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degeneration of the good society. , Where the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
The main task of republican government, in the long view of John Adams; 'lI'~"ourGovernments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and
appeared to be the prevention of excessive power in the hands of anyone
the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehenc;led, not from acts of Gov-
ernment contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the
group. Believing that "vice and folly are so interwoven in all human affairs ,'Government is the mere instrument of the .qlajor number of the constituents.
that they could not, possibly, be'wholly separated from them without tearing
and rending the whole system of human nature and state," Adams had to put IMadison thus called to the attention of all men the inflexible requirement that
his trust in the rare statesmanlike leaders who would possess wisdom to "democracies protect the civil rights of minorities from the real or reported
formulate just laws, and discipline to abide by them. Adams thought, the 'Iwill" of the majority. .
~etwork of checks and balances would defeat the ambitious and power£ IMadison and Adams made more of property rights than Jefferson did, but
hungry few who might design to capture government for their private ends~ :either of them deserted the democratic theories of natural rights, popular
158 LITERARY HISTORY OF' ·TPlE 'UNITED STATES PHILOSOPHER.~STATBSMEN OP THE REPUBI:.IC 159
sovereignty, limited government, antimonarchism, and antiaristocracy. Nor reach and competence, and in all others by representatives, chosen immedi-
did the two cORservatives ever approach Hamilton's justification of plutocracy. ately, and removable by themselves:' For this reason, a republic was the "only
Both Adams and Madison inclined to the ideal of a republic which was e<:o- form of government that is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights
nornically agrarian at base, but supplemented by mercantile and manufactur- , of mankind:' To achieve republican freedom, citizens must pay a price, the
ing interests. Madisop. perhaps a little more than Adams realized the vital wakefulness of "eternal vigilance," and therefore a citizenry trained in the
role of credit and of government-financed eJl:pansion of the country's natural principles of government, an educated citizenry, is the indispensable support.
resources and communications-the role which John Adams' son, John of' freedom.
Quincy Adams, was to develop fully in his program of "Internal Improve- Thus, subtly and indirectly, a moral climate had been postulated for the
ment." Theoretically, therefore, it was .Hamilton, of doubtful birth, who :A:merica in which republicanism Was to be tried. Benevolence and moral
thought most exclusively of' the moneyed interests of the country, partly sense, self~reated will rather than coercive force, are the dynamic daily agents
because he saw in them the source of national strength, while Jefferson, grace- inlfree society as well as the purely theoretical factors of its ethics. "Natutal"
ful nnd learned "landed squire," cared most deeply about the widespread inde- ploralism is opposed to the reputed "natural" rule of force, which Jefferson
pendent well-being of the "people," farmers and laborers included. Ac!lIms and tawas the breeder of authoritarian society, whether of "kings, hereditary
Madison, aristocratic in taste in the typical styles of Massachusetts and Vir- nobles, :l.!ld priests" or, in the language of a later day, of leaders, demagogues;
ginia, but far from da:l:zling in the family fortunes to which they were born, and commissars. Jefferson's agrarianism, 5'0 often made the catchword for his
were actively promoting a scheme of society favorable to widespread middle- ~ariety of democracy, is in reality a by-product of an almost sentimental pref-
class prosperity and power. erence for the simplicity of classical republicanism joined to the suppostd
,purity of "primitive" Christianiry. Yet when Jefferson realized that the evolu-
tion of his 'nation demanded the self-sufficiency and expansion of her manu-
4 ·facture aniltrade-when he perceived that free society would be jeopardized
The ethical thcoriC$ of theae men had pronounced influence upon the politi- Lij,it were unable' to defend itself on the high sea_he protested that "he ...
cnl and economic views they maintained. As character is the inner side of hl\bit who is now against domestic manufacture, muse be for reducing us either to
in the individual, so in society its outward crystallized structure is govern- dependence • . . or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens
ment. Save for these four philosopher-statesmen of the Republic, the American and,caverns. I am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufac-
character might never have been giv~ more than haphazard or perfunctory tures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort." Despite'
sig~i.ficance. ]etfersoJl, Madison/ and John Adams all understood the im- Ithia, Jefferson's in.tinctive trust repoacd in the fair and free interchange of
portance of character for those who would be leaders in a republic, and Dation with nation, as in. citizen with citizen~which is to say that he was :I:
Hamilton sometimes did but sometimes paid only lip service to the ideal. man at peace, conceiving productive society basically as a peaceful society, an
Jefferson and Madison and Adams advocated that "the purest and noblest earnest judgment in which he.was fully joined by James Madison.
characters" (Madison's phrase) should serve as the people's representatives, Economically and politically, to Hamilton's expert eye, the softer fringe cif
since they alone would do so from the "proper motives:' Because these men 'social moraliry was not a- subject for enthusiasm nor even for belief. "The
dedicated themselves to the cause of their country before they consulted their seeds of war are sown thickly in the human breast," Hamilton had written,
immediate personal needs/ the inceptive principles of the American republl<; udJJthe rivalry that precipitated wars, in his view, stemmed partly from "the'
betoken seekers of truth and wisdom, and good citizens in the Roman sense, :teinper of societies," and partly from the human disposition to "prefer partilll
rather than mere men of office. ~o:general interest:' Coming to terms with self·interested reality was accord;
Jefferson, perceiving that government was necessary for the release of viDtgly 'Hamilton's basic preoccupation, whether that "reality" meant strong
man's fullest potentialities,liked to speak of it as of secondary or instrumental $Fmies' and navies for defense against foreign powers, or a strong system of
value-a habit which was later perversely construed to mean that government .national credit. His ultimate separation of himself from his idealistic ass<>-
was evil. The range of realistic political choice for Jefferson lay entirc:ly be~ lates, whom he termed "political cmpirics," linds expression in an important
tween repressive government and republicanism, and he identi£ed the essence uhfinished paper called "Defence of the Funding System" (about 1795),
of republicanism as "action by the citizens in person in affairs within their :l\Ilhere he identifies the "true" politician as one who "takes human natUre
160 LITERARY HISTORY GF' THE UNITED STATES
PHILOSOPHER-STATESMEN OF THE REPUBLIC 161
(and human society its aggregate) as he finds it, a compound of good and ill
qualities, of good and ill tendencies, endued with pOwers and actuated by sometimes in behavior as statesmen-they seem to have possessed that rare
passions and propensities which blend enjoyment with suffering and make wisdom about human and political affairs which never quite exhausts its
the causes of welfare the causes of misfortune." Afraid to warp this funda- power to suggest. On occasion, it restores its own. original vitality and
mental human comple~ by urging a happiness not suited tel it, the true politi· su.flices to sanction an important change in national or international policy.
cian supposedly aims at the social measures designed to "make men happy We know that in the curious reversals of history, the truths of an age are
according to their natural bent, which multiply the sources of individual .likely to suffer sea change. As Lincoln pointed out, the maxim "All men are
enjoyment and increase national resources and strength." The great objective created equal," once thought a self-evident truth, is termed a "self-evident
of the statesman should thus be to find the cement for compounding diverse lie" once we have "grown fat, and lost all dread of being slaves ourselves."
elements of a state into a "rock" of national strength. So it may be with the far-ranging insights and veridical principles of the
Governments would not need to be afraid to take power, Hamilton be- ,tl.\illosopher-statesmen of the Republic. Sinee the advent of the Jacksonian
lieved, could they strip themselves of false attitudes of modesty. In the logic of ~ge-a "calamitous" Presidency in Madison's prediction-the objectives of
economic stability and national ~pansion, of credit and appropriations and t$inpered. democracy have been often ignored or ingeniously misinterpreted.
"sound policy" versus the misguided pleadings of "common humanity,'~ ~~the l~tters and state papers of the Republican era again come under re-
Hamilton saw an unanswerable imperative: to wit, that the "sacred" right of VJi~w; it is apparent that democratic ideology can still benefit by its own very
property must be defended by the laws and by the constitutions of the land, aWculate o,rjginal. The foundation of our national literature'is present here,
and that even the non-propertied groups in the community should protect
·~:J.~e'p~acticalliterature of ideas, as well as in the imitative experiments of
property rights lest the "general principles of public order" be subverted. "tlJ.!:l,de1iberafely "literary" work of the day.
John Adams, the self-styled "John Yankee" who could not bear to kowtow
to "John Bull"-nor for that matter to any foreign power-seems more at
home in Jefferson's and Madison's company than he is with Hamilton, the
"boss" of his own party. Without Adams, the democratic precedent of the
New England meeting hall, the training green, and the system of self.support
for local schools, churches, and cultural institutions might have spoken only.
with muffled voice in the American tradition. The political "virtues" of
Massachusetts even Jefferson commended, pointing to that state as the bes~
exponent of the theme that knowledge is power. In Adams' championship of
New England there is a nucleus of national pride useful and perhaps neces,
sary to a rising nation. To this Adams personally added the dignified appeal
that, however much. republican government consisted of equal laws justly
administered, it further required consistent benevolence and encouragement
for the arts and sciences. Almost a humanist bm never quite freed of a Puri,
tan sense of guilt and sin, Adams privately reveled in the classics just as,
Jefferson did. The late correspondence which flourished between the two aged
statesmen as they enacted the roles of sages in retirement, with great eclat,
is a phenomenon of tireless learning and peppery jest, joined in a corresppn.d;
ence the like of which is not known in the annals of American statesmen.
5 1m:,
Such were the philosopher-kings of the American Enlightenment. How-'
ever often they may have erred-in description, in prognosis, in emphasis, and