Founding Fathers

Warren G. Harding, the newspaper publisher and Republican Senator from Ohio, was the first person to use the phrase 'Founding Fathers.' ... The phrase Founding Fathers applies to a large group that's divided into two subsets. The signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 are considered Founding Fathers, and the Framers of the US Constitution are also called Founding Fathers ... Some historians say there are seven key Founding Fathers. That group is: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

He is particularly well known for his electrifying performances in period costume of U.S. Revolutionary hero Patrick Henry and has performed the famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech for innumerable libertarian gatherings in the U.S. and abroad. At the USLP convention in Washington, DC in 1996, Bruce performed as George Washington, delivering his famous "Farewell Address." This was covered on C-SPAN TV and earned him a standing, cheering ovation. He also performed as Thomas Jefferson, reading the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial.

The Founding Fathers of the American republics ... were very much alive to the problem of bureaucracy and of government power ... The program of at least the dominant libertarian-republican wing of the Founding Fathers consisted of ultra-minimal government: guarding the rights of private property, free markets, and free trade; freedom of speech, press, and religion; separation of government from money, banking, and the economy; allowing neither public debt nor public works ... and generally binding down governmental Power with chains of iron, and watching government like a hawk and with vigilance and deep suspicion ...

[Juan Bautista] Alberdi had been strongly influenced by the ideas of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Alberdi believed that individuals had inherent rights of life, liberty, and property with which no government could legitimately interfere. He believed that the primary purpose of government was to ensure the protection of these unalienable rights ... In the 1930s, a military coup ousted the popularly elected [Argentine] government. Unfortunately, the new ... rulers rejected the Smith-Jefferson-Madison-Alberdi philosophy of economic freedom ...

Even the government's schools teach ... that America's Founders had — let us say — an expansive vision for the country they were establishing ... Clearly, these men had empire on their minds ... in the eyes of the Founders, the American Revolution was largely a war between a mature empire and a nascent one. (Many — but assuredly not all — Americans of the time would have cheerily agreed.) ... Some American figures glimpsed that empire and liberty might not easily so fit together ... The problem was that even many who opposed empire, sometimes quite eloquently, wanted ends that only an empire could procure.

Such ignorance and such trust in government did not characterize our American forefathers. Having studied economics and monetary history and having experienced the ravages of inflation firsthand with the Continental currency, they decided to establish a monetary system based on gold and silver coin rather than paper money. They knew that while the government could still debase the currency by "clipping" a bit of each gold coin it received ... that was a relatively small danger, especially compared with paper money, which could be expanded at will through the printing press.

[O]ur ancestors attempted to protect their freedom and property ... through the establishment of a monetary system based on precious metals ... As students of history, they understood the inflationary horrors that governments all over the world had inflicted on their citizenry through the issuance of paper money. Moreover, they themselves had experienced the ravages of the Continental currency during the Revolutionary War ("It's not worth a Continental") and the inflationary damage during the period of the Articles of Confederation, when the states were free to issue paper money.

Government should be restrained from intervening at home or abroad because its actions fail to achieve their stated aims ... Does that proposition seem radical? ... If you recognize the line of thinking in this set of beliefs, it might be because you have read the Federalist Papers, the writings of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or James Madison, or examined the philosophical origins of the American Revolution. Or you might have followed the debates that took place in the presidential election of 1800, in which this view emerged triumphant.

The weakest section of the book is the one dealing with "The Founding Father." That Washington was father of his country is a metaphor which captures some of the truth and much of my feelings about the matter. He did indeed tenaciously lead the country through the war which effected our separation from Britain and independence of her. He chaired the Constitutional Convention that produced the document on which our union stands. And he piloted us safely through the perilous and tenuous early years of the Republic. But the metaphor will not bear close and extensive analysis; it falls from so much weight.

If I should ask you what kind of economic order the Founding Fathers contemplated when they established the constitutional order, you would doubtless reply capitalism or a market economy ... In certain important particulars, your answer is supported by the ... record ... As to whether the Framers intended to create a capitalistic order, the weightier evidence balances to the contrary ... Montesquieu ... declared that if people were allowed "to dispose of property [as they] pleased," a republic would be "utterly undone." As disparate a pair of Americans as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin agreed.

"Founding Fathers" such as Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, and James Madison, were well aware of the danger of ordinary people coming to trust power. The likes of Alexander Hamilton, however, counted on such weakness ... Those who drafted the Declaration of Independence had an inherent distrust of power. Rather than see this as a reason to not create state systems, they believed that members of an enlightened, skeptical, and constantly observant public could and would insist upon state authorities restraining their appetites, lest they be driven from office.

To be sure, the Founding Fathers made concessions to the slave trade, the landed gentry, the money speculators and the protection-seeking industrialists. In so doing they simply accepted what the mores sanctioned ... The Founding Fathers made concessions to pressure-groups, to be sure; but when did politicians do otherwise? ... It is beside the point to criticize the Founding Fathers for failure to distinguish between property got by one's own labor and property got by privilege. The distinction was quite unknown then and, except in the ivory tower of moral philosophy, is quite unknown now.

"The men of the American Revolution were nurtured upon Coke's writings," observed constitutional historian Bernard Schwartz ... Thomas Jefferson remarked that "Coke Lyttleton was the universal elementary book of law students and a sounder Whig never wrote nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of British liberties." Patrick Henry, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Jay, Daniel Webster and many other influential Americans read Coke ... Schwartz observed that "The influence of Coke may be seen at all of the key stages in the development of the conflict between the Colonies and the mother country."

[The] United States ... has quietly shifted from being a decentralized federal republic to being a centralized democracy. Moreover, the actual power has shifted from the legislative branch to the executive. This would have startled the men who created that republic in reaction against the British monarchy, which they regarded as tyrannical because it concentrated so much power in one man's hands ... If the Founding Fathers could see us now, they'd surely ask, "How on earth did you get yourselves into this mess?" We've managed to do nearly everything the Constitution was designed to prevent us from doing.

Modern-day liberalism is the political embodiment of the Enlightenment; for example, the liberalism of the Founding Fathers explicitly incorporates its philosophical attitudes. Early American political philosophy, as developed in the Federalist Papers, consists of a blend of various Enlightenment themes, clarified ... by the practical experiences ... The primary motivations of the passions and of self-interest in social life gave rise to a new science of politics, which concluded that the regime best suited for human progress, material and spiritual, is the commercial democratic republic.

Although the Constitution set up the machinery of the federal government and established various procedures, the document's core purpose was to limit power in order to protect life, liberty, and property ... The Founders did not want an autocratic executive such as King George III. Nor did they want a "democratic despotism," which Thomas Jefferson warned against. Government was to be limited, its powers, in James Madison's words, "few and defined." The doctrine of enumerated powers, along with the Tenth Amendment (reserving all other powers to the states and the people), makes the Framers' objective abundantly clear.

Bovard draws a sharp contrast between the government envisioned by the nation's Founders and the government we have today. At the time of the founding, government was to have minimal power, and it was expected that the vigilant, well-read electorate consisting of property owners would ensure that governmental power was kept strictly confined ... Only a great philosophical change can repair the tremendous damage ... [I]t is hard to see how that can happen in a country where most of the people resemble the inhabitants of Orwell's 1984 more than they do the resolute individuals who fought for liberty 230 years ago.

Can anyone imagine how the discussion would have gone if someone had proposed erecting an "American Tower of London" when the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in the dog days of 1787? ... There was [none] in part because America was born a nation under the rule of law. There was [none] because the Founders made sure that the crime of treason was very narrowly defined. They had seen how the crime of "treason" had mushroomed time and again in English history, creating the pretext to slaughter those who protested oppression. There was no Tower of London in this nation because torture was not part of the American canons.

Encouraging people to view democracy as inevitable lulls them to dangers posed by their rulers and other ambitious politicians. If democracy is inevitable, then political progress is on automatic pilot. The Founding Fathers believed that freedom would always be in danger from power—that there would always be politicians and tyrants and tyrant assistants conspiring against freedom. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" was a common American saying in the 19th century. The contemporary version of that slogan appears to be "Eternal sloth is the luxury of democracy."

If the Founding Fathers were to come back, I doubt if they would recognize the United States today. Oh, they wouldn't be surprised by its size or its population or its technological progress. They expected that and encouraged it ... They would be disturbed at how we have allowed politicians and judges to turn the Constitution into an excuse instead of a restraint ... The Founding Fathers were suspicious of government and wary of it. They recognized that government is always the greatest threat to liberty ... Clearly, the Founding Fathers did not approve of the modern concept, imposed by federal courts, of one man, one vote.

[The] mentality of the intellectuals of the mid and late 19th century differed substantially from that of the group of intellectuals who fashioned the early documents of the United States. Unlike the early American intellectuals who saw liberty as a polestar and tried to limit the growth and power of the state, the later intellectuals saw the state as a vehicle for their own political and social agendas. While the original American intellectuals championed the federal system with its balance of powers between the states and central government, the later [ones] placed their faith squarely in the power of the centralized state.

Recall that the founders had long tangled with the king in England. The entire Declaration of Independence was a personal attack on him and his policies ... As an alternative ... the founders (perhaps naively) believed that they could create a Roman-style republic with a twist. There would be a head of state, but he would be controlled by a legislature. In fact, controlling the president would be the main job of the legislature. The founders went this one better by refusing to invest much power in the central government. Instead, the powers were decentralized and belonged to the member states.

"American exceptionalism" goes back to the founding. When American politicians set their sights on Spain's North American possessions, they were driven by the same attitude. In their view the new "Empire of Liberty," as Jefferson called it, was destined to replace the old, worn-out empires of Europe ... Acquisition through negotiation was preferred ..., but if war was necessary, they intended to be prepared and to let Spain and her fellow colonial powers know it. Thus the push for a global navy under James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams before 1820. Manifest destiny!

With his gifted pen and meticulous script, Jefferson drafted more reports, resolutions, legislation, and related official documents than any other Founding Father ... Jefferson was an instantly recognizable Founding Father. He stood about six feet two inches tall, was thin, had reddish hair, hazel eyes, and a freckled complexion ... He fell even further out of favor during the "Progressive Era" when reformers imagined that every problem could be fixed by giving the federal government more power ... Hamilton, apostle of government power, became the most revered Founder.

[Thomas Paine] provoked explosive controversy ... But fellow Founders recognized Paine's rare talent. Benjamin Franklin helped him get started in Philadelphia and considered him an "adopted political son." Paine served as an aide to George Washington. He was a compatriot of Samuel Adams. James Madison was a booster. James Monroe helped spring him from prison in France. His most steadfast friend was Thomas Jefferson ... Paine remained a forgotten Founder for decades. Theodore Roosevelt summed up the prevailing view when he referred to Paine as a "filthy little atheist."

[Marine General Smedley Butler] says ... we must limit our military forces to defensive purposes only ... [I]t is an idea that guys like George Washington ... embraced, along with about every one of the founders. In fact—if a founding father believed that we should have profit in war, force people to fight those for-profit wars, and expand our military capabilities to offensive and imperialistic, he would have kept those thoughts to himself. These thoughts and ideas brought forth the stench of kings and emperors and royal armies, and were not popular in the America of the 1700s, or the 1800s.

[H]istorian Gordon S. Wood notes that ... the survivors of the founding generation were unhappy with what they saw in America ...

... Indeed, a pervasive pessimism, a fear that their revolutionary experiment in republicanism was not working out as they had expected, runs through the later writings of the founding fathers. All the major revolutionary leaders died less than happy with the results of the Revolution ...

... As a result, "the founding fathers were unsettled and fearful not because the American Revolution had failed but because it had succeeded, and succeeded only too well."

The Founding Fathers (some of them, at least) wanted to safeguard individual freedom. So they made the task of amending the Constitution—that is, of augmenting the power of government—difficult. But Scalia's way of thinking, which first seized politicians and judges long ago, reverses the Founders' basic intention. If government can do anything except that which is expressly prohibited by the Constitution, then the burden of amending the Constitution falls on those who favor preserving freedom instead of those who favor expanding power.

[E]verything we think we know actually originates with some government employee—leaking the "truth" ... This is why the Founding Fathers were determined that the federal government would have nothing to do with such matters as business dealings. They knew that government officials—armed with threats of fines and imprisonment—would inevitably abuse such powers. Thomas Jefferson wanted ... an agrarian society, but he didn't use ... his office to aid farmers at the expense of commercial interests. He knew that politicians must be bound down by "the chains of the Constitution," as he put it.

As the historian Merrill Jensen wrote in The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781-1787,

Since the founding fathers themselves disagreed as to the nature of the history of the period and as to the best kind of government for a new nation, it is possible to find arguments to support almost any interpretation one chooses ... When the Constitution was submitted to the public in October 1787 the controversy rose to new heights ... Some said there would be chaos without the new Constitution; others said that there would be chaos if it were adopted.

And the framers were alive during this debate!

After a decade of fleeing the law ... Paine came back to America in 1802. He returned in the same sorry state as when he first arrived in 1774: ill, impoverished, and friendless, having been already written out of the pantheon of Founders for his association with more radical, less successful European revolutions and for his renunciation of religion in The Age of Reason. In Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, Kaye, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, tries to bring the revolutionary back to his rightful place as one of the Founding Fathers.

Johnson: ... During the 1770s and 1780s, America wasn't yet a democracy. Male suffrage was limited. Still, a lot of males could vote. Equally important, the Founding Fathers were imbued with the democratic spirit. They believed every man had a right to voice his views. Debate took place in public meetings, legislatures and in the growing media ... America was fortunate that there was an outstanding group of people who shaped the debate and the Constitution itself. One would have to go a long way in history to find a group as competent, cosmopolitan, and skillful with the language.