The Founders' Freedom Formula
The American Founding Fathers were students and philosophers as well as soldiers and politicians. They carefully scrutinized every system of government in existence to see which one was the most likely to make it possible for humanity to attain the three great goals of freedom, prosperity, and peace.
But among all the political systems of the day, there was no such government. Around the globe, every government was structured to exploit its people, reduce them to poverty, and marshal their intimidated youth into predatory wars against nearby nations. No existing government was designed to provide its people with freedom, prosperity, and peace.
Therefore, the Founders sat down to invent one.
One of those who verbalized the feelings of the Founders at that time was Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, who asked: "Is there, at this moment, a nation upon earth that enjoys this right, where the true principles of representation are understood and practiced, and where all authority flows from and returns at stated periods to the people? I answer, there is not."
Then he asked what existing governments were based upon, and said: "To fraud, to force, or accident, all the governments we know have owed their births."
Finally, he marveled over the monumental undertaking the Founders were striving to achieve. He said: "To the philosophical mind, how new and awful an instance do the United States at present exhibit in the political world! They exhibit, sir, the first [page 4] instance of a people, who, being dissatisfied with their government -- unattacked by foreign force, and undisturbed by domestic uneasiness -- coolly and deliberately resort to the virtue and good sense of their country, for a correction of their public errors."
As it turned out, the American formula was more like a restoration of what Jefferson called "the ancient principles" than an invention of something entirely new. Nevertheless, even after the Founders had discovered these principles, it still required the utmost ingenuity at the Constitutional Convention to fit them into the requirements of a modern society. |
