The Founding Fathers The Age Of Realism

.The Founding Fathers: The Age Of Realism. Essay, Research Paper

Hofstadter Summary: “The Founding Fathers: The Age of Realism”

Summary of Section:

I

The reasoning behind the Constitution of the United States is presented as “based upon the philosophy of Hobbes and the religion of Calvin. It assumes the natural state of mankind in a state of war, and that the carnal mind is at enmity with God.” Throughout, the struggle between democracy and tyranny is discussed as the Founding Fathers who envisioned the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787 believed not in total democracy, but instead saw common man as selfish and contemptuous, and therefore in need of a “a good political constitution to control him.” Being a largely propertied body, with the exception of William Few, who was the only one who could honestly be said to represent the majority yeoman farmer class, the highly privileged classes were fearful of granting man his due rights, as the belief that “man was an unregenerate rebel who has to be controlled” reverberated.

However, the Fathers were indeed “intellectual heirs” of the seventeenth-century England republicanism with its opposition to arbitrary rule and faith in popular sovereignty. Thus, the paradoxical fears of the advance in democracy, and of a return to the extreme right emerged. The awareness that both military dictatorship and a return to monarchy were being seriously discussed in some quarters propelled the Constitutional framers such as John Jay to bring to attention.

II

Consistent to eighteenth-century ethos left the Constitution-makers with great faith in universals. They believed in an inexorable view of a self-interested man. Feeling that all me were naturally inclined to be bad they sought a compromising system of checks and balances for government. This was bolstered by the scientific work by Newton, “in which metaphors sprang as naturally to mens minds as did biological metaphors in the Darwinian atmosphere of the late nineteenth century.” Therefore Madison and others thought to squelch the possibly dangerous majority by setting up a large number and variety of local interests, so that the people will “be unable to concert and carry into effect their scheme of oppression.” And thus, chief powers went to the propertied.

III

Constitutional format was a series of ironical statements, as it stands in “direct antithesis to American democratic faith.” Modern America views liberty and freedom as one of the same, but the Founding Fathers thought that the liberty with which they were most concerned was menaced by democracy. In their mind liberty was linked to democracy and not property. To have political influence based on amount of property was “politic as well as just, that the interests and rights of every class should ve duly represented and understood in the public councils.” — James Madison

The Convention decided that freedom for property would result in the liberty for all men. Such that the Declaration of Independence was agreed upon by the Fathers as “all men are created equal,” but only as a legal, not as a political or psychological proposition. The main emphasis was the equality between American and the Britons back home.

Finally it was decided that democracy unchecked ruled by the masses, “is sure to bring arbitrary redistribution of property, destroying the very essence of liberty.” John Jay believed “The people who own the country ought to govern it.”

The result was that “while they thought self-interest the most dangerous and unbrookable quality of man, they necessarily underwrote it in trying to control it.” They generally succeed as seen with competitive capitalist nineteenth century America, with the federal government continuing to provide a stable and acceptable medium with which they could contend.

Hofstadter: “The Founding Fathers: The Age of Realism”

Personal Profile:

The style in which Hofstadter writes I find to be very appealing. The fact that I understood what he was referring to when he mentioned that the Founding Fathers approach to trade was more “mercantilistic than Adam Smith”, indicating less of a capitalistic free economy, surprised me to the point where I felt I had actually learned something beforehand. In his approach Hofstadter refers to the framing of the Constitution in a much more cynical view then what is commonly taught. He presents both sides of the search for “democracy,” that for the masses, and that for the wealthy, and emphasizes the seeming aggrandizement in store for the Founding Fathers in the final settlement.

Thus far, I seem to comprehend what I am reading, feeling it to be very much in an oratorical style. However, the depth in which the material is presented is something I am not familiar with. To site examples on the emotions that the Fathers were experiencing gives the matter a much more personal element. Madison’s sentiments toward government were revealed in the Federalist number 51: “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” As it was then echoed by a dogmatic John Adams who stated, “democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” Such reflection was something I was unaware of.

My conception of the shaping of the Constitution was much more optimistic th

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