whole people of Israel in the desert
• In Ex. 18, Moses is trying to decide every legal case, and father-in-law Jethro asks, “Why are you the only judge?” Moses says, “They want to know what God wants them to do.” Jethro says, “That isn’t the best way to do it. You’ll soon be worn out”
• Jethro basically says to delegate authority
• Families in groups of ten each elect their leaderàThen these groups were combined into groups of 50 families and elected a leaderàNext into groups of 100 families and elected leadersàgroups of 1000 families elect a leader
• Instead of doing it alone, Moses had 78,000 elected leaders
• Leaders selected by majority consent (David anointed by “the people of Judah” [2 Sam. 2:4]; Solomon [1 Chron. 29:22])
• There was also a group of elected representatives from time to time (Congress) and a Council of Seventy (Senate)
• Aaron (Internal Affairs) and Joshua (Military) were Vice Presidents
• Emphasis was strong localized government
• Appeal up the ladder until they got to Moses (sort of a Supreme Court?)
• Most difficult cases went up to Moses (Ex. 18:26)
• Also judicial system – innocent until proven guilty (need at least two witnesses [Deut. 19:15])

Christianity

• Revolutionary idea in Roman world that all human beings are God’s own handiwork
• “Up and down the social ladder, the doctrine of moral equality was to find an ever-expanding home.”
• All equal in the eyes of God à tremendous social consequences as implications fleshed out over time

GREEK/ROMAN THOUGHT

Greece

• Ancient Greek city: polis (“citizen-state”)
• Emerges around 700 B.C.
• Not all democracies, but emphasis is on cooperative activities by people who enjoyed some measure of equality
• No equal rights to women, immigrants, or slaves
• Most were small, less than 100 sq. miles in size / 5000-10,000 people
• Athens one of largest – 1000 sq. miles / 400,000 people
• Aristotle: ideal polis is small enough so everyone knows one another personally
• Two parts: Urban area and surrounding countryside, where most people lived
• Stone buildings, theaters, gymnasia, baths, etc.
• Athens
• Very word democracy comes from 5^th century B.C. Athens
• Direct democracy
• Places community first, over the individual
• Freedom, equality, citizenship without property qualifications, right of most citizens to hold public office, and the rule of law
• Ushered in under Pericles (ca. 495-429 B.C.) – 3 branches of government
• Central institution is Assembly, open to all male citizens over age 20, in open air, on hillside, with seating for several thousand on benches
• Judicial branch consisted of courts, were large (several hundred men) so as to avoid bribery
• Executive branch consists of Council of 500 and some 700 public officials (males over age 30)
• Drawback: maybe 1/10 to 1/5 of citizens eligible to participate
• Critics, like Socrates, preferred the rule of a wise elite and thought democracy have an equal voice to the uneducated and was inefficient. Plato also envisioned a polis led by philosopher-kings who would rule benevolently and unselfishly. Aristotle believed that man, by nature, was intended to live in the polis.

Rome

· The republican conception of liberty, like the words "republic" and “liberty" themselves, originated in Rome

· Roman constitution instituted by Lucius Junius Brutus in 509 B.C.

· Three branches of government – executive, deliberative (Senate), and legislative (several popular assemblies)

o American gov’t combined deliberative and legislative branches and added judicial

· Three parts of the Roman consitution: magistrates, Senate, and people

Roman liberty was associated with annual elections and the rule of law

• The essential and original meaning of libertas was status in the political community as a free or "liber" person (not a slave)
• Popular sovereignty and the rule of law were the first and fundamental attributes of Rome's republican liberty, protected by the popular election
• The spirit of monarchy for Livy (59 B.C. – A.D. 17) was the license ("licentia") of the elite, while the essence of republican government was to give the people equal rights

· Livy observed that republican laws should be blind and inexorable, while the justice of kings is subject to personal influence.

Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

• Insists that a law is legitimate only when it is consistent with the standards of liberty and justice, based on what he called natural law
• “And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times.” (De Republica, III, xxii)

à This is key: if there is a natural law that applies to all people, with God behind them, there are absolutes of right and wrong. This is the first step toward a check against despotism. If there are no absolutes, no law written on our hearts (Rom. 2), then we can’t punish the Hitlers or Saddam Husseins of the world. We also can’t really have a system of law with punishments for wrongdoers.

• When Cicero was killed, the Roman republic died with him
• Cicero's vision of Rome as a selfless nobility of successful individuals determining the fate of the nation via consensus in the Senate was giving way to a harsh, corrupt Empire under dictatorial Caesars populated at all levels by venal and corrupt citizens.
• In Cicero's view, a harmonious state was much like a concert.
• "A state is made harmonious by agreement among dissimilar elements. This is brought about by a fair and reasonable bleeding of the upper, middle, and lower classes, just as if they were musical tones."

à Influences American thought on “checks and balances”

à No real checks and balances in Roman government

- mob rule was commonplace

- problem was that rulers came to see that they were above the law

o “The lesson of Roman history is that letting the ambitious go unpunished [by the Roman Senate] invites even bolder, more dangerous action.” (Matthew Robinson, The Claremont Insitute)

- new rulers consistently cancelled the edicts of older ones, often bringing criminal indictments that reached back years, even decades

- Ambitious politicians spent fortunes to win approval through gaudy theatrics and gladiatorial displays, while subsidizing grain to support the lower classes ("bread and circuses")

• Gov’t is morally obligated to protect human life and private property
• Transmits Stoic idea of a higher moral law to modern world
• This law is the same everywhere, for everybody
• Government is like a trustee, morally obligated to serve society
• But government is also not the same thing as society
• First to say that government is justified primarily as a means to protect private property
• Locke: “life, liberty, and property”
• Jefferson: “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”

Sidebar: John Locke

• 1640s and 1650s – Puritan revolution
• leads to trial by jury
• cannot incriminate yourself
• Locke extends this

à big concern about arbitrary power

• Gov’t should protect liberty, and property
• Private property is essential to liberty (key to understanding communism-capitalism)
• Checks and balances
• Represnetative gov’t – people, not the government, is sovereign
• Rule of law
• Cannot raise taxes without the consent of the gov’t
• Religious toleration (except atheists and Catholics)
• Denounces tyranny: Right of revolution if leader becomes a tyrant

ANGLO-SAXON/ENGLISH LAW

English History

• This is just a summary. For more details, you’ll have to wait for Bede in my English Literature class (grade 11).

55 B.C. – Julius Caesar conquers England and brings further civ. to Celts

- encounters Druid culture

- Caesar did little more than establish a foothold on the island

43 AD. - Britain officially became a frontier province of the Empire with the invasion of the emperor Claudius' troops

- cities founded

- Roman stone roads

Celts live in peace for centuries

R. Empire crumbles and Rom. Legions withdrawn from England

Celts thus powerless before Anglo-Saxons and other invaders

• Christianity gained a foothold in Britain by the mid-second century
• Tertullian: Christians in Britain in 208
• St. Alban dies in persecution of Diocletian (r. 284-305)

British bishops attend Council of Sardica (347)

449 A.D. – Anglo-Saxons from Germans, Denmark, and the Netherlands invade England

- blue eyes

- fair skin

- common language (Anglo-Saxon)

- crush higher Celtic civ. (Christian civilization beginning with St. Patrick)

- Destroy monestaries, etc.

- King Arthur – Celtic king who fights in vain against A-S invaders

- Celts pushed to north and west of island

- A-Ss have lower classes (slaves and peasants) who do most of farming and domestic work

- Upper class men (thanes or free warriors) were king’s consultants and who obey king in times of battle; often relatives or good friends of king

- Loud existence – heavy drinking, disputes, fights, braggarts

- The flyting – bragging contest between two warriors

- A-S warriors are plain-spoken and straightforward

o Like Mainers?

- loyalty to king

à Jefferson studied Anglo-Saxons in their own language

Before Norman Conquest of 1066:

• considered themselves a community of freemen
• similar to Israel in organization:
• head of 10 familiesàtithing-man
• head of 50 familiesàvil-man (head of village)
• head of 100 familiesàthe hundred man
• head of 1000 familiesàeolderman (later shortened to earl)
• territory occupied by 1000 families-shire
• administrative assistant to earl is “shire reef” (sheriff)
• laws and election of leaders by common consent of people
• authority given to chieftan in time of war was extremely limited and taken away when emergency passed
• trial by jury
• property rights are considered sacred
• wealthy were urged to help the poor
• Witen (Parliament) was under orders to make laws of land square with laws of God

597 A.D. – Christian missionaries come to England from Rome and Ireland (which had been Christian for a hundred years thanks to St. Patrick and others)

- Augustine is first Archbishop of Canterbury

- uneven results

- A dominant Anglo-Saxon king in South, Ethelbert, was converted after marrying a German princess

- “officially” Christian by 700 A.D. (book says 664 A.D.)

- still, large pockets of paganism or Christian veneer

- superstitions, charms, and legends of old heathen gods persist

- monestaries founded and their influence spreads to the populace

o monks start writing in Latin, but then begin writing in English

- Viking raids on British coast begin in 786 and continue for several hundred years

o Converted in 900s and by c. 1000 A.D. raids stop

o By then they had settled Iceland, where the Althing, an assembly of all free men

§ Cast votes

§ First rudimentary democracy since Ancient Greece

English Common Law

• Definition: a non-codified form of law based on long-accepted customs and traditions
• King’s power was never absolute; it was always limited
• Starts during Anglo-Saxon times
• A-S kings rule through the Witan (council of wise men), who aided king in making decisions
• In 1066, Normans replace Witan with two bodies
• Great Council
• Kings and vassals
• King’s Court
• Smaller body of semiprofessional advisers to the king
• By 1265, King’s Council had come to be known as Parliament
• Edward I (1272-1307) convenes Model Parliament in 1295
• Called it because he needed money for wars and needed okay from Parliament under common law
• Parliament evolves until House of Lords (upper house of nobility and clergy) and House of Commons (reps of common people)
• By fifteenth century, Parliament becomes legal rep of people of England
• Parliament becomes model for the colonial legislatures in America and for the U.S. Congress
• Magna Carta
• Hated King John forced by barons (nobles) to sign Magna Carta in 1215 and be under the law of the land for the first time
• English Bill of Rights
• When King Charles I tries to ignore some of Englishmen’s rights, Commons forces him to assent in 1628 to the Petition of Right
• It took English Civil War and “Glorious Evolution” to get to English Bill of Rights of 1689
• Main provisions
• No man above the law
• No taxes without consent
• Petition for a redress of grievances
• Keep and bear arms
• Elections must be free
• People’s representatives must have freedom of speech
• No excessive bail or fines
• No cruel punishments
• King Henry II (r. 1154-1189)
• Laid foundations of trial by jury in royal courts
• Guilty or innocent by group of his peers
• Step in direction of equal justice under law
• Innocent until proven guilty

English Tradition Takes Root in America

• English dominates North America for 168 years (1607-1775)
• The English tradition of law and limited, representative government played a key rule in development of America
• Mayflower Compact (1620)

- Reformation – 1517 – Martin Luther

- English Reformation – Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) – wanted to annul marriage to Catherine of Aragon after 18 yrs of marriage and no male heir

o Bore some children, but they all died in infancy except Mary, who eventually became Queen

o Henry was model husband – no affairs – asks for annulment 9 yrs after last pregnancy

o Pope Clement VII says no

o Henry marries Anne Boleyn, whom nobody liked except Henry

o Henry declared himself head of Church of England

o Finally has son with 3^rd wife, Jane Seymour – King Edward VI (r. 1547-1553)

- Church of England under pressure from those who wanted to purify church of “papist” influences

o Enemies called them “Puritans”

- Puritans and Separatists

o Separatists: seperate from Church of England entirely

o Puritans: work within the Church of England to push forth reforms

- The Pilgrims were Separatists

o Persecuted by Church of England

o Flee to Holland in 1608

§ Children becoming corrupted

o Head to America in 1620

§ Mayflower Compact

· Seeds of American liberties planted

· First time in human history a free people come together to establish a government

· No longer under the thumb of external powers such as Church of England

• Even before they go ashore, 41 men on board Mayflower sign the Mayflower Compact
• Written by loyal subjects of England who covenant under God to establish a “civil body politick”
• Pledges allegiance to Crown, but also to laws and authorities chosen by the Colonies

à They claimed the rights of Englishmen whenever it was convenient, but thought of themselves as Americans almost from the start

à Within 30 years of the founding, the colonies were run by men who were born in America

• Never known anything but republican democracy; never knew what it was like to live under a king

à In time, the split between the crown and colonies would force folks to choose sides!

• In 1634, one Englishmen was irate that English flag was not flying anywhere in Boston!
• Word was always going to England about how independent the Puritan were
• During King Philip’s War, Colonies do not ask for British troops; they didn’t want the burden of occupation
• In 1682, King Charles II heard that ministers were preaching freedom
• Ultimatum: swear allegiance to King or hand back their charter
• Colonists refuse, and Charles II asks for their charter back
• Town meeting – no way will we give back our charter!
• Charles II says he will send troops, but dies before that; his brother James succeeds him
• James dies on very day Increase Mather prayed and fasted about situation!
• But King, James II, did send a man to collect all the colonial charters and strictly enforce Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1663 that said Colonies could only trade with England
• Then in 1689, James II was overthrown and William and Mary’s “Glorious Revolution” take over
• England occupied with foreign wars until 1760 and King George III
• English colonies – 13 in all by 1733 – formed in America
• 8 were royal: colony directly under king’s control
• 3 were proprietary: colony governed by one of king’s subjects
• 2 (Conn/RI) were self-governing: more hands-off rule
• Each colony has a charter, a document issued by King that spells out relationship between king and colonists
• Colonies inherit British common law and seek to improve on it
• Influences:
• Bible
• 1641: Massachusetts Body of Liberties
• New Haven Colony Laws
• Blackstone’s Commentaries
• Written in 1765
• Sold 2,500 copies w/in 10 years
• Burke: Americans study law more than any other country
• Wrote down common law of England and interpreted it through context of Bible
• Colonial government
• Virginia House of Burgesses (Jamestown, 1619)
• First representative assembly in the colonies
• example for other colonies
• bicameral legislature modeled after Lords and Commons
• Local government
• Town meeting – more compact cities
• County system in South – more spaced out

Steps Toward Unity

• Didn’t happen overnight
• Various causes
• Distance from England
• Tradition of self-government
• Spiritual awakening
• Edwards and other preachers before Revolution – “Great Awakening”

à message: One nation under God and that only God can give liberty, equality, and fraternity

• God’s love is available to all, without regard to class or rank
• In tune with Americans’ instinctive disdain of aristocracy
• seeds of revolution planted through pulpits of America
• short jump from “priesthood of all believers” to independence from England
• role of individual conscience
• not all pastors are Patriots; some are Tories; others (Quakers) are pacifists
• revivals transcend sectionalism and unite nation for the first time as “America,” a cohesive (fighting) unit
• local church supported by local people à separation of church and state
• Renewed Puritan values of hard work and fiscal responsibility

Steps Toward Independence

• “For freedom, Christ has set us free; stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1)
• In theory, American Colonies were run by England
• In practice, they were relatively self-governing
• King George in 1760 brought a great change
• First thing: increased number of British troops from 3,100 to 7,500
• Colonies taxed for support of the troops
• Old Navigation Acts were strictly enforced
• American allies: William Pitt and Edmund Burke
• Tried to convince them that Colonies wanted simple rights of Englishmen, like no taxation without representation (as in English Bill of Rights of 1689)
• 1765: Stamp Act – Parliament requires Colonists to put stamps on newspapers and pamphlets
• Stamp Act Congress – Colonies under King only, so law not legally binding
• Oct. 1765 – Declaration of Rights and Grievances
• Stamp Act repealed by Parliament
• 1767: Townshend Acts – duties (taxes) on glass, lead, tea, paper, etc.
• Not for troops, but for England’s global adventures
• 1768: act repealed, all except for tax on tea
• 1770: British tea excused from the tax, thus bankrupting many American tea companies
• 1773: Boston Tea Party à close port of Boston
• 1774: First Continental Congress
• “Intolerable Acts” passed by Parliament
• FCC pledges loyalty of Ams to Crown by protests usurpation of Am rights
• Before adjourning, they resolve to meet (SCC) the next year
• Before SCC, Lexington and Concord – April 1775
• “Shot heard round the world”
• 1775: Second Continental Congress
• Began to assume governing power
• America’s first central government
• Supported an army
• Appointed Washington as commander-in-chief
• Issued money
• August 1775: Congress makes one last conciliatory appeal to Britain – tried to blame Parliament and not the King
• Americans are distraught about the thought of independence
• State legislatures
• George Washington writes in 1774: “I am well satisfied that no such thing as independence is desired by any thinking man in North America.”
• Americans wait with rapt attention
• In Oct. 1775, word arrives from king – it astonishes everybody
• King declares colonies in a state of rebellion and no longer under his protection
• He also sent Hessians to fight against his own subjects and stirred up Indians on the western frontier to kill settlers (men, women, and children)
• December 1775: Parliament passes Prohibitory Act
• Idea is to cut off all trade with Colonies

à Now both King and Parliament were at war with the Colonies

• July 1776: Declaration of Independence

o Jefferson is a Virginia Delegate to the Second Contintental Congress in 1775 at age 33

• One of youngest delegates

o Committee is formed in June 1776 to draft a declaration of Independence

à Truth is that England had been at war with Colonies for 13 or 14 months, since Lexington and Concord in April 1775 (or even since Boston Massacre of 1770)

• Includes John Adams and Ben Franklin, along with two others
• The others choose Jefferson to write the text
• Jefferson basically holes up in his residence in Philly and doesn’t come out until first draft is written – 17 days later!
• Wrote in armchair pilled up to a dining table
• Goose quill pen
• Did most of writing between 6 pm and midnight

o With exception of tinkering by Franklin and John Adams, D of I is Jefferson’s work alone

• Not as much a declaration of independence, but to proclaim to the world the reasons for Colonies declaring independence
• Colonies not rebels – they were just standing up for long-established rights that tyrannical King George III was trying to usurp (note: not rights of Englishmen, but universal rights of man)
• Americans needed French support, so Jefferson aims at French hearts and minds and King Louis XVI
• French and British were longstanding enemies

o His great contribution to American political theory:

• 1. right of revolution
• Locke supports this
• 2. individual rights
• John Locke demonstrated that individuals do not exist to serve governments, but rather that governments exist to protect individuals. The individual, said Locke, has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness.
• 2. popular sovereignty
• Also from Locke, that people establish governments

• The committee makes very few changes, Jefferson writes a new draft, and then it is voted out of committee
• “One charge that Jefferson had included, but Congress removed, was that the king had "waged cruel war against human nature" by introducing slavery and allowing the slave trade into the American colonies. The words offended delegates from Georgia and South Carolina, who were unwilling to acknowledge that slavery violated the "most sacred rights of life and liberty," and the passage was dropped for the sake of unanimity. Thus was foreshadowed the central debate of the American Civil War…” (Matthew Spalding, Acton Institute)
• John Adams, on the floor of Congress, defended the D of I before the delegates – he hadn’t prepared anything!
• Still, the delegates cut one quarter of text, changed about two dozen words, and made two insertions
• four references to God in the document left in the document
• On July 2, Richard Henry Lee’s resolution approving independence was adopted
• Wanted all colonies to vote for measure
• Deleware: needed Caesar Rodney to make 2 out of 3
• Messenger sent back to Deleware to retrieve him (cancer of the face) and bring him back in time to have Deleware support independence
• Virginia – 2 of 3 against independence, but abstained from voting
• Passes 12-0 (NY not voting)
• Colonies were now states of the United States of America
• Adams wrote that evening of July 2:

This day will be the most memorable in the history of America; to be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival, commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

• Only evening of July 4, all members (except John Dickinson) signs the Declaration
• Deleware needed majority to
• "Nothing of importance this day," George III wrote in his diary on July 4, 1776.
• Not called Declaration of Indpendence by Jefferson or Congress – name given it by the people
• Thomas Jefferson not identified as author until months later, and names of signers kept secret – fear of British reprisal
• Signing the D of I was an act of treason, and if British had won the war, they would have been convicted of treason and probably hanged
• Franklin: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

à Reminder: Read Articles of Confederation for Monday (textbook, pp. 261-268)