In enshrining values such as the consent of the governed, the American constitution is commonly associated with the Whig political tradition. Despite the fact that the American constitution owes more to the ideas of Whigs than those of royalists, the Constitution’s repeated insurance against treason and its framework for the foundation of a strong federal government indicates its mixed ideological heritage. Moreover, the Constitution’s blend of Whig and royalist ideas, girded by its own historical context, demonstrates that these political philosophies are not diametrically opposed; the Whigs of the 17th and 18th centuries supported the notion of monarchy, albeit a constitutional one. While the Constitution draws much from whiggish thought, evidence of royalist inspiration abounds.
The American constitution’s emphasis on the consent of the governed is drawn from whiggism. The idea that “the People of the United States” are the sole arbiters of government legitimacy recurs. The fact that the Preamble begins with “we the people” outlines from the outset that authority is to be justified popularly. This alone, however, is not sufficient to align the Constitution with Whig thought. It would have been possible for the framers to outline a constitution in which the contemporary American nation vested power in a royal dynasty. However, in establishing a Congress, made up of a House of Representatives and a Senate, with regular elections in Article I, the Constitution of the United States reflects the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty espoused by the Whigs.
Moreover, the successive Amendments to the Constitution mark increasingly stricter observance of the idea of consent of the governed. Over time, Congress has planted itself firmly in the Whig political tradition by constantly re-examining whose consent must be demanded to govern. The ratification of Amendments XV and XIX prohibited the abridgement of voting rights on the grounds of race and sex respectively, expanding the electorate and thus enabling more of the People to choose those who would govern them. The adoption of Amendment XVII changed the nature of the Senate such that it more faithfully embodied the consent of the governed. By requiring that senators be “elected by the people thereof” rather than “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof”, Amendment XVII moulded the American constitution in the tradition of the Whigs.
The pre-eminence given to the consent of the governed led to the establishment of a government acclimatised to change. While royalists pointed to an unchanging God as the king’s elector, the origin of government to whom the framers deferred (the People) existed in changing world and were of changing opinion. Given that the framers appealed to a source of legitimacy with changing opinions, it was vital that the Constitution they created allowed for change, both to the government of the day and to the Constitution itself. Therefore, in a sharp divergence from the royalist tradition, in which God is believed to elect dynasties to rule lands, the Constitution establishes regular elections for both the legislative and executive branches. Similarly, Article V makes provision for changes to the Constitution; the document subjects itself to those who fashioned it.
The powers granted to the House – the embodiment of the governed – resemble those claimed by the English Parliament in the Bill of Rights (1688). For instance, the Constitution specifies that “all Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives”[1], closely mirroring the English Whig parliamentarians’ ban on “levying Money for use of the Crown without Grant of Parliament”[2]. Recognising the significance of the power to raise revenue via taxation, the Framers made sure to make all decisions about taxation as close to popularly derived as possible by vesting the House of Representatives, rather than the Senate, with supremacy in the levying of taxes. The vestment of such powers in the House meant that there would only be one degree of separation – the Representatives – between any existing taxes and the People. By contrast, vesting such power in the Senate, a body whose members were determined by state legislatures, would have meant two degrees of separation – the state legislatures and the Senators – between the People and the taxes demanded from them. In this way, the Constitution owes much to the ideas of the Whigs.
In establishing the world’s first explicitly secular nation, the American constitution draws on the Whigs’ stress on “liberty of conscience”, as coined by Roger Williams. Recognising that rational men have a negative right to believe whatever seems most sensible to them, civil government abstains from actions that show preference to a particular faith. Prior to being certified in Amendment I, state secularism was made explicit in the original constitution. While the monarchs of the Old World justified their governments by invoking the alleged divine right of kings to rule realms, the mere fact that the Preamble invokes “the People” as the source of legitimacy demonstrates that the framers intended to separate God from governance. The co-dependent, twin values of religious freedom and the separation of church and state were subsequently enshrined in Amendment I. While the Constitution was informed by Whig thought, it goes beyond what the Whigs practised. For instance, the English Bill of Rights’ demand for toleration of the Protestant religion was motivated by the religious conflict in 17th century England; its exclusion of followers of “the Popish religion” from holding the crown shows that it is not founded on religious tolerance. By contrast, the absence of reference to any doctrine or denomination indicates that the Constitution’s framers were genuinely committed to respecting man’s liberty of conscience.
However, the framers are less radical than the Whigs in their consideration of the proper methods of replacing governments. Instead of adopting the right of revolution justified by Locke, the Constitution’s insistence on peaceful methods of reform like elections and impeachment trials indicates that the framers considered the preservation of authority to be a virtue in itself, much in the vein of royalists. It is crucial to interpret the framers’ approach to the removal of government officials in the context of the young American nation’s conflict with the British Crown. The enforcement of the unpopular Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Acts (1767) relied on “officers”; officers were “persons holding sovereign authority delegated from the King”. In forming their own government, the framers understood that the President would need to vest sovereign power in similar offices. Diverging from the obeisance to the monarch and his delegates advocated for by royalists, the American Constitution allows for the impeachment of “the President, Vice and President and all Civil Officers of the United States [those appointed by the Executive Branch]” for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Impeachment, though, is not as radical as the approach to the dissolution of governments of Whig thinkers. In Two Treatises of Government, Locke describes there being a “state of War” when authorities contravene the rights of the people to life, liberty and property. Such a state allows the people to employ violence to the point of killing against their government. In establishing processes for comparatively peaceful impeachment by trial in Congress, the Constitution differs from the ideas of the Whigs by depicting unfit authorities in less inimical a light.
The Constitution’s outline of justifications for the removal of authorities owes more to the ideas of royalists than to the ideas of Whigs. Alongside bribery and other serious crimes, the framers ensured that they mentioned “treason” as a distinct justification for impeachment. While the framers define treason as the conduction of war against the United States (Government) rather than in the more familiar English terms of regicide, the use of the term telegraphs that this stipulation was inspired by royalism. The idea that an act against the United States is wrong is assumed wrong by the Constitution a priori, in the same way that a royalist would justify the divine right of kings. Relatedly, the Supreme Court’s 1869 interpretation of Article IV to bar the unilateral secession of states indicates that the Constitution’s stipulation for treason is more concerned with a royalist-esque defence of power than a Whiggish inclination to liberty.
The Constitution’s vestment of power in the executive branch mirrors royalism in its enshrinement of an executive individual but embraces Whig thought in the detail of his authority. Royalist sympathies among the framers produced a powerful executive branch. Alexander Hamilton’s belief in a strong national government, spearheaded by a powerful executive office, was informed by his admiration of the role of the monarch in Britain. In defending his conception of a strong presidential office, Hamilton “borrow[s] from traditional conceptions of kingship”. Federalists No. 69 and No. 70 outline and justify the scope of the new presidential office. Hamilton justifies his belief that a strong executive (and thus proper execution of the law) should be an individual, rather than a council, by appealing to the decisiveness - “energy” - such an officer would bring to the federal government. While Hamilton’s exposition of the differences between the respective powers of the President and the King demonstrates that he did not desire an American monarchy, Federalists No. 69 and 70 indicate that he understood executive government in the historical context of kingship.
The success of the Federalist Papers meant that it eventually informed the decisions made at the Constitutional Convention; Federalist No. 69 beget Article II of the Constitution, taming royalist central authority with the Whiggish proclivity to parliament. The vestment of “executive power” into the presidential office denotes that his office is of the type that had enforced the law in Colonial North America a few years prior. By contrast, the Constitution’s insistence that the President swear an oath to “defend the Constitution of the United States” at his inauguration echoes the words of the Whigs at the English Convention; James, “having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this kingdom [England]” had “abdicated the government”. Whereas the King holds the power to declare war and act as commander-in-chief, the President is just commander-in-chief; Congress holds the sole right to declare war. Whereas both the King and the President hold the right to veto proposed legislation, the President’s veto may be made void by a majority of two-thirds. The presidential office is thus a whiggish invention inspired by royalism, just as the ideas of Whigs acknowledged the historic role of royalism in their desire for a constitutional monarchy.
Just as the English Bill of Rights was the product of the conflict between the combative forces of James II and William III, the American constitution must be interpreted in the context of the American Revolution that preceded it. For this reason, while the American constitution owes more to the ideas of Whigs than the ideas of royalists, it is not a whiggish document. The Constitution was an ideological development of its own. It pronounced the people the ultimate source of government authority, while most of the world held to kings. It promised religious tolerance in the age of state churches. The American framers inherited the loose English liberal tradition, before adapting and enshrining it in what would become the world’s longest-lasting codified charter.
The American constitution’s emphasis on the consent of the governed is drawn from whiggism. The idea that “the People of the United States” are the sole arbiters of government legitimacy recurs. The fact that the Preamble begins with “we the people” outlines from the outset that authority is to be justified popularly. This alone, however, is not sufficient to align the Constitution with Whig thought. It would have been possible for the framers to outline a constitution in which the contemporary American nation vested power in a royal dynasty. However, in establishing a Congress, made up of a House of Representatives and a Senate, with regular elections in Article I, the Constitution of the United States reflects the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty espoused by the Whigs.
Moreover, the successive Amendments to the Constitution mark increasingly stricter observance of the idea of consent of the governed. Over time, Congress has planted itself firmly in the Whig political tradition by constantly re-examining whose consent must be demanded to govern. The ratification of Amendments XV and XIX prohibited the abridgement of voting rights on the grounds of race and sex respectively, expanding the electorate and thus enabling more of the People to choose those who would govern them. The adoption of Amendment XVII changed the nature of the Senate such that it more faithfully embodied the consent of the governed. By requiring that senators be “elected by the people thereof” rather than “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof”, Amendment XVII moulded the American constitution in the tradition of the Whigs.
The pre-eminence given to the consent of the governed led to the establishment of a government acclimatised to change. While royalists pointed to an unchanging God as the king’s elector, the origin of government to whom the framers deferred (the People) existed in changing world and were of changing opinion. Given that the framers appealed to a source of legitimacy with changing opinions, it was vital that the Constitution they created allowed for change, both to the government of the day and to the Constitution itself. Therefore, in a sharp divergence from the royalist tradition, in which God is believed to elect dynasties to rule lands, the Constitution establishes regular elections for both the legislative and executive branches. Similarly, Article V makes provision for changes to the Constitution; the document subjects itself to those who fashioned it.
The powers granted to the House – the embodiment of the governed – resemble those claimed by the English Parliament in the Bill of Rights (1688). For instance, the Constitution specifies that “all Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives”[1], closely mirroring the English Whig parliamentarians’ ban on “levying Money for use of the Crown without Grant of Parliament”[2]. Recognising the significance of the power to raise revenue via taxation, the Framers made sure to make all decisions about taxation as close to popularly derived as possible by vesting the House of Representatives, rather than the Senate, with supremacy in the levying of taxes. The vestment of such powers in the House meant that there would only be one degree of separation – the Representatives – between any existing taxes and the People. By contrast, vesting such power in the Senate, a body whose members were determined by state legislatures, would have meant two degrees of separation – the state legislatures and the Senators – between the People and the taxes demanded from them. In this way, the Constitution owes much to the ideas of the Whigs.
In establishing the world’s first explicitly secular nation, the American constitution draws on the Whigs’ stress on “liberty of conscience”, as coined by Roger Williams. Recognising that rational men have a negative right to believe whatever seems most sensible to them, civil government abstains from actions that show preference to a particular faith. Prior to being certified in Amendment I, state secularism was made explicit in the original constitution. While the monarchs of the Old World justified their governments by invoking the alleged divine right of kings to rule realms, the mere fact that the Preamble invokes “the People” as the source of legitimacy demonstrates that the framers intended to separate God from governance. The co-dependent, twin values of religious freedom and the separation of church and state were subsequently enshrined in Amendment I. While the Constitution was informed by Whig thought, it goes beyond what the Whigs practised. For instance, the English Bill of Rights’ demand for toleration of the Protestant religion was motivated by the religious conflict in 17th century England; its exclusion of followers of “the Popish religion” from holding the crown shows that it is not founded on religious tolerance. By contrast, the absence of reference to any doctrine or denomination indicates that the Constitution’s framers were genuinely committed to respecting man’s liberty of conscience.
However, the framers are less radical than the Whigs in their consideration of the proper methods of replacing governments. Instead of adopting the right of revolution justified by Locke, the Constitution’s insistence on peaceful methods of reform like elections and impeachment trials indicates that the framers considered the preservation of authority to be a virtue in itself, much in the vein of royalists. It is crucial to interpret the framers’ approach to the removal of government officials in the context of the young American nation’s conflict with the British Crown. The enforcement of the unpopular Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Acts (1767) relied on “officers”; officers were “persons holding sovereign authority delegated from the King”. In forming their own government, the framers understood that the President would need to vest sovereign power in similar offices. Diverging from the obeisance to the monarch and his delegates advocated for by royalists, the American Constitution allows for the impeachment of “the President, Vice and President and all Civil Officers of the United States [those appointed by the Executive Branch]” for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Impeachment, though, is not as radical as the approach to the dissolution of governments of Whig thinkers. In Two Treatises of Government, Locke describes there being a “state of War” when authorities contravene the rights of the people to life, liberty and property. Such a state allows the people to employ violence to the point of killing against their government. In establishing processes for comparatively peaceful impeachment by trial in Congress, the Constitution differs from the ideas of the Whigs by depicting unfit authorities in less inimical a light.
The Constitution’s outline of justifications for the removal of authorities owes more to the ideas of royalists than to the ideas of Whigs. Alongside bribery and other serious crimes, the framers ensured that they mentioned “treason” as a distinct justification for impeachment. While the framers define treason as the conduction of war against the United States (Government) rather than in the more familiar English terms of regicide, the use of the term telegraphs that this stipulation was inspired by royalism. The idea that an act against the United States is wrong is assumed wrong by the Constitution a priori, in the same way that a royalist would justify the divine right of kings. Relatedly, the Supreme Court’s 1869 interpretation of Article IV to bar the unilateral secession of states indicates that the Constitution’s stipulation for treason is more concerned with a royalist-esque defence of power than a Whiggish inclination to liberty.
The Constitution’s vestment of power in the executive branch mirrors royalism in its enshrinement of an executive individual but embraces Whig thought in the detail of his authority. Royalist sympathies among the framers produced a powerful executive branch. Alexander Hamilton’s belief in a strong national government, spearheaded by a powerful executive office, was informed by his admiration of the role of the monarch in Britain. In defending his conception of a strong presidential office, Hamilton “borrow[s] from traditional conceptions of kingship”. Federalists No. 69 and No. 70 outline and justify the scope of the new presidential office. Hamilton justifies his belief that a strong executive (and thus proper execution of the law) should be an individual, rather than a council, by appealing to the decisiveness - “energy” - such an officer would bring to the federal government. While Hamilton’s exposition of the differences between the respective powers of the President and the King demonstrates that he did not desire an American monarchy, Federalists No. 69 and 70 indicate that he understood executive government in the historical context of kingship.
The success of the Federalist Papers meant that it eventually informed the decisions made at the Constitutional Convention; Federalist No. 69 beget Article II of the Constitution, taming royalist central authority with the Whiggish proclivity to parliament. The vestment of “executive power” into the presidential office denotes that his office is of the type that had enforced the law in Colonial North America a few years prior. By contrast, the Constitution’s insistence that the President swear an oath to “defend the Constitution of the United States” at his inauguration echoes the words of the Whigs at the English Convention; James, “having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this kingdom [England]” had “abdicated the government”. Whereas the King holds the power to declare war and act as commander-in-chief, the President is just commander-in-chief; Congress holds the sole right to declare war. Whereas both the King and the President hold the right to veto proposed legislation, the President’s veto may be made void by a majority of two-thirds. The presidential office is thus a whiggish invention inspired by royalism, just as the ideas of Whigs acknowledged the historic role of royalism in their desire for a constitutional monarchy.
Just as the English Bill of Rights was the product of the conflict between the combative forces of James II and William III, the American constitution must be interpreted in the context of the American Revolution that preceded it. For this reason, while the American constitution owes more to the ideas of Whigs than the ideas of royalists, it is not a whiggish document. The Constitution was an ideological development of its own. It pronounced the people the ultimate source of government authority, while most of the world held to kings. It promised religious tolerance in the age of state churches. The American framers inherited the loose English liberal tradition, before adapting and enshrining it in what would become the world’s longest-lasting codified charter.
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