After the New Deal, Joseph J. Ellis writes in his prologue in American Sphinx, “No serious scholar any longer believed that the Jeffersonian belief in minimalist federal government was relevant in an urban, industrialized American society.” In the years since the New Deal, the precipitous growth of our Federal government and its failure to address the ills of our urban, industrialized American society substantiates my contention that no serious scholar should hold a belief in a large, bureaucratized, centralized, inept Federal government. The Federal government has utterly failed to deliver on the promise of our American ideals, assuming those ideals remain important to scholars.
Jeffersonianism ideals are often seen as troubling because Jefferson the man is troubling. Jefferson is not an easy man to understand, I admit, but that recognition should not deny his lofty place in America. In fact, his place has not been lofty enough, or we would have hewn a little closer to his ideals, and a little less to Hamilton’s.
If, over the past 150 years, the U.S. had followed a democratic-republic framework, all would not be perfect in our country. But I believe “we the people” would have emerged from that alternative society with a little more of our dignity intact.
Ellis goes on to dismiss what he calls “grassroots Jeffersonianism,” which he defines as the popular interest in and admiration of Jefferson and his ideals. Ellis accuses this type of Jeffersonianism as a mental process resembling “a blend of mindless hero worship, and political fundamentalism.” At one point, Ellis paraphrases Gordon Wood, considered one of the preeminent historians of the Revolutionary Era: “Wood argued that the core of the Jefferson problem was not his inevitable flaws but our unrealistic expectations.”
That is a conclusion I can live with and like Ellis, what strikes me is how all sides of the contemporary political spectrum attempt to embrace Jefferson on their terms. Unlike Ellis, I recognize Jefferson and his republicanism does not fit into any contemporary political mold. In his critique of grassroots Jeffersonianism, Ellis continues to reference the political spectrum as we know it today (Ellis’ “presentism” that he, himself, is guilty of), attempting to show how political dichotomies can be jammed into a single Jeffersonianism. Thus, it seems Ellis contends that any Founder whose political framework is so “loose” as to allow this much divergence of thought in contemporary issues holds little value for us today. This is placing the cart before the horse. There is no attempt on Ellis’ part to accept Jefferson on his own terms and use his works to examine today’s political positions, the positive potential of Jefferson’s republicanism. Ellis’ refusal to utilize Jefferson in this manner leads me to suspect that at the core of his personal beliefs, Jefferson rankles Ellis, and he is out to deflate this American icon.
My belief in Jefferson’s republicanism rests in its ability to elevate the contemporary discourse above the fray, not in its alleged ability to embrace all sides of an argument. It does not encompass the length of the political spectrum, and Jefferson’s body of works would be of dubious value if it were otherwise.
There is no room in Jefferson’s republicanism for naive, innocent idealism, or the American Revolution would have failed… miserably. His works enabled our struggle against British rule to emerge as a classless effort, the rare example of revolutionary fervor in history to achieve this. Jefferson’s republicanism asked, in part, citizens to actively stand against encroachment on their natural rights, their liberties. Yet, Jefferson understood that a singular focus on one’s own liberties eventually devolves into encroachment upon the liberties of others, “license” as John Locke termed it. Possessing liberties requires a sense of responsibility towards others’ liberties.
Jefferson’s republicanism also mandated bringing informed engagement to the political process. This is why Jefferson was such a strong advocate for education. Uneducated, ill informed, wild-eyed fanaticism only heaps contempt on those endeavoring to change the political process, and justifies political leaders’ contempt for and pandering to the American public and its inability to understand the issues.
Small-r republicanism has been long missing in the American public forum, and the considerations I outlined over the past four posts are why I believe it needs to return. This is not a nostalgic call for a return to a golden age that never existed, but a viable way forward that will avoid the authoritarianism we seem to be marching towards.
We are human. We can choose.
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