Agrarian Doubts: The Southern Agrarians of the 1920s

This segment of Agrarian Doubts is the culmination of our historical trip through the American South that forged a mix of cultural and political concerns into Southern Conservatism.   While it is my intention to shift our focus back to Great Britain’s agrarian tradition in the future, we may yet again poke our heads into this region of the world.

Many would assume that given the trajectory of this series, the Civil War would have been the next topic to be covered.   However, for our purposes it is what happened after the Civil War that matters more.   Or rather, how the Civil War was remembered and memorialized by those who lost the struggle.

It may come as a surprise to some readers but during the 1920s when America was in the midst of unbridled economic prosperity – Southern Agrarianism found a voice once again.   Or rather it found 12 voices.   These men were not planters or farmers or soldiers.  They were in fact a collection of novelists, writers, and poets based out of Vanderbilt University, who joined together to create a manifesto entitled I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition.

The primary concern of these writers was the growing industrialization of the South during the 1920s-30s.  In their view, modern industrial capitalism was a dehumanizing force.   This line of argument may have some resonance for the followers of Karl Marx, which is ironic given that the Southern Agrarians in a sense condemned both Communism and Capitalism as being Anti-Conservative.   To quote a passage from the Introduction of I’ll Take My Stand:

We look upon the Communist menace as a menace indeed, but not as a Red one; because it is simply according to the blind drift of our industrial development to expect in America at last much the same economic system as that imposed upon Russia in 1917.

In place of the option of choosing either materialistic system, these intellectuals offered up the Antebellum agricultural model as the panacea and future of the South.

Their critics found that the Southern Agrarians understanding of their heritage was a bit too…..sentimental.

Take the issue of farming for instance.   The essayist Andrew Lytle had written that “The farm is not a place to grow wealthy; it is a place to grow corn.”     While these sentiments may be shared by our modern day Green and Organic food movements, economists and historians will be quick to point out that agriculture tends to bend away from subsistence farming toward cash crops.   After all, we cannot forget that cotton was king in the Pre-Civil War South.   The labor intensive nature of Cotton farming necessitated the use of slaves.   The sale of cotton to Great Britain was also an important source of revenue for the aristocratic south.

Another Southern Agrarian and well-noted 20th century modernist writer Allen Tate attempted to live out the principles he advocated for.   It is however, much easier to write about the joys of farming than to actually perform its duties.   From what I gather, Mr. Tate had to hire a family to do the farm work.   And it is no small point of irony, that Mr. Tate could only acquire his farm with the help of his brother…. who happened to be a successful banker.

It could be argued that the Southern Agrarians were constructing their worldviews from within the set of beliefs dubbed by social scientists and historians as the Lost Cause of the South.     I believe this quotation from Wikipedia best summarizes this phenomenon:

The Legend of the Lost Cause began as mostly a literary expression of the despair of a bitter, defeated people over a lost identity. It was a landscape dotted with figures drawn mainly out of the past: the chivalric planter; the magnolia-scented Southern belle; the good, gray Confederate veteran, once a knight of the field and saddle; and obliging old Uncle Remus. All these, while quickly enveloped in a golden haze, became very real to the people of the South, who found the symbols useful in the reconstituting of their shattered civilization. They perpetuated the ideals of the Old South and brought a sense of comfort to the New.

-Yale Professor Roland Osterweis

This mytho-narrative arc perpetuated a few inaccuracies – the race relations between the African Americans and Caucasians in the Old South being a primary issue.

Several historians and writers have explored the idea of the Lost Cause of the South and came upon a fascinating conclusion – that this was all about national reconciliation.

The historian David Blight for instance noted a particularly intriguing trope in postwar fiction.   A young, materialistic, and utterly rich Yankee man marries impoverished but spiritual Southern bride.   He represents the power of industrialization and its brutality when unchained.  She represents the chivalry and honor of a time long gone.   Perhaps her social graces will be a civilizing influence on the young man.

Perceptive readers may notice similar themes brought up in a previous blog post, Agrarian Doubts: Sir Walter Scott and Trans-Atlantic Conservative Romanticism.

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The legacy of the Southern Agrarians is rather mixed.   Their “leader,” the scholar-poet John Crowe Ransom, grew disenchanted with the movement and publicly repudiated it in 1945.

I find an irony at my expense in remarking that the judgment just delivered by the Declaration of Potsdam against the German people is that they shall return to an agrarian economy. Once I should have thought there could have been no greater happiness for a people, but now I have no difficulty in seeing it for what it is meant to be: a heavy punishment. Technically it might be said to be an inhuman punishment, in the case where the people in the natural course of things have left the garden far behind.

The question, then, is this: of what value could the Nashville group’s thesis be to a people who had “left the garden far behind”? Would their argument serve no better purpose than to offer up ironies concerning a road not taken? Once the garden has been left behind, does the idealistic contemplation of it, even in art, become much more than a symptom of a neurotic urge to escape what lies ahead of the garden?

One of his colleagues Robert Penn Warren, the first poet laureate of the United States, eventually joined the civil rights movement and supported a variety of progressive causes -because- of his belief in agrarianism.

And for a certain few, the enthusiasm for the agrarian way of life has never died. Stark Young‘s cousin, Stephen Clay McGehee, actually runs a website called The Southern Agrarian – http://www.southernagrarian.com/.   It is as one may expect – a website that touches on the practicalities of farming, southern culture, honoring the heroes and legacy of the Civil War, and religion.

 

 

Agrarian Doubts: Nullification Crisis and Sovereignty

In previous posts in the Agrarian Doubts series, we’ve noted the key platforms of the Jeffersonian Democrats understanding of the ideal American Republic.   To list a few ideas:

1.  The Yeoman Farmer as an Exemplar of Virtue.
2. A Suspicion of Expertise and Specialization.
3. A dislike of concentrations of wealth and people, ie: Cities.
4. Industrialization and Banking are disruptive societal forces.
5. An Expansionistic Policy toward the West.
6. A favoritism of Direct Democracy for all civic positions, including judges.

The populist flavor of these ideas cannot be overlooked.  And as populist issues they have been featured as critical pieces of modern ideologies found on the Left and the Right in the 20th century.   After all, the Maoist version of Communism would be just as  accepting of many of the propositions stated above.

With the exception of the 6th point, many of these ideas were championed by the old Southern Aristocracy as part of a common agricultural world view.  The internal logic that supports these issues was a respect for local tradition and social hierarchy colored by a romantic outlook on the agrarian way of life.

The political manifestation of these concerns and sentiments became a preoccupation with the notion of States Rights versus the Federalist (and later on the American Whig) Party’s attempts to create a much stronger central government that favored industrial economic interests.

This is a tension that existed right at the founding of the United States of America.   Those in support of individual states retaining their sovereignty challenged policies by the central government at every turn.   We saw this in Jefferson and Madison’s support of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 as a counter to the Federal government’s attempt to limit free speech and the immigration of European radicals via the Alien and Sedition Acts.    What the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions essentially stated was that the individual states had the right to nullify legislation within their own boundaries when the Federal government passes a law that exceeds its stated powers.

We see this debate occurring again over the Missouri Compromise of 1820.   The Compromise dictated that new additions to the Union must be made in twos – 1 slave state and 1 free labor state in order to maintain the balance of power in Congress.  John Taylor of Caroline wrote one of his infamous passionate pamphlets against this compromise, on the basis that the Federal government was essentially deciding on the particular labor laws of the state – a power that should only be reserved for the state governments alone.

And even when the Jeffersonian Democrats were initiating the purchase of the Louisiana Territories from Napoleonic France, Southern politicians like John Randolph of Roanoke would come to regret the actions of the party as it wasn’t clear if the President of the United States had the authority to make that purchase.  This would lead to opposition against the acquisition of Florida from the Spanish crown a few years later.

The question over the nature of sovereignty and which political body had the right to arbitrate when a law exceeded the powers of a government almost came to a head during the Nullification Crisis of 1832.    Prior to 1832, a number of tariffs were instituted to prevent European and British manufactured goods from driving Northern Industrialists out of business.  The effect of the tariffs on the South, especially the Tariff of Abominations of 1828, would result in Southerners paying higher prices for manufactured goods and having their source of income via the cotton trade with Great Britain reduced.

South Carolina would not stand for this.   The state government would go on to challenge Andrew Jackson’s administration on the matter by invoking the sovereignty of the states argument.   South Carolina would go on to outlaw the tariff and build an army to defend itself.    Jackson would not take this laying down however, and pushed the Force Bill through Congress which allowed the Federal government to retaliate against a nullifying state like South Carolina.  It took all the skill of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay to broker a compromise that did not end in bloodshed.

 

Incidentally, Andrew Jackson’s own Vice-President John C. Calhoun was a secret supporter of the Carolina cause and would go on to be a strong proponent for the nullification theory.

Calhoun elaborated his views on government in a treatise known as The Disquisition on Government.  In this work, Calhoun makes a critical distinction in how voting majorities exist.

A numerical majority is merely the will of the more numerous amount of citizens imposing their views on the minority group.  As such, an absolute majority will always prevail over minority interests.  It is interesting to note that Calhoun’s conception matches the Tyranny of the Majority concept that classical liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill would warn against many years later.

A concurrent majority would require a compromise between the interests of the majority and minority groups.   It would be in effect, a unanimous decision of all major interests within a community.

It should be noted that Calhoun’s idea of a minority does not correlate well with our modern conception of the word.   What he was concerned about were in essence vested interests and privileges held by a propertied minority.

Calhoun also had a negative view on one of the founding principles delineated by the Declaration of Independence.  In his mind, man was not born free and equal.   Liberties enjoyed by the people were not a natural right, but rather granted by participation within a well-governed society.     He was in effect rejecting the contract theory of government (Federal Power) in favor of the compact theory (State Sovereignty).

Agrarian Doubts: Sir Walter Scott and Trans-Atlantic Conservative Romanticism

Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we never should have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of a plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wild proposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; so did the Southerner of the Civil War: but the former resembles the latter as an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can be traced rather more easily to Sir Walter’s influence than to that of any other thing or person.

-Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

When i first ran across this passage many years ago, I found myself rather perplexed.   How did the venerable literary figure Mark Twain end up indicting a Scottish Tory novelist an ocean away for the Civil War?

It was only upon reviewing the career of Sir Walter Scott did I realize my error.   Much of Scott’s literary backdrops are undoubtedly romantic, featuring young heroes saving damsels in distress and fighting for country/clan, honor, and duty.

One striking example was Scott’s first novel, Waverley, about the fortunes of the young aristocratic soldier, Edward Waverley as he leaves his ancestral home for a commission in the Hanoverian army in Dundee, Scotland.  It is the time period right before the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, when the Scottish Clans of the Highlands honor their ancient oaths to Bonnie Prince Charles Stuart and attempt to unseat the Hanoverian dynasty.

Through a series of mishaps, Waverley is accused of desertion and treason.  He is rescued by the Clan Mac-Ivor due to his friendship with the Jacobite Baron Bradwardine.   It is here that Waverley falls for the sister of Clan Mac-Ivor’s leader, the seductive and passionate Flora Mac-Ivor who urges him to throw in his lot with the Jacobite Uprising.

Without going further into the details of the plot, one can see the romantic tensions building.   Will Waverley be loyal to the Hanoverian Crown or will he attempt to restore the Stuart monarchy?   Will he follow Flora Mac-Ivor into rebellion or chose the love of the much calmer and sensible Rose Bradwardine?   And will we ever get to see a good old Highland Charge against a modernized army?

Although critics in later years tended to be harsh about romantic writers like Walter Scott, we would do well to realize that during his time period – his works were consumed with abandon.  Even great authors who have withstood the test of time found themselves as fans – such as in the case of Ms. Jane Austen

“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. – It is not fair. He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths.– I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it – but fear I must”

Scott’s historical romantic fiction did not just draw only from his Scottish heritage which inspired other works like Redgauntlet and Rob Roy.   He also made use of Britain’s shared medieval past as in the case of Ivanhoe.  Here Scott mixes the legends of Robin Hood together with a tale of dispossessed Saxon noble Wilfred of Ivanhoe, whose allegiance to the Norman king Richard the Lionheart is a source of tension.    Cue – Knights, Jousts, Robin Hood’s Merry Men, an eligible Saxon aristocratic beauty, an exotic Jewess healer, and of course these things aren’t complete without a Black Knight and a trial by combat.

Now I know what many of you are thinking – What does this have to do with Mark Twain’s quote written above?

Well, it comes down to a perennial theme running through many of Sir Walter Scott’s literary works: Heroic Ideals vs. Modern (Mechanized?) Society.   The Weaker Side of this conflict, whether we are speaking of Scotts or Saxons, are poor and disenfranchised.  But they possess many virtues such as Patriotism, deeply personal loyalties to their king and kin, veneration of hierarchy and social institutions, courage and chivalry.

The Weaker side’s cause is generally a Lost Cause, but that doesn’t prevent them from making some sort of positive gain which creates a kind of rapprochement with the Stronger and More Modern opposition.  Perhaps they learn to be a little less Materialistic…

To the English Aristocracy of the 19th century, Scott’s romanticism is a celebration and remembrance of that old “economy of personal loyalty” which was being swept away not by radical French philosophes intent on shaking the world order – but by capitalism and industrialization.

Scott’s works were also quite popular in the Antebellum Old South.  Just step back for a second and think on this point – young men were trained at birth to think of themselves akin to the Royalists Cavaliers who fought for the King during the English Civil War.  They were laying claim to the same heritage as the English aristocracy to construct a kind of “world that never was.”     Or as Mark Twain further remarked:

But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the Southerner–or Southron, according to Sir Walter’s starchier way of phrasing it– would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval mixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than it is. It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he, also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid on slavery, without fathering upon it these creations and contributions of Sir Walter.

 

 

Agrarian Doubts: States Rights and the Old South

In my last post, I had mentioned the career of the chief systematizer of Jeffersonian Democracy, John Taylor of Caroline.   I had briefly summarized his commitment to the idea of the United States as an agrarian farmer’s republic and how this blended well with his positive stance on states rights.

Southern support of States Rights and a strict interpretation of the Constitution is rooted in a conviction that to protect the Southern way of life, limitations must be placed on the Federal government.   In their eyes an “artificial capitalist sect,” following Alexander Hamilton’s financial modernization plan, had set their sights on disturbing the delicate balance between state and federal governments in order to favor their own economic interests.

Joining John Taylor in his struggle was the celebrated Virginian congressman and orator, John Randolph of Roanoke.

To call John Randolph eccentric would be a massive understatement.   John strongly identified himself as an “old school” Southern plantation aristocrat.  He often rode around the Virginian countryside in a venerable English stagecoach drawn by six horses.   And like every Southern gentleman, John Randolph was quick to defend his honor in duels when he felt his dignity had been violated.  He actually undertook a duel against the venerable Kentucky statesman Henry Clay – thankfully both survived the ordeal.   John also assaulted another congressman, Willis Alston, in what is described by historians as a pitched battle of thrown tableware and bloody canes.

John Randolph’s aristocratic behavior also extended into his politics which can be summarized as – “I am an Aristocrat.   I love Liberty.  I hate Equality.”  By the word Equality, Randolph is showing a disdain for democracy.   One of his speeches further elaborated as to the reason why:

That all men are born free and equal, I can never assent to, for the best of all reasons, for it is not true.   If there is an animal on earth to which equality does not apply-that is not born free-it is man; he is born in a state of the most abject want and a state of perfect helplessness and ignorance.

Or to put it plainly – the conditions of each man is unequal and government should be left in the hands of better men.   In his view, the traditional patriarchal society of Virginia led by its elites was conducive to holding society together and creating stability.  The major threat to this stability was, in his view, the Federal Government and those who sought to expand its powers.

It is for this reason that John Randolph became a supporter of another long standing American opinion invoked by figures such as Calvin Coolidge – the Government that does nothing is the best kind of government that can exist.  However, like John Taylor, he acknowledged that there were forces that promoted an activist government for both financial and ideological gain.

This led John Randolph to form a faction within Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party, known as the Old Republicans, who sought to stick to the “Principles of ’98.”   These principles refer to the Kentucky and Virginian Resolutions of 1798, written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in protests against the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Without going into too much detail about the specifics of the situation, this “stand-off” articulated two viewpoints:

1. Alexander Hamilton/The Federalists = Judicial Review by the Supreme Court determines whether the actions of Congress can be deemed Unconstitutional.
2. Jefferson + Madison/The Democratic-Republicans = Individual States can determines the constitutionality of the actions of the central government and can refuse to enforce laws (ie: nullification).

When asked to summarize the principles of Old Republicans faction, Randolph had this to say:

“love of peace, hatred of offensive war, jealousy of the state governments toward the general government; a dread of standing armies; a loathing of public debts, taxes, and excises; tenderness for the liberty of the citizen; jealousy, Argus-eyed jealousy of the patronage of the President.”

Randolph’s support of aristocratic culture and old-style republicanism led him into rather interesting political decisions:

1.  Although against Slavery, Randolph deemed it a necessity for the survival of Virginia.    The ironic thing about this, was that John Randolph was a founder of the American Colonization Society, which transported freed slaves back to Africa to form the nation we now know as Liberia.   He even freed his own slaves at the time of his death.
2. Although incredibly popular with the common voter due to his oratorical skills, he opposed the abolition of primogeniture and entail in support of the Virginian aristocracy.    Or to put it in his own words: “The old families of Virginia will form connections with low people, and sink into the mass of overseers’ sons and daughters”
3. Finally, even though he was an ardent supporter of President Jefferson’s deal to buy the Louisiana Territories from the French, he came to the conclusion that he had violated his own principles.   It was unclear if President Jefferson had the power under the Constitution to make that purchase.     Randolph also feared that an expanding nation would be unable to sustain a common loyalty and interest.

 

 

 

 

Agrarian Doubts: Industry vs. The Yeoman Farmer

Before I get started on this bit of the “Agrarian Doubts” series, I wanted to remind my gentle readers of a pointed fact:  Not until the 1950s with the advent of William F. Buckley’s National Review, could it ever be said that there was such a thing as a “Conservative movement” within the United States.   This is unlike the case in Great Britain, where the Tory party has more or less since its inception represented Anglo-American conservative values.

This will sound strange to modern ears, since in our current environment to be a Republican is to be some type of Conservative and to be a Democrat is to be some type of liberal.     However, this wasn’t always the case.   You had liberal and conservative philosophies, sometimes with a distinct regional character, mixed into the agenda of political parties that were divided on other issues.

Such is the situation with Jeffersonian Democracy in the American South.  On the one hand, Thomas Jefferson is often claimed by modern day Democrats as one of their own given the lineage of the party.   This may also have to do with the fact that Jefferson’s personal beliefs on religion, science, and political freedom is compatible with modern liberal politics in a way that say… Andrew Jackson’s views are not.

One of the issues that can be considered a strain of Southern Conservatism supported by Jefferson’s party would be the concern for the yeoman farmer.    Jefferson’s political inheritors in the South often chaffed at the Federalists party’s attempt to give power to a centralized government and to diversify the economy in aid to Northern industrialists.

Like their landed gentry cousins in Great Britain, the Southern plantation owner viewed himself as an aristocrat and brooked no interference in his traditional way of life.   In their mindset, the United States was first and foremost a farmer’s republic.   Following Jefferson’s own views, many southerners believed that farmers were intrinsically more virtuous than city dwellers.

This a rather ancient opinion, older than the United States, older than Great Britain.   It is an opinion that is even older than Christianity in the West.   One need only look back at the historical experiences of both the Roman Republic and Athenian Democracy to see its roots.     Up until the modern era, there has always been a kind of social distrust of merchants who didn’t make a living working off the land.

This opinion isn’t even limited to Western culture, as China, Japan, and Korea traditionally placed merchants at the bottom of the Confucian social hierarchy.

And where do merchants congregate?   Where does the use of money to make even more money occur?

It happens in Cities where the excess of wealth gives rise to other jobs that are also not connected to the land.   This concentration of people also comes with an increase of crime and vice in the locality.

Such was the opinion of many southerners, especially intellectuals like John Taylor of Caroline, Virginia.   Taylor wrote a kind of encomium to the wonders of rural life in his rather dense work known as the Arator.  The Arator is a collection of philosophical, practical, and political essays on the nature of agriculture.   In one line on the act of farming, Taylor waxes poetic saying that in farming:

the practice of every moral virtue is amply remunerated in this world, whilst it is also the best surety for attaining blessings of the next.

Or to put it plainly – Farming makes life better and it will secure your afterlife as well.

Predictably, Taylor contrasted the bucolic nature of rural life against the forces of industrialization –  “the stock jobbers, the banks, the paper money party, the tariff-supported manufacturers.”   These corrupt industrialists would be the undoing of the virtue necessary to maintain the landowner society that is the republic.  Invoking an ancient theme as old as Rome itself, without civic virtue there would be no way for a republic to safeguard its political independence and freedom.

John Taylor’s adversary in the Federalist camp was the renowned Alexander Hamilton.    Hamilton’s goal was to essentially turn the United States into an industrial and commercial power to rival any European nation.     To accomplish task, Hamilton would pursue every avenue possible by advocating for a strong central government, creating reliable financial institutions such as the Bank of the United States, and even advocating for industrial espionage against Great Britain.

If Alexander Hamilton wanted to push America into an industrial future, Taylor would seek the opposite.  He made a very familiar argument:  if people gather more into cities, they will be susceptible to luxury and vice.  This will cause the erosion of virtue and manly independence and bring about a decline of the Republic.  

As such, Taylor became an implacable opponent of infrastructure projects such as the building of canals and roads which would contribute toward the industrialization of the nation.   He also was a strong supporter of the States Rights movement, seeking to curtail the power of a seemingly dictatorial central government in order to protect the Southern farmer’s way of life from capitalist tyranny.

 

Agrarian Doubts: Industralization and Capitalism in Britain

One scholar of English history once wrote that the birth of conservative philosophy was an attempt to answer a very important question brought on by the Industrial Revolution:

How do we deal with politics in countries full of large cities, where concentrated working populations live, and that gradually become educated…and eventually dissatisfied?

Britain first addressed this prior to the Americans during the tenure of William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister of England.   There was an issue of rural depopulation, of the type one is prone to see in developing countries in the modern era, as people seeking a better livelihood flocked to what would become the industrial centers of Great Britain.

However, many of these new industrial towns lacked adequate representation in Parliament.  Furthermore, the phenomenon of the rotten borough came into existence as nearly depopulated regions of the country still could elect several members to Parliament.  Many of these industrial centers, aside from not being represented in government, were also deemed to be politically unstable due to the socioeconomic factors of the environment

We do not need to stretch our imaginations too far to think about what working conditions in these localities must have been like.  We could also understand why artisans and workers living in such conditions would be more susceptible to the suggestion of radical political reform.   It then becomes understandable that the governing classes could legitimately fear for their lives when Britain and Revolutionary France went to war in 1793…as Paris’ revolutionary government encouraged the lower classes to cast off the chains of the old society.

Coupled with this issue about population migration was the rise of a new class of people within society – the industrialists.   Here the problem can be stated as:

How do we treat capitalists, who are often very dissatisfied with the distribution of power amongst the landed elite?

Such a complaint may sound incredibly strange to modern ears.  After all, we tend to associate the business community with the power holders in any political system.   Up until the rise of financial services  sector and the dot.com boom, it was also a bit of stereotype to consider industrialists as part of the conservative movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

As will be demonstrated in the following posts – this wasn’t always the case.   The Industrialists as a class of people were originally quite disruptive to both the guardians of traditional values and those who wished to bring about a more radical and utopian reform.   Both the Left and the Right would eventually have to make their peace with Capitalism, although partisans would remain every wary about their excesses.

Looking at the landed elite of Britain during the 1700s, the challenges presented by the rising industrial class was more than just an influx of wealth from sources they did not control.    The industrialists also tended to be nonconformists, or Protestants not part of the Church of England like the gentry.  One individual who might stick out in a reader’s mind would be James Watt, a Presbyterian who invented the Steam Engine and whose last name is used to describe rate of energy conversion in joules per second, ie: Watts of a light bulb.   A more obscure reference would be Charles Darwins’ grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood – mostly remembered today for his company that produces fine china and porcelain.

Many of these nonconformist industrialists held great affection for the events of the American and French Revolutions, seeing them as ways to redress the power imbalances between the landed elite and themselves.

In doing so they would start a current of thought, articulated by thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, which would place their interests as capitalists at the heart of the modern world.

This trend, although eventually accepted by both mainstream conservatives and liberals, would face stiff resistance from other voices on the Left and the Right.

In the case of conservatives who honored the traditions and customs of the old “economy of personal loyalties,” it would be the agrarian voices that screamed the loudest when confronting the issue of capitalism.

 

 

American Revolutionaries Look to Classical Heroes

In my last posted I had noted the fact that, far from being a rampaging, unruly, and unthinking mob – the American Revolutionaries had casted their revolt against the British Crown in terms of an Anglo-Saxon tradition of Freedom and limited government.   In their eyes, itwas the Hanoverian King George III and his Tory allies that were innovators and violators of this patrimony handed down to them from their ancestors.

Many of the leaders of the Revolution looked back at classical models dating to ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration in their struggle.   One particular figure of note would be Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, known in later history as Cato the Younger.

Cato was a Roman statesman, orator, and Stoic philosopher noted for his moral integrity and stubbornness. He was a champion for republican ideals during a time when the Roman Republic was riven by corruption and ambition.   Because of his stances, Cato came into conflict with Julius Caesar…….and lost.

Refusing to submit to the growing despotism in Rome, Cato committed suicide with a sword after reading a copy of Plato’s Phaedo, the dialogue on the soul.

The English playwright Joseph Addison commemorated Cato’s struggle to defend the Roman Republic in his play, Cato, a Tragedy.   The play was actually a subtle criticism of the growing power of the British monarchy against the liberties and freedoms enshrined in tradition.   For understandable reasons, the play was quite popular in Ireland and the American Colonies.  George Washington even had a production of the play put on for the Continental Army during their time in Valley Forge.

Washington himself modeled his own political/military career of yet another classical hero, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.

Cincinnatus was a Roman patrician of the Early Republic who worked on his own farm until an invasion by the Aequians, Sabines, and Volscians into Roman lands. Cincinnatus was made Dictator of Rome, given absolute power to rectify this dire situation.

15 days later after beating Rome’s enemies on the battlefield, Cincinnatus resigned his position and returned back to his farm.  The relinquishing of power was considered a great act of a virtuous citizen, for a military general could easily turn himself into a tyrant.  Washington took inspiration from Cincinnatus’ example, surrendering power over the Continental Army at the end of the War of Independence and doing so again at the end of his Presidency.

By relinquishing power in this manner, Washington would guarantee a tradition of a smooth transition of power.   Every few years, Presidents would come and go – and this is the way things would be.

 

 

 

 

 

How “Revolutionary” was the American Revolution?

 

In my last post, I noted that the conservative political thinker Edmund Burke wrote a rather scathing appraisal of the French Revolution.   This came as a bit of a shock to both the French philosophes and Burke’s own allies in the Whig Party who favored the revolution.   After all, given that he defended the American Revolution, wasn’t he in fact betraying his own beliefs when stating phrases like:

 The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations which may be soon turned into complaints.

However, in point of fact Edmund Burke never “defended the American Revolution.”  What he did do was argue the Legitimacy of their grievances – that the American colonists were standing up for their rights as Englishmen.   He counseled his fellows in Parliament to:

Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government – they will cling and grapple with you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.   But let it be once understood that your government may be one thing and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation, the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution.

And here we see a demonstration of his conservative philosophy – the respect for traditions and conventions coupled with a pragmatic sense of politics.

Burke’s speeches in Parliament were printed and received with much acclaim in the American Colonies precisely because many felt they were still in fact Englishmen fighting against a tyrannical king.

And that leads to the bigger question – just how “revolutionary” was the American War of Independence?

Compare the American experience with the Russian and French Revolutions.  There are in fact significant differences.  The French and Russian Revolutions aimed at a transformation that would re-order the foundations of society in a manner that had never been tried before.   In a sense, both French philosophes and Marxist ideologues truly believed that with enough effort and resources they could rewrite human nature.   In one fell swoop, they intended to usher in a new golden age while banishing superstition and regressive causes to the dust bin of history.

The American Revolutionaries however, decided to wage war against Great Britain for the high minded cause of……taxation.

To put this into context we must remember that England had recently fought the French and Indian War on behalf of their American colonies.   Although they had achieved victory, we should note the old adage that victory can be quite expensive.   It seemed reasonable to the government of Great Britain that the Americans should pay their fair share of the war costs.

The Colonists had a different perspective.   From the outset, the American Revolutionaries strongly identified their positions with the Whig party against the monarchy and Tories.   Part of this strong animus came from the fact that the important officials of the colonies – governors, judges, and custom house officials owed their livelihood and thus their loyalty directly to the Crown.

The Stamp Act only made matters worse.   Now the colonists were essentially being told that they could not participate in the process of assigning taxes that they would eventually have to pay for.   Hence the cry of “no taxation without representation.”   Many thought that their rights as Britons were being violated.

We should stop on that point and think about that for a second…… their rights as Britons were being violated.

This would be a good time to recall the character of the men who led the War of Independence.   They were lawyers, merchants, planters, and officers in the colonial army.   They comprised the elite society of the colonies and were educated in a manner similar to their counterparts in England.

As such, they were raised in a belief that a golden age of freedom had existed prior to the Norman Conquest of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066.   They clung to the idea, like all educated Britons of their time, that this freedom was fully restored by the Glorious Revolution of 1688.   A person can even make the argument that the American revolutionaries believed themselves to be defending a fundamental tradition of freedom from an innovating monarch whose actions looked like the first steps toward autocratic tyranny.

It is no surprise than that a Founding Father like Patrick Henry could invoke the phrase, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death,” for he would be making that appeal within the context of the British traditions of limited government and personal freedom – the fruits of the Glorious Revolution.

And so the American Revolution, although containing radical elements, was by most standards a rather orderly and procedural affair led by a political elite that wanted to reassert their lost rights.

It was only after the decision had been made to create a Declaration of Independence that one could say a new course was being charted….and even then…the inclination of the Founding Fathers was to look back in the past toward Classical sources that spoke of the successes of the Roman Republic.

Edmund Burke: Anti-Imperialist Founder of Modern Conservatism

studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, oil on canvas, (1767-1769)

Who was Edmund Burke?

An Irishman who as a member of Parliament argued eloquently in favor of the grievances of the American Colonies against the British Crown.   He made his case based on the fact that the Americans were fighting for their rights as Englishmen against the Crown which had violated custom and tradition for the sake of taxation.  Burke was also part of the effort to reconcile Great Britain with the United States after the War of Independence had ended.

A skilled Orator who impeached the Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings, for unscrupulous, arbitrary, and tyrannical conduct against the Indian people.   While Burke acknowledged the necessities of commerce by the East Indian Company, he pointed out that Hastings and others had essentially extorted or plundered their way to vast wealth – conduct that put them beyond the pale of what was deemed moral.

A lawyer who favored a policy of tolerance to Roman Catholics in English political life.   He sought to enfranchise the Irish people, allowing Catholics to stand for election in Parliament.

And finally an excellent political essayist, who foresaw the bloodshed that would be caused by the French Revolution.   At first he was accused of being an alarmist, as those sympathetic to the wave of revolution in America and France thought this would lead to a new era of reason and rational government.     However, with the death of the Bourbon monarch Louis XVI and the beginning of the Terror, Burke’s views would come to be vindicated.

As a proponent of moderate political reform and champion of the underdog, most today may find it confusing that Edmund Burke also has the distinction of being the Originator of Modern Conservatism.

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At first glance, it is a difficult thing for a reader to evaluate the political thought of Edmund Burke.  He was no academic, but rather a man in the midst of the action – writing speeches, pamphlets, and essays as an active member of the political class.     He wasn’t theorist, he was a do-er.

Burke also had a powerful allergy against philosophical abstraction.   This forms the basis of his critique around the ideas that motivated the French Revolution.  His key work remains the Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), here he takes aim against a certain conception of natural rights.

For Burke, an appeal to natural rights would lead to “the commonwealth itself in a few generations, crumble away…into the dust and powder of individuality.”   This may sound incredibly strange to modern ears, but it depends on how a person understands “natural rights.”

1. John Locke:  Natural Rights derive from the State of Nature.  They are preserved by and form the basis of the powers of the government.  In fact, government can be called to account for infringement upon these rights.
2. Thomas Hobbes:  Natural Rights  are whatever promotes survival.  They must be surrendered to the State which rescues people from a life that is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Therefore, appealing to natural rights is destructive of State power and returns us back to that Dog-Eat-Dog existence.

 

Burke is reacting to the Hobbesian definition.   In his view, the viability of government rests on customs, conventions and traditions which form the habits and expectations of the populace.   These “prejudices” (or rather pre-judgments) form the real basis for the rights of man and are particular to the countries of origin.

Often these conventions are not capable of rational demonstration.   They may even rest on historical fictions.  But that doesn’t really matter to Burke, because as long as they are believed they work to hold society together.  

Here we see that pragmatic sense of the art of politics, rather than an abstract understanding of how the state should operate.   It is for this reason that Burke has a sincere attachment to the British Constitution and other bodies of traditional law in other countries.

Ultimately, all law is a kind of historical achievement whose authority depends on their age rather than on abstract rights.  This is the reason why when new unpopular laws are passed, they are often difficult to enforce even if they can be articulated in terms of natural rights.   People only begin to respect laws that have been in effect for a very long time as they become “the norm.”  And in some cases the law isn’t respected at all if it clashes too much with the character of the population.

Prudential management and practical statesmanship must triumph over abstract plans, or else the result will end not in the rule of reason, but the rule of brute force.   The outcomes of the French Revolution validated this viewpoint as factions with different interests justified actions based on their understanding “natural rights” and the extant of government power should be.   And when an impasse was reached – one group was purged at the expense of another.

 

 

The Glorious Revolution and the Seeds of Two Ideologies

Picture this – James II, a Catholic monarch of a thoroughly Protestant England is forced to flee his kingdom for France, much in the manner his father Charles II had to at the outbreak of the English Civil War have a century earlier.

This is for all intents and purposes, a power struggle between a monarch subscribing to the idea of the Divine Right of Kings versus a Parliament seeking to expand its own power.

The Issue at Hand:  Religion.

Since the time of Henry VIII, Catholicism had been always held in suspicion by the power holders within the British Isles.  “Popery”was often associated with England’s most hated rivals – France and Spain.    Furthermore, since the Bourbon monarch Louis XIV ruled France in an Absolutist manner, where power was directly centered upon the king, many within England considered Catholicism to be associated with arbitrary rule.

Although not quite political parties in the modern sense, the Tories and Whigs who comprised parliament had two specific fears:

1. The Whigs believed that Catholic Absolutism would endanger Protestant Religion, Liberty, and Property.
2. The Tories had similar fears, but these were complicated by a respect for the traditional authority of the Crown.   However, they did seek a Unity of Church and State for the sake of Stability – which would ideally make the Monarch of England a member of the Church of England.

Look closely enough and one can see the seeds of Anglo-American Conservatism and Liberalism starting to form.

For his own part, James II did little to endear himself to either group.    James attempts to secure Catholic emancipation alienated his original supporters in the Tory party, which feared that his actions would lead to the disestablishment of the Anglican Church.

In a bid to create his own power base, James II held a policy of religious toleration, hoping to forge his own party out of the Catholics and Nonconformists (ie: Protestants who didn’t “conform” to the Church of England).  His Declaration of Indulgence, which would enshrine religious toleration across his kingdom, was seen as a direct stab at the heart of Anglican power.

What followed was perhaps some of the most heavy handed tactics for a peacetime monarch during his era.   It seemed that James II was single-handedly attempting to turn back the clock,  using his power as monarch to purge his opposition (usually Anglican Protestants) from within the government and military.   They were of course replaced with people he could trust (usually Catholics).

This was the proverbial last straw.  Tyranny and Arbitrary Rule seemed like a reality.

In November of 1688, William of Orange stadtholder of the Netherlands and husband to Mary Stuart (James’ daughter) crossed the North Sea with an army to England in an attempt to overthrow his father-in-law.   William was a Protestant hero who valiantly fought alongside other Protestant monarchs against Louis XIV during the War of the Grand Alliance.  As such, he was deemed a more preferable monarch to many factions within the British elite.   And so a conspiracy was formed in order to finance William’s “invasion.”

The rest as they say is history – James II fled to France where to this day his descendants hold a claim to the throne of Great Britain.  This event was commemorated as the Glorious Revolution, specifically because the amount of bloodshed during this transition of power was well below average.

Although William was obviously pleased by the outcome of events, he found that there was some…..interesting legislation waiting for his approval upon ascending the throne.

One such piece of legislation seemed obvious – the Act of Settlement of 1701 required the King of England to be a Protestant and could not marry a Catholic.   This particular law was only recently amended by the Succession to the Crown Act of 2013.

Another law was rather self serving, as the Triennial Act of 1694 required that Parliament would meet every year and have elections every 3 years.   Up until this time, only the King could have called Parliament to convene.

But of particular importance to history at large would be the Bill of Rights of 1689.   The Bill of Rights essentially limited the power of the king, but demanding things such as no taxation by royal prerogative, freedom of speech in Parliament, habeas corpus, and the denial of cruel and unusual punishment for crimes.

To our American readers, this may all seem rather familiar as the American Bill of Rights of 1789 was modeled on the English one.

But what these chain of events concluded was that power was ultimately held by Parliament in the British Isles.   And for the time being, the freedoms and stability held in common by both proto-Liberals and proto-Conservatives were safe.