53. Ibid., Kindle location 4147-50.
6: THE AMERICAN MIRACLE
1. Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London: G. Bell, 1931, Kindle edition), Kindle location 308-10.
2. “The Glorious Revolution set in motion a series of developments, some immediate, some taking several decades, that restored throughout the American colonies the extraordinary degree of political autonomy that Charles and James had sought to end.” James T. Kloppenberg, Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 176.
3. Thomas Y. Davies, “Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment,” Michigan Law Review 98, no. 3 (December 1999), pp. 547-750; “The meaning and origin of the expression: An Englishman’s home is his castle,” The Phrase Finder. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/an-englishmans-home-is-his-castle.html
4. Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to Henry Lee—May 8, 1825,” Thomas Jefferson: Writings, Merrill D. Peterson, ed. (New York: Library of America, 1984), pp. 1500-1. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-henry-lee/
5. Mostly the Virginia constitution, which he had written, and the Virginia Declaration of Rights drafted by George Mason. These, in turn, were deeply indebted to the English Bill of Rights from 1688-89. Rather than crafting a novel expression of principle, Jefferson’s achievement, writes Pauline Maier, “lay instead in the creative adaptation of preexisting models to different circumstances.” See Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), p. 104.
6. Gordon S. Wood, “Dusting Off the Declaration,” New York Review of Books, August 14, 1997. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/08/14/dusting-off-the-declaration/
7. Abraham Lincoln, Full text of “Abraham Lincoln’s lost speech, May 29, 1856.” https://archive.org/stream/abrahamlincoln00linc/abrahamlincoln00linc_djvu.txt
8. Abraham Lincoln, “Speech on the Kansas Nebraska Act at Peoria, Illinois” (abridged), TeachingAmericanHistory.org. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-on-the-kansas-nebraska-act-at-peoria-illinois-abridged/
9. Abraham Lincoln, “Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—November 19, 1863,” American Presidency Project, John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, eds. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=73959
10. Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute—Stanford University. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and-freedom
11. Carl Becker, in his Declaration of Independence (1922), declared, “The Declaration, in its form, in its phraseology, follows closely certain sentences in Locke’s second treatise on government.” Charles and Mary Beard insisted in 1930 that Locke provided the foremost of the “textbooks of revolution” for the Founders. Merle Curti wrote in 1937: “No one has seriously questioned the great influence of John Locke on American thought during the latter part of the eighteenth century.” More recently J. W. Peltason writes in his book Understanding the Constitution that Locke’s Two Treatises of Government “was thought to be an authoritative pronouncement of established principles. Locke’s ideas provided ready arguments for the American cause, and they were especially embarrassing to an English government whose own source of authority was based on them.” See Oscar and Lilian Handlin, “Who Read John Locke? Words and Acts in the American Revolution,” American Scholar 58, no. 4 (Autumn 1989), pp. 546-47. The English philosopher Maurice Cranston says Locke’s “influence on the Founding Fathers exceeded that of any other thinker.” See Maurice Cranston. “Locke and Liberty,” Wilson Quarterly (Winter 1986), p. 82. http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/sites/default/files/articles/WQ_VOL10_W_1986_Article_02.pdf
Here, again, we face the dilemma of the intellectual historian trying to connect dots from one mind to another across the generations. Because while it is certainly true that some of the Founders had read Locke, it is surprisingly difficult to find contemporary concrete testimonials to his overwhelming influence on the Founders’ political thought. Oscar and Lilian Handlin make a powerful case that the Founders were not close students of Locke’s political writing (see the entire essay cited above). Historians, they write, have “commonly ascribed many revolutionary ideas and sometimes even actions to the influence of John Locke, without troubling to investigate the channels of transmission” (Handlin and Handlin, “Who Read John Locke?,” p. 546).
12. Ibid., p. 549.
13. James Wilson, “Remarks of James Wilson in the Pennsylvania Convention to Ratify the Constitution of the United States, 1787,” Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/wilson-collected-works-of-james-wilson-vol-1
14. Somewhat disturbingly, if Jefferson is to be believed, Hamilton paused for a long moment and then said, “The greatest man, that ever lived, was Julius Caesar.” See Thomas Jefferson, “To Dr. Benjamin Rush, Monticello, January 16, 1811,” American History: The Letters of Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl208.php
15. John Locke, “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings, Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/locke-a-letter-concerning-toleration-and-other-writings
16. “Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, January 16, 1786,” Library of Virginia. http://edu.lva.virginia.gov/docs/ReligiousFree.pdf
17. Donald Lutz found that Montesquieu and Locke account for 60 percent of all references to Enlightenment thinkers in the political literature of 1760s America. In the 1770s that share went up to 75 percent. Montesquieu was cited more in work discussing constitutional design, while Locke was invoked more in arguments justifying a break with England. See Donald S. Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 78, no. 1 (March 1984), p. 192.
18. Clinton Rossiter, The Political Thought of the American Revolution, Part 3 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963), p. 8.
19. John Adams, “From John Adams to Jonathan Sewall, February 1760,” Founders Online, National Archives. https://founders.archives.gov/?q=locke&s=1111311111&sa=&r=20&sr
20. Thomas Paine, “Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections,” Common Sense, Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/tp/comsense.htm
21. David Azerrad, “The Declaration of Independence and the American Creed,” Heritage Foundation, July 3, 2013. http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/7/the-declaration-of-independence-and-the-american-creed
22. Thomas Jefferson, “Queries 14 and 19, 145-49, 164-65,” in The Founders’ Constitution, Volume 1, Chapter 18, Document 16, University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s16.html
23. Thomas Jefferson, “Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge—Fall 1778,” in The Founders’ Constitution, Volume 1, Chapter 18, Document 11, University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s11.html
24. Holly Brewer, “Entailing Aristocracy in Colonial Virginia: ‘Ancient Feudal Restraints’ and Revolutionary Reform,” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 2 (April 1997), p. 307.
25. David Boaz, “The Man Who Would Not Be King,” Cato Institute, February 20, 2006. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/man-who-would-not-be-king
26. James Madison, “Federalist No. 51: The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different
Departments,” Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm
27. “When any number of Men have so consented to make one Community or Government, they are thereby presently incorporated,” Locke wrote, “and make one Body Politick, wherein the Majority have a Right to act and conclude the rest.” John Locke, “Chap. VIII: Of the Beginning of Political Societies,” sec. 95, “Second Treatise of Government,” Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett, ed. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988 [1960]), pp. 330-31.
28. In 1802, Napoleon offered a referendum on a new constitution that would make him the permanent consul of France (much like the rulers of the Roman Empire), a.k.a. dictator for life. It received 99 percent of the vote. In 1804 he issued another plebiscite, this one on the question of whether he should be named emperor of France. The official results were even better (though just shy of 100 percent). See “From Life Consulship to the Hereditary Empire (1802-1804), Napoleon.org (Fondation Napoleon). https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/timelines/from-life-consulship-to-the-hereditary-empire-1802-1804/
29. The identity of Brutus is still debated. Among the leading candidates are Melancton Smith or Robert Yates or perhaps John Williams.
30. Brutus, “No. 25—Objections to a Standing Army” (Part II), The Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist Dispute: The Original Arguments for Each (Seattle, WA: Amazon Digital Services, 2011, Kindle edition), p. 542.
31. See, for example, Charles Lyttle, “Deistic Piety in the Cults of the French Revolution,” Church History 2, no. 1 (March 1933), pp. 22–40.
32. Quoted in James W. Caesar, “Foundational Concept and American Political Development,” Nature and History in American Political Development: A Debate (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 20.
33. See Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (New York: Basic Books, 2013).
34. James Madison, “Federalist No. 10: The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued),” Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm
35. “Adam Smith on the Need for ‘Peace, Easy Taxes, and a Tolerable Administration of Justice,’ ” Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/436
36. Daniel Hannan, Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World (New York: HarperCollins, 2013, Kindle edition), Kindle location 2104-13.
37. Henry Fairlie, “The Shot Heard Round the World,” New Republic 199, no. ¾, July 18–25, 1988, p. 20.
38. Ibid., p. 25.
39. Robert Wright, “Why the American Revolution Was Really an Economic Revolution,” Learn Liberty, July 7, 2016. http://www.learnliberty.org/blog/why-the-american-revolution-was-really-an-economic-revolution/
40. Fairlie, “The Shot Heard Round the World,” p. 25.
41. Ibid., p. 23.
42. Ibid., pp. 22-23.
43. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1974 [1973], Kindle Edition), Kindle locations 1823–25.
44. Ibid., Kindle location 1825-31.
45. The phrase “the New World” has acquired a vaguely negative connotation as it conjures longstanding grievances about the displacement of natives in the Americas. Columbus didn’t “discover” America, reads the familiar indictment, he helped Europeans conquer it. From the vantage point of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, there’s really no refuting this perspective (even if such conquest was the story of all humanity, including among the indigenous peoples of America, until the Lockean Revolution began to unfold, and even then for a good while after).
46. Boorstin, The Americans, Kindle location 1836-40.
47. Ibid., Kindle location 4054-56.
48. Ibid., Kindle location 4062-65.
49. Boorstin adds that “businessmen were urged to domicile their newly created legal entities in Delaware rather than in Massachusetts, in New Jersey rather than in Pennsylvania, in Nevada rather than in New York. The less populous states, such as Delaware, New Jersey, and Nevada, were especially eager and ingenious in the competition.” Ibid., Kindle location 8056-62.
50. Henry Hazlitt, “Capitalism Without Horns,” National Review 14, no. 10, March 12, 1963, p. 201.
51. Burton Folsom, The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America (Herndon, VA: Young America’s Foundation, 1991).
52. Max Roser, “Economic Growth,” Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth
53. Boorstin, The Americans, Kindle location 153-54.
7: THE ELITES
1. George Washington, “Circular to the States,” June 8, 1783, in The Founders’ Constitution, Volume 1, Chapter 7, Document 5, University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch7s5.html
2. John Adams, “Defence of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States,” in The Founders’ Constitution, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Document 34, University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s34.html
3. John Adams, “From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1810,” Founders Online, National Archives. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5584
4. Ibid., https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5585
5. C. W. Cassinelli, “The Law of Oligarchy,” American Political Science Review 47, no. 3 (September 1953), pp. 773-84.
6. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York: Crown Business, 2012, Kindle edition), p. 148.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., p. 150.
9. James Madison, “Federal Convention: Wednesday, June 6,” Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, in the Convention Held at Philadelphia, in 1787; With a Diary of the Debates of the Congress of the Confederation; As Reported By James Madison, a Member and Deputy from Virginia, Elliot Jonathan, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Printed for the editor, 1845), p. 163.
10. “Table 4. Population: 1790 to 1990,” Census.gov, U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf
11. Max Roser, “Economic Growth,” Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth
12. See Jonah Goldberg, “Your ‘Robber Baron,’ My American Hero,” National Review 58, no. 10, June 5, 2006, pp. 30-31.
13. Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth,” North American Review, No. CCCXCI, June 1889. https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html
14. William Leuchtenburg, The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 284.
15. “What, then, is the State as a sociological concept? The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors. No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner.” Franz Oppenheimer, “Theories of the State,” The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically, John M. Gittman, trans. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1914), p. 15.
16. Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1950), pp. 49-50.
17. Katie Louchheim, The Making of the New Deal: The Insiders Speak (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 275.
8: THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
1. Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Ra
ce, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016), p. xi.
2. Jonah Goldberg, “Richard Ely’s Golden Calf,” National Review 61, no. 24, December 31, 2009, p. 34.
3. Ibid.
4. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers, p. 24.
5. Ibid.
6. Richard Theodore Ely, The Social Law of Service (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1896), pp. 162-63.
7. Samuel Zane Batten, The Christian State: The State, Democracy, and Christianity (Philadelphia: Griffith & Rowland Press, 1909), p. 14. Accessed via: https://ia600609.us.archive.org/12/items/christianstatest00batt/christianstatest00batt.pdf
8. Quoted in Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America (New York: Free Press, 2003), p. 66.
9. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010), p. 330.
10. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers, p. 104.
11. Ibid.
12. Quoted in Robert Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004 [1966]), p. 273.
13. See Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Change (New York: Broadway Books, 2009 [2007]), p. 97.
14. Woodrow Wilson, “The Study of Administration,” Political Science Quarterly 2, no. 2 (June 1887), p. 204. Phillip Hamburger writes: “More generally, though, Americans adopted German ideas to overcome the constitutional obstacles to administrative power. Once these Germanic justifications were popularized, there was no need to cite Germans, and after 1914 Americans had particularly strong reasons to repackage the Continental ideas to suit domestic sensibilities. But it is no coincidence that when Americans defended the constitutionality of administrative law, they relied on ideas familiar from German academics. Indeed, throughout the twentieth century, Germanic anti-constitutional ideas were among the leading constitutional justifications for administrative power.” Philip Hamburger, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), p. 462.
Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy Page 49