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This is from the Glenn Beck newsletter, thought some of you might like it.
SPECIAL REPORT: PROGRESS AND THE AMERICAN FOUNDING
This essay is the first in a week-long series that contrasts the
Founding Father's original intent with today's culture and politics.
To read more on social progress and the Founders subscribe to Fusion
magazine and read Glenn Beck's exclusive Voter's Guide. On sale now
(https://members.premiereinteractive.com/ows-img/glennbeck/pages/28585/41414.html)!
Progress and the American Founding
By Bradley C. S. Watson
The American Founders didn't much believe in "progress" if it meant
movement away from the timeless principles they enshrined in the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
They didn't want us to have the courage to change so much as the
courage to live up to our principles. The change they wanted us to
believe in was the gradual realization of these principles through
generations of courage and sacrifice. For the Founders, there was
always the danger that change could be in negative as well as
positive directions.
As James Madison reminded Americans in the 49th of the Federalist
Papers, constant appeals to the people that imply some defect in
government would deprive the Constitution of that "veneration which
time bestows on everything." Change or "progress" in politics is not
always desirable because settled habits -- including love for one's
country -- need to be inculcated if any regime is to survive the
passions of the moment.
Nowadays, change and progress have become synonymous, and they almost
always signify movement away from the Founders' Constitution.
The mantra of change is linked with the belief that the federal
government exists to solve all our social problems and provide for
all our needs, from health care to making our mortgage payments less
burdensome. This linkage between change and national power was firmly
established in the public mind during the Clinton years, but its
origins go back to the late 19th century, when "Progressive"
political thought came into its own. It reached its apotheosis in
presidents such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who
reconfigured the Founders' political categories to suit their
purposes of expanding national power. But it continues on in Supreme
Court decisions that insist on understanding the Constitution as a
"living" document that lives primarily in the minds of judges, and
changes according to the elite preferences of the day.
For our Founders, the government created by the Constitution was
designed for the far more limited purpose of protecting our natural
rights as proclaimed in the Declaration. These rights are natural in
the sense they predate all government. They are the gifts of nature
and nature's God. Because they predate government, government must be
carefully structured and limited in its powers in order that they
cannot readily be taken away.
Our natural rights are based on the self-evident truth that all men
are created equal. Human equality in this limited political sense
means that government must be by the informed consent of the
governed. Because citizens are equal beings with their fellow
citizens, they recognize that duties go along with rights, including
especially the duty to preserve fellow citizens in their lives,
liberty, and property.
As we "progress" toward ever more labyrinthine government policies
and programs, informed consent gives way to the ever increasing
demand to take from Peter to pay Paul, and manly assertiveness in
protecting natural rights gives way to a culture of complaint and
entitlement. No one in the Founding generation understood our natural
equality to be a license to redistribute resources on the grand scale
that so many candidates for public office now take for granted.
The greatest subsequent interpreter of America's founding principles,
Abraham Lincoln, reminded us that as the Founding generation passed,
we would be in constant danger of forgetting their accomplishments
and sacrifices, and, with this forgetting, drift dangerously from our
constitutional moorings. As he wrote in his 1838 Lyceum Address,
"They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foemen could
never do, the silent artillery of time has done."
Calvin Coolidge, one of the last presidents to have a deep
appreciation for the Founders, remarked in Philadelphia in 1926, "If
all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with
inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed, that is final."
Martin Luther King, Jr. also recognized the timelessness of America's
Founding principles when he famously proclaimed in his "I Have a
Dream" speech that "the architects of our Republic wrote the
magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence" as a "promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir."
At his best, Ronald Reagan also exemplified an appreciation for the
Founders as he struggled mightily to spread the principles of
America's Founding to peoples across the world. He did this as he
also struggled to return the national government at home to something
the Founders' might have recognized. He sought to build a bridge to
the 18th century as a means of securing the 20th and 21st.
In the hurly burly of political campaigning, as candidates from both
major parties now stumble over each other in the race to see who most
embraces change, we are prone to forget, as Lincoln warned, the glory
of what has been bequeathed us. We should perhaps take a moment to
reflect on how much more salutary it would be for American voters if
the candidates sought to remind them of the accomplishments of their
Founders, rather than attempting to lead them pell-mell into an
undefined future. As Lincoln said on the 110th anniversary of
Washington's birth, "To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the
name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it."
Bradley C. S. Watson is the Philip M. McKenna Professor of American
and Western Political Thought and Fellow in Politics and Culture at
the Center for Political and Economic Thought, Saint Vincent College,
Latrobe, PA. His next book is Living Constitution, Dying Faith:
Progressivism and the New Science of Jurisprudence (American Ideals &
Institutions)
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933859709?ie=UTF8&tag=glennbeckcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1933859709).
SPECIAL REPORT: PROGRESS AND THE AMERICAN FOUNDING
This essay is the first in a week-long series that contrasts the
Founding Father's original intent with today's culture and politics.
To read more on social progress and the Founders subscribe to Fusion
magazine and read Glenn Beck's exclusive Voter's Guide. On sale now
(https://members.premiereinteractive.com/ows-img/glennbeck/pages/28585/41414.html)!
Progress and the American Founding
By Bradley C. S. Watson
The American Founders didn't much believe in "progress" if it meant
movement away from the timeless principles they enshrined in the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
They didn't want us to have the courage to change so much as the
courage to live up to our principles. The change they wanted us to
believe in was the gradual realization of these principles through
generations of courage and sacrifice. For the Founders, there was
always the danger that change could be in negative as well as
positive directions.
As James Madison reminded Americans in the 49th of the Federalist
Papers, constant appeals to the people that imply some defect in
government would deprive the Constitution of that "veneration which
time bestows on everything." Change or "progress" in politics is not
always desirable because settled habits -- including love for one's
country -- need to be inculcated if any regime is to survive the
passions of the moment.
Nowadays, change and progress have become synonymous, and they almost
always signify movement away from the Founders' Constitution.
The mantra of change is linked with the belief that the federal
government exists to solve all our social problems and provide for
all our needs, from health care to making our mortgage payments less
burdensome. This linkage between change and national power was firmly
established in the public mind during the Clinton years, but its
origins go back to the late 19th century, when "Progressive"
political thought came into its own. It reached its apotheosis in
presidents such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who
reconfigured the Founders' political categories to suit their
purposes of expanding national power. But it continues on in Supreme
Court decisions that insist on understanding the Constitution as a
"living" document that lives primarily in the minds of judges, and
changes according to the elite preferences of the day.
For our Founders, the government created by the Constitution was
designed for the far more limited purpose of protecting our natural
rights as proclaimed in the Declaration. These rights are natural in
the sense they predate all government. They are the gifts of nature
and nature's God. Because they predate government, government must be
carefully structured and limited in its powers in order that they
cannot readily be taken away.
Our natural rights are based on the self-evident truth that all men
are created equal. Human equality in this limited political sense
means that government must be by the informed consent of the
governed. Because citizens are equal beings with their fellow
citizens, they recognize that duties go along with rights, including
especially the duty to preserve fellow citizens in their lives,
liberty, and property.
As we "progress" toward ever more labyrinthine government policies
and programs, informed consent gives way to the ever increasing
demand to take from Peter to pay Paul, and manly assertiveness in
protecting natural rights gives way to a culture of complaint and
entitlement. No one in the Founding generation understood our natural
equality to be a license to redistribute resources on the grand scale
that so many candidates for public office now take for granted.
The greatest subsequent interpreter of America's founding principles,
Abraham Lincoln, reminded us that as the Founding generation passed,
we would be in constant danger of forgetting their accomplishments
and sacrifices, and, with this forgetting, drift dangerously from our
constitutional moorings. As he wrote in his 1838 Lyceum Address,
"They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foemen could
never do, the silent artillery of time has done."
Calvin Coolidge, one of the last presidents to have a deep
appreciation for the Founders, remarked in Philadelphia in 1926, "If
all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with
inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed, that is final."
Martin Luther King, Jr. also recognized the timelessness of America's
Founding principles when he famously proclaimed in his "I Have a
Dream" speech that "the architects of our Republic wrote the
magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence" as a "promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir."
At his best, Ronald Reagan also exemplified an appreciation for the
Founders as he struggled mightily to spread the principles of
America's Founding to peoples across the world. He did this as he
also struggled to return the national government at home to something
the Founders' might have recognized. He sought to build a bridge to
the 18th century as a means of securing the 20th and 21st.
In the hurly burly of political campaigning, as candidates from both
major parties now stumble over each other in the race to see who most
embraces change, we are prone to forget, as Lincoln warned, the glory
of what has been bequeathed us. We should perhaps take a moment to
reflect on how much more salutary it would be for American voters if
the candidates sought to remind them of the accomplishments of their
Founders, rather than attempting to lead them pell-mell into an
undefined future. As Lincoln said on the 110th anniversary of
Washington's birth, "To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the
name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it."
Bradley C. S. Watson is the Philip M. McKenna Professor of American
and Western Political Thought and Fellow in Politics and Culture at
the Center for Political and Economic Thought, Saint Vincent College,
Latrobe, PA. His next book is Living Constitution, Dying Faith:
Progressivism and the New Science of Jurisprudence (American Ideals &
Institutions)
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933859709?ie=UTF8&tag=glennbeckcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1933859709).