By DOUG SHAVER
June 5, 2020
I recently read George Will’s column When American conservatism becomes un-American. He concludes the essay: “The moral of this story . . . is that American conservatism, when severed from the Enlightenment and its finest result, the American Founding, becomes spectacularly unreasonable and literally un-American.” Following are some of the thoughts this provoked.
We are reminded from time to time that if we won’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. The context usually is some mistake that, the author thinks, our nation is now making or is about to make. We’re told that the mistake was made before, and we’re urged to examine the consequences so we won’t make it again. But as others have noticed, one thing history teaches us is that people apparently never learn anything from history. What we could learn from it, though, assuming we’re even teachable, depends on who is teaching it and what they think we’re supposed to learn.
Nobody will deny that our ancestors made some mistakes that we would be well advised to avoid repeating, but the devil is always in the details. The Constitution’s original toleration of slavery looks like it certainly belongs in the “They really screwed that one up” column. Apparently, though, there was no way the Southern states were going to accept the Constitution without such assurance that the new government would be powerless to oppose slavery. And without their acceptance, there would be no Constitution, and hence no new United States of America. The Articles of Confederation would have remained in force.
At the time, a substantial fraction of the American people would have liked that just fine. Maybe even a majority would have. We cannot know for sure, since there was no scientific public-opinion polling in those days, but we do know that there was considerable opposition to any strengthening of the federal government. The opponents did lose the vote, and the winners proceeded to write the history books, but the opponents’ arguments are still available for examination, and they make for some sobering reading.
Apparently, in those days, political adversaries actually listened to each other. The federalists understood their adversaries’ concerns, and the anti-federalists understood why some sensible people thought the national government needed more authority. Neither side was content to just vilify the other. Not that vilification didn’t happen. Polarization happened then as it does now, and there was plenty of ugly talk. But the ugliness didn’t carry the day. On both sides, the voices of reason were not the exception. They didn’t have to clamor for attention, because they already had everyone’s attention.
The Constitutional debate was a real debate, not an exhibition of posturing or virtue signalling. The advocates were presenting arguments informed by their understanding of the Western world’s history—a degree of understanding not evident in any of today’s public rhetoric. If today’s would-be leaders cannot agree on where we should go or how we can get there, maybe it’s because they have no idea where we came from or how we got to where we are.
Next: Careful teaching
(This page last updated on June 10, 2020.)